Customer Reviews

A Purple Place for Dying

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A Purple Place for Dying is the third book in John MacDonald's Travis McGee series, and McGee comes upon his most troubling case yet. McGee is brought to the Midwest by a big, brassy, bossy Blonde who needs help. Mona Yeoman suspects that her husband has pilfered her trust fund, and she wants a divorce. McGee's job is to find out what happened to the money. McGee doesn't particularly like Yeoman, but is tempted to take the case because he needs the money. But before he even has a chance to say yes, Mona is murdered right in front of his eyes, and this changes everything. What makes things even more mysterious is that her body disappears when the police are called to the scene of the crime.

McGee could simply take his return plane ticket and fly home to his native Florida. But for whatever reasons, he decides to stick around and do some snooping. There are many twists and turns and also a few more mysterious murders. As usual, McGee finds himself in danger the closer he comes to the truth. And the truth comes as a complete surprise.

Each MacDonald book gets better than the previous one. We also get to see McGee become more fleshed out as a character. Still, it seems that the early books in this series are more of a novella length, but MacDonald corrects this with later books.

Overall, the McGee series is a true gem, and I'm glad to have discovered these wonderful mysteries.

I've read that John D. MacDonald had 4 or 5 of the first McGee's written before he decided to publish them. As a result, these 1st novels in the series can be seen as experiments in developing a series character. In this, the 3rd or 4th published in the series, we see McGee in a situation as close as he will ever get to a classic mystery novel. Before he can be hired by Mona Fox Yeoman to free her and her money from the clutches of her husband Jass Yeoman, she's shot dead right in front of him by a desert sniper. -And the police won't start searching for a killer until McGee can prove she's dead. Seems her body disappeared while McGee was calling the police and she was always threatening to one away with her lover and weren't they spotted on a commercial flight getting away, and-. Eventually, Trav is looking for the killer for Jass, who may not be the tyrant that Mona described to McGee. McGee tracks down the true story, ending up unarmed against a pair of killers in the desert. Classic McGee with a "Ross Macdonald-ish" twist at the end as the solution becomes mired in the Yeoman past.

AS always MacDonald spins an enthralling tale.

I admire all of John D. MacDonald's work, and certainly the Travis McGee series was his most powerful creation. Few, if any, popular mysteries are of such high quality.

Though this book is entertaining, and well crafted, it is not my favorite McGee. There are perhaps three reasons for this:

1) It follows the pattern of a standard mystery from the fifties or early sixties, and hence seems a bit derivative. I think MacDonald was experimenting with moving McGee away from his native habitat, perhaps to make use of a plot he had invented in other circumstances. I'm not sure the experiment was successful.

2) McGee is far from the water, and I think the sense of warmth and good will found in many of the other books in this series comes from MacDonald's love of the water in general, and Florida in particular. McGee was out of his habitat, and seemed a bit strained and depressed as a result.

3) McGee (and MacDonald) really don't like the female lead in the book very much, and one of the things that holds MacDonald's books together is the main character's and the author's obvious attraction and sympathy for women. Here the lead is prissy, overly intellectual, and distasteful to MacDonald and McGee. As a result, the book feels a bit sour, and lacking the good will and sense of joy found in the best of the other McGees.

Nevertheless, this is a Travis McGee book from the early sixties, a time when MacDonald was at the height of his remarkable powers. As such, it is not to be missed. I, however, will confess to having missed the Busted Flush, the sandy rumped sun bunnies, and the sleazy streets of Florida. A good book, but not at the top of my list of McGees. (I've read them all several times, a few of them many times.)

I have read all the T McGee books except one, and for some reason this one sticks out as my favorite. John D MacDonald is a superb wordsmith. Just ask Sue Grafton! MacDonald used colors, Grafton uses alphabet. It is tight, well-written, as descriptive as it needs to be and I didn't want to put it down! MacDonald is masterful in so many ways. He never resorts to profanity and he gets away with it. Unheard of, by today's standards! For those of you who've not read about Travis, I surely do envy you! Some great reading awaits you! Larry 'Possum' Ronnow

A Purple Place for Dying, entry number three in John D. MacDonald's highly successful Travis McGee series is even better than the two that preceed it. This is a well crafted murder mystery that takes place in the deserts and mountains of the Western US, a world removed from the Ft. Lauderdale marina Travis McGee calls home.

Emotional tensions run deep in this compelling story of death and betrayal. The many characters are multifaceted and the ways in which they relate to one another are complex. This book bears John D. MacDonald's distinctive touch. The detailed and loving descriptions of nature. The interesting insights into human behavior. And of course the unrepentant and, at times, exasperating misogeny of Travis McGee, the last of the male chauvinists.

