Customer Reviews

A Tan and Sandy Silence (The Travis Mcgee Series)

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This was my fourth or fifth Travis McGee novel, and I have to say I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, MacDonald is still MacDonald and the book is well written and engaging, but I thought overall "Tan and Sandy Silence" was lacking somehow. Maybe it's that this is obviously one of his later books and he was getting bored or tired, or maybe it's just something I didn't notice in his other books, but he seemed to take the easy way out a few times. For instance, when McGee interviews people the conversations don't seem realistic--the people volunteer too much information: If you just met someone and they asked what you knew about your next-door neighbor would you say, "Well, not a lot other than she just opened an account at the Blah-Blah Bank and her loan officer is John Blah"? (How convenient!) Also, there was an element of predictability that may have come from reading his other books; I knew certain characters were going to die, and even is one or two instances HOW they would die. Some of McGee's encounters seemed too coincidental and lucky, with old friends showing up at just the right time and place to save his skin. Finally, the ending appeared rushed and illogical and didn't tie up all the loose ends.

But even with all that, there was enough fun and suspense and McGee-ism to make this a worthwhile read. You could certainly do far worse.

Over the years I've read hundreds of novels in a variety of genres, but for pure fun and enjoyment it's hard to beat Travis McGee. Some of the books are better than others, but they're nearly all worth a couple of lazy summer days. They are the ultimate summer time, quick-read beach books. At their core, they're good mysteries. But Travis McGee is such a great character, with such a wry outlook on life, that often the mystery seems secondary to McGee's views on whatever topic author John D. McDonald has selected for his soap box. Most of them take place in Florida, (a Florida no one will ever see again given they were written mostly in the 60s and 70s) and all have a color in the title. Don't take them too seriously, just have fun in the sun.

A Tan and Sandy Silence is certainly not the best book John D. MacDonald ever authored. In fact, some may find it way too dark and unsettingly disturbing. Others may object to it for a host of very legitimate reasons. But I daresay that even those readers who find themselves hating this Travis McGee novel still will have to admit it is a substantive, unforgettable read.
The unevenly paced narrative revolves around McGee's efforts to locate Mary Broll, a former lover whom no one seems to have seen in over three months. His search takes him to the tropical island of Grenada where the case takes on an entirely different trajectory. As others have already accurately pointed out, the novel starts off slow, climaxes with some very macabre events and has somewhat of a rushed ending. Along the way, the reader is treated to large helpings of Travis McGee's introspection on a wide range of topics having to do with modern life. After a while, this inner monologue, though at times clever, becomes tiresome and gives the impression of too much self-indulgence on author MacDonald's part.
Other objectionable aspects of this book include its incorporation of an excessive amount of amateur psychology into the plot and the fact that McGee never, ever fails to completely captivate members of the opposite sex.
The positive attributes of this book would have to include MacDonald's very evocative and original brand of prose and the presence of a number of characters who come off as quite believable.
John D. MacDonald was unquestionably a great writer, but A Tan and Sandy Silence is one of his lesser works. He was capable of much better.

If this was your first Travis McGee book, don't worry. Most of them are much, much better. This book suffers from an overload of the author's rambling commentary on society. After the introduction to jealous husband, you have to slug through 100 pages before you begin to get into typical Travis McGee action. The action is often illogical, and too often Travis - err - Gavin