The Quick Red Fox: A Travis McGee Novel

MacDonald can spin a tale of intriguing possibilities. He keeps you guessing to the very end. With each book, McGee gets a bit more depth.

I found a book cleaning out my parents home. I kept it for a few years and got around to reading it. It was an amazingly crafted story with suspense, drama and mystery. I found out it was a series and got on amazon to start collecting them all starting at the beginning. Each one is a treasure. Deep characters but enough action to keep it moving. It's a history book written in the 60's and you can sense how men and women behaved before the world went to hell. Travis McGee is part James Bond, part Matt Helms and a bunch of other manly men that personified what it meant to be a man at the time. For a long time I told myself "I could be a writer" and I felt that way after reading most of the stuff that's out there now. Then I read a paragraph of John D. MacDonald's work and I knew I could never be a writer. He is too good. I would say they need to make movies based on these but Hollywood would just ruin it. Buy all you can and enjoy the best writing you might ever read.

What prose! He describes a series of hills at twilight something like "The hills seemed like the back of ancient beasts, browsing through time." I love the way he puts words on paper. I have recently discovered Travis McGee. Each of the handful of stories I have read so far has been unique, wildly imaginative, and vivid. His characters likewise are vivid and unique. This tale involves a movie star in trouble. And he finds a woman who gets him, who understands him completely. That is never easy to discover, someone who understands you totally and yet still manages to love you. Rare and precious. He describes a car crash along a highway not far from where I live. It is as if in my mind I stood exactly where he spoke of and watched it happen. Magnificant. I can't speak of Mcdonald's stature in the world of mystery writers but in the world of descriptive prose, he has few peers.

The Quick Red Fox is written very well but belongs to a time when mysteries were written differently. Some books that are written in the 50's and 60's seem curiously dated whereas others don't. This seems more evident where it relates to ways of communication, travel and gadgets. In books where these don't play as large a role, such as, most Agatha Christy's books, there is not much of a flavor of datedness. Spoiler alert: Also, there is the issue of male-female relationships. Even as I started the book, I knew that there would be a significant relationship that would end either in the death of the female love interest or her ending the relationship at the end of the book. It seems this is a formula in most detective/mystery books of that era.All in all, however, it is a good story written by a talented writer with good writing skills.

Travis McGee is very much the kind of man you would expect in the role he's playing, if he was a private detective. He's got the toughness, the military background, he knows people, and he's not afraid to act. Only thing is, he isn't actually licensed to do anything of the sort. That leads to some interesting interplay with the cops at times. I like the way J.D. McDonald handles those situations. The situations that arise are very believable.McGee seems like a normal kind of guy, until that scene comes that makes it clear to the reader that this is not regular person. His toughness, both mental and physical, is off the charts, and he's obviously got some skills that normal people don't have.So far, the first four Travis McGee novels are some of the best books I've ever read.

I fell in love with the Travis McGee series when I was a kid, reading them as they came out. Lost my early copies as I moved around. Later in life I replaced and reread them, kept moving and left them behind again at another place. As an old man a few years ago I decided to buy the series on my Kindle as a Christmas treat for myself. Starting at the beginning with #1(1964), The Deep Blue Goodbye I was underwhelmed and by the time I was part way through #6(1965), Bright Orange for the Shroud I found myself put off by how harshly MacDonald treated his minor characters,and by the way he criticized everything from vegetarians to yoga(disclaimer-I'm partial to both). I stopped reading the series in the middle of the book. Bored one day a few years later I tried the last McGee book MacDonald wrote #21(1985), The Lonely Silver Rain and found MacDonald was just as satisfying but less critical or maybe it was just me who had grown up. Then I tried #18(1979), The Green Ripper and it too showed a less judgmental MacDonald. Deciding that he had changed somewhere along the way I decided working my way backwards would be the safest bet and tried # 16(1975), The Dreadful Lemon Sky,and again I found it to be an excellent read. John D. MacDonald has always been a consummate writer and in his later years before he died in 1986 he seemed to have worked through enough of his demons that he treated the world and his characters with more compassion. May we all do the same.

Travis McGee, marine salvage expert and fixer of life problems, gets a summons from a Hollywood star with a dirty secret and a reputation to maintain. McGee, perhaps against his better judgment, agrees to try to clean up the mess. The star sends along her personal assistant, who will represent a separate challenge for McGee...John D. McDonald could put together a decent mystery. This one works through multiple suspects on two coasts. The ending is a bit messy. So is real life. Recommended as an entertaining read to fans of the Travis McGee series.

Excellent read couldn't put it down very intense with a certain twist to it that you just had to finish it asap

Great story, always well written and a gritty finish, the perfect story!

I am reading these novels in their order, and loving them all over again. They are exciting, interesting and not really dated at all.Anneke Van Dyk

In the world of mystery writing he's a reference. The ideas are more developped than they are today. In that way his books are more artistic than professionnal. Today's editors would ask him to be thighter but the whole point of reading Mac donald is to take in his commentaries.

Watch out for some scenes involving lesbians that are politically incorrect in the most ignominious way!Vintage McGee and then some!