In some ways, A Purple Place for Dying unfolds like a Ross Macdonald novel, saturated as it is with dysfunctional families, unfulfilled lives and disturbing secrets guarded decade after decade.
Bottom line: A page turner of a mystery with lots of meat on its bones. Highly recommended.

When a friend recommends Travis McGee as the perfect man to solve a problem, Travis McGee finds himself employed by Mono Yeoman - a woman who is as tough, and as hard, as nails. McGee leaves his Florida houseboat for the Nevada desert, where he expects to to help Mono untangle her estate from the greedy fingers of her estranged husband. But he barly gets his bags unpacked when a sniper does away with his employer.

Any fan knows that nothing is more calculated to upset McGee than murdering someone right under his nose. The detective/troubleshooter has very little patience under the best of circumstances and he takes that kind of interference very personally. So client or no, McGee dives in to find the killer. And uncover a complex land and money scheme at the same time. In short order it becomes obvious that nothing is ever as obvious as it first seems and McGee is on his way to a showdown that might bring an unexpectedly swift end to John MacDonald's series.

McGee is the classic not-quite-noir hero, mad of the same cloth as Nero Wolfe's Archie. Tough, a dash sarcastic, but basically a defender of the underdog, his solutions to problems combines subtlety and violence in just the right mix. By now generations of mystery lovers have come to see McGee as their man in Lauderdale. A solution up to the toughest challenge. This is one of the earliest McGee's (The Deep Blue Good-by was first) and remains one of the best after nearly 40 years .

Even though I still find "Flash of Green" to be my favorite MacDonald book, there's something so appealing about the Travis McGee series that keeps me coming back to them. But "Purple Place for Dying" just doesn't have that quick pace that some of the others have. The secondary characters just are not as interesting. This is all a presonal reaction, so don't take it too serious. At least Travis is Travis. You gotta love this guy!

I just hope that MacDonald continues to gain in popularity, as I feel he is horribly overlooked.

A diverting mystery novel that gets things moving with a bang, "A Purple Place For Dying" keeps you guessing, and guessing wrong, for most of its short length. It's the kind of tough-guy fiction that's easy to read and hard to put down.

Travis McGee is in a desert town to meet Mona Fox Yeoman, beautiful wife of one of the county's most powerful men, Jasper Yeoman. We read she's "a big ripe-bodied blonde of about thirty" who carries herself with "a mild invulnerable arrogance." Not happy in her marriage, Mona asks McGee for help getting out from under Jasper's big heel. One might expect McGee and Mona to be making time behind a cactus before chapter two, but like I said, the novel has you guessing wrong.

That's the best thing for me about this, the third Travis McGee novel published in 1964. Add to that an exciting pace and a narrative packed with MacDonald's salty observations about life as channeled through McGee, like "Cop-taunting is a stupid and dangerous habit" and "Figures lie and liars figure, and the only thing worth all the trouble is a good bourbon, a good bed and a busy woman."

One of the more gripping angles of this multi-angled story has McGee and Jasper taking their measure of one another, and actually developing a mutual warmth despite the circumstances. Moments like Jasper mooning over a jackrabbit he ran over make it hard not to share Travis's sympathies, even as you wonder whether Jasper's as legit as the old boy makes McGee think.

Travis also has a sheriff to deal with, who explains his favorable treatment of Jasper as "old-fashioned." "The people who pay a hell of a lot in taxes get a hell of a lot in service." Then there's Isobel, the academic, spinstery sister of a missing man. McGee is ready to provide her with the help she needs uncovering the sensual woman she has denied in pursuit of a career. "A Purple Place For Dying" will rub many modern readers wrong in that way and others, but Travis's relationship with Isobel is handled with tenderness and a markedly welcome lack of affectation.

Not everything works so well in "A Purple Place For Dying." Most of the flaws come in the second half, like an over-explanatory stand-off scene with a cocky villain and a moment where McGee happens to spot someone he is looking for along a busy street despite having never set eyes on her in his life. "A Purple Place For Dying" has a good enough story that you wish MacDonald gave its denouement more room to unfold, but he probably had to write tight to fit a paperback book of just over 150 pages. Here the emphasis is as much on the characters involved as the murders that bring them together.

All in all, "A Purple Place For Dying" was undeniably gripping, and a noticeable improvement from the first McGee book I read, the dreadful "A Nightmare In Pink." Having had this second round with this reluctant, hard-nosed sleuth, I'll now be a little more eager to read him again.

In this early Travis McGee Mystery the bad guy comes out of nowhere and the plot is somewhat familiar, but it shows the word magic that would make John D MacDonald one of the greatest.

Classic Travis McGee. Character may be a bit dated in his outlook (written in 1964) but still very engaging. Compelling plot with intriguing twists & turns; unexpected but satisfying ending. Still one of the best continuing series authors; others are always gauged against MacDonald.