Customer Reviews

The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Travis McGee gets a check for $25,000 (a lot of dough for 1969) and the dying wish of an old friend, to look after her suicidal daughter. So McGee goes to Fort Courtney to observe the daughter, her sister and her husband. What McGee encounters is a series of unusual circumstances, including dead bodies, cheating spouses, and the evidence that somebody is spying on him. Could all of these things be connected? Sure - but only McGee could figure out the complicated connection. True to most McGee novels, justice is served in the end, although in a form the reader does not expect.

This is my 11th McGee novel. Clearly MacDonald writes in a more sophisticated style than 98% of the mystery writers today. A new reader may find it annoying that one must suffer through a good 100 pages before the action really begins, but this is typical MacDonald style. Not only do you get a complex mystery, but you get a lot of philosophy along the way.

This was my second John D. MacDonald book and my first Travis McGee book. I had heard that MacDonald could flat-out write, and I was not disappointed by this book. What I enjoyed the most was MacDonald's insight into the human condition; he really understood what motivated people. This helped his plotting and dialogue seem fresh and real even after 30 years.

I'm hooked. If you haven't read MacDonald you're missing out.

As a massive consumer of Crime Fiction, I am happy to say that this, my first foray into the writings of McDonald has proved most pleasurable. This is a wonderful thriller, imbued with a sense of place, a teriffic plot and an engaging writing style- better than healy, shames and Leonard- I'd put this on a par with Burke and Hiassen.

Well, I'll keep this short & sweet. I'm not much of a mystery reader but this series was recommended to me by several people. I picked this one randomly to start the series. I liked it...the story was quick-moving, had good character development, some humor, a lot of action, and tied up nicely at the end. At 250 pages it's a quick read, perfect for an airplane ride. If you like Dick Francis, Robert Parker, et al, then you'll like this series.

MacDonald is one of those mystery novelists you can reread even though you know how the book ends. The reader is amazed by MacDonald's solid and fluid proze. One critic said of MacDonald that he wrote many good books but few great ones. Think that may be true but, in addition to MacDonald's prose, his strenghts are his insights into the human condition, his strong characters and his slice of Florida - circa 1960-1980. Being a native Floridian, I can say that MacDonald captures the flavor and tone of the state. Historians should read his novels.
The only flaw in this novel is it takes about 50 pages - in my copy - to get into the mystery. But once in, the reader doesn't want to leave. McGee travels to Courtney County to do a favor for a friend. When it's done, he's about to leave when he discovers his room has been searched, He wonders why and the mystery is on.
This is a very good McGee novel and it doesn't get better than that

Surely you've read one or another of John MacDonald's "Travis McGee" novels. If you haven't, you might want to start with the very first, "The Deep Blue Goodbye." But you can also read them out of order, as I did, and "The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper" isn't a bad way to start. It's vintage MacDonald / McGee, a page turner worth every minute you choose to invest in it.

MacDonald was a master, a creator of characters, images, story lines, and profound concepts that you never really forget. A creator of prose that at times is unbelievably beautiful: elegant, deceptively simple, and often just perfectly constructed. He's the sort of writer other writers dream of being (exemplified by Stephen King's many heartfelt tributes to MacDonald).

This isn't really a review of the specific novel. I honestly don't see the point: the summary here at Amazon tells all you really need to know about the specific story. What you REALLY need to know is that -- with rare exceptions -- you simply can't go wrong with a MacDonald book. Every story is unique, and sturdy, and will leave you permanently affected.

Having recently discovered Travis McGee and MacDonald, I am more than impressed with his writing style and the character of Travis McGee. Having completed the Shell Scott series by Richard Prather I needed to find something to replace it with. McGee was the perfect replacement, perhaps even better.

I do not even remember when I first read this book, it is only that I like Mr.McGee's style of meetig the world face-on so much that I bought the book again. I liked it like before. It was like joining the gang on the Busted Flush for an easy evening of music and laughter.

Try putting down a John MacDonald novel about the wonderful, crazy and heroic Travis McGee. This one is as good and entertaing as all the rest. The sun will be rising before you realize how long you have been reading.

The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper finds Travis McGee visiting Fort Courtney, FL at the deathbed request of a former lover, Helena Pearson. Helena's daughter Maureen has, for unknown reasons, recently made multiple suicide attempts. As McGee goes about the task of learning about Maureen, her husband and their circle of acquaintances, he uncovers a sordid web of fraud, infidelity, blackmail and worse. Local law enforcement is largely clueless so it is left to McGee to unravel the layers of hidden deceit and see that justice gets its due.

First the positive aspects of The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper. John D. MacDonald knew how to write. Many of the characters are well fleshed out and believable. Also, many individual scenes are quite effective in moving the narrative forward. As always, there's plenty of Travis McGee's patented pontificating on a host of subjects, from the trivial to the most significant. Many reader's will find this to be thoroughly delightful while others may see it as tiresome and annoying.

On the distinctly negative side is the fact that the plotting is way too convoluted and based on a series of increasingly unlikely circumstances. Perhaps the weakest aspect of The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper is the plot device of using made-up medical treatments to explain away some obvious holes in the plot. The treatments in question would ordinarily only be found in works of science fiction. Bad ones.
Bottom line: Not one of the better installments in the Travis McGee series.