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49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Old Storytelling at its Best, June 27, 2003
A boat blows up coming into harbor in the Florida Keys. Within hours a Chilean Terrorist group claims responsibility for planting the bomb with intent to kill the famed economist Dr. Meyer. Private Detective Travis McGee is suspicious and tracks Meyer -- a good friend -- down and finds he was in fact, not aboard the ill-fated boat.
Photographs from a nearby boat reveal that a man Evan Lawrence also may not have been aboard the boat. Lawrence recently married Meyer's niece, and when McGee's suspicions seem confirmed, the two friends (he and Meyer) begin a hunt to find out about Evan Lawrence's past.
Thus begins Cinnamon Skin, a taut, fun mystery thriller that leads two friends through the criminal past that formed a killer. Some of the most deft touches in the novel come when MacDonald describes the lives of people along the Rio Grande Valley in southwest Texas. At one point, I actually got out a road map and traced their quest from Eagle Pass to El Paso and back all the way to Brownsville. MacDonald blends fact with fiction at just the right pitch in this, his twentieth Travis McGee novel.
MacDonald writes like a writer who has earned it, man. He seems to know his story so well, there is very little drift in the way he tells a story. Each sentence is exact or darn near exact, and the end result is a taut mystery that is very fun and very entertaining -- the kind of novel you'll want to talk about with friends.
I highly recommend Cinnamon Skin to folks who like good old storytelling at its best, most genuine form. It is the perfect airplane, poolside, vacation novel to help you beat the heat this summer. And its depth will leave you feeling satisfied at any time of year. Good stuff.
Please hit the "helpful" button if you found this review helpful. I like to know you care.
Stacey Cochran
Author of CLAWS available for 80 cents
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gets better with age, November 22, 2004
If there's anywhere I'd rather go with Travis McGee other than Florida, it's Mexico. John D. MacDonald dives into the country's culture and landscape in "Cinnamon Skin" with his patented combination of cynicism, idealism, lechery and expertly rendered action, and you'll be really glad you came along for the ride.
"Cinnamon" is one of the later books in the series, and finds Travis and Meyer a little the worse for wear, time and loss having taken a toll. Travis starts the book by losing yet another good woman, and Meyer's still traumatized by events in the book before. That's what makes this series so great--the author's willingness to bring us along as his characters age, suffer and make mistakes.
I'm a younger, female reader, but have yet to find any mystery writer working today who even comes close to MacDonald. Basically, when I need a mystery fix, I'm more likely to re-read one of these than bother with the hacks that clutter the best-seller lists. Warm thanks to the publishers who brought out these spiffy new editions--even though a big part of the fun of discovering MacDonald is stumbling across the tattered original paperbacks with 1970s reciepts used as bookmarks and "Valley of the Dolls"-like babes on the covers.
Enjoy, and don't waste any more time on the inferior imitations!
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
MacDonald's BEST "Travis McGee" Mystery Novel?, April 24, 2000
It wouldn't take much of an argument to convince me that CINNAMON SKIN is the best -- or at least one of the best few -- of the fine "color-titled" Travis McGee mystery novel series by prolific John D. MacDonald (author of CAPE FEAR, etc.). This actually is at least two novels in one, as Trav and best-friend Meyer first travel America (mostly the Texas-area Southwest) ferreting out the murderous past of a serial killer -- then track him to his current lair in the Cancun-Yucatan area of Mexico and lay a dangerous jungle trap for him there. VERY highly recommended for fascinating characters (good and bad), local color, and tense action. Of course, as with all JDM's work and especially the McGee series, CINNAMON is well-crafted and written. Enjoy!
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