Quick Red Fox [Large Print] [Hardcover]

John D. MacDonald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1983

It was the standard blackmail scheme. For years, sultry Lysa Dean's name on a movie had meant a bonanza at the box office. Now a set of pictures could mean the end of her career.

When first approached for help by lovely Dana Holtzer, Lysa's personal secretary, Travis McGee is thoroughly turned off by the tacky details. But being low on cash, and tenderly attracted by the star's intriguingly remote secretary, McGee sets out to locate his suspects -- only to find that they start turning up dead!

--This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

6 1-hour cassettes --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

From the Inside Flap

2 cassettes / 3 hours
Read by Darren McGavin

"The Travis McGee novels are among the finest works of fiction ever penned by an American author."
-Jonathan Kellerman

Lysa Dean is a movie star: beautiful, talented, hounded by fans.  All she wants is privacy.  But someone knows about her four-day orgy of drink, drugs, and sex, and he's asking a big price to keep quiet.  Her case is lousy with problems and McGee knows he shouldn't go near it.  But behind Lysa's famous face, he sees another woman: a loving, lonely woman whose life is being destroyed. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 293 pages
• Publisher: G. K. Hall & Company; Large type edition edition (April 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816133824
• ISBN-13: 978-0816133826
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,726,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage McGee, August 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Quick Red Fox (Travis McGee, No. 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

Travis McGee is looking for blackmailers for a superstar actress. With her personal secretary at his side, Mcgee is combing the country for suspects who attended a sex party with the sex symbol that produced pictures of all the participants. Trouble is, all of the other suspects show up in hospitals or dead. Travis is left with a trail involving an original blackmailer and a copycat blackmailer. The last chapter which focuses on Trav, the secretary and the actress is probably one of the most satisfying single chapters in the McGee saga.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cinematic McGee, July 18, 2004

By 

Clare Quilty (a little pad in hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quick Red Fox (Travis McGee, No. 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

Maybe it's because of the Hollywood commentary in this mcGee outing (Trav helps a vain movie star track down photos of her, taken during a drunken beach house sex party) but this jaunt seems like one of the most vivid, cinematic of the books.

Carefully detailed, pleasantly sordid and joltingly violent, "Quick Red Fox" is easy to imagine, on my mental movie screen, as directed by a period late noir helmsman like Robert Rossen ("The Hustler") or Robert Aldrich ("Kiss Me Deadly"), in crisp black-and-white Cinemascope with Paul Newman or Steve McQueen in the lead.

It's not as big in scale as some of the books, but it bobs and weaves in odd directions. Trav's confrontations with a prissy ski instructor; a pair of menacing, trailer park lesbians; and a spookily rendered German trophy wife may not be politically correct but they typify what's best and occasionally worst about MacDonald's style. McGee's warnings about women who kick for the crotch chafe against political correctness but make for one hilarious scene.

The first time I read it, I was pleased at how aburptly MacDonald wraps this one up. On a second reading, I thought perhaps it was a little anticlimactic but, in re-evaluating it, "Fox" ends economically and with a surpirsing level of sad tenderness. A good starting point for the uninitiated.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Travis, August 30, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quick Red Fox (Travis McGee, No. 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

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. The "Quick Red Fox" is a perfect example is why. It is well-paced and the central mystery is engrossing. The minor characters are all well-drawn and memorable. And, of course, it's Travis!

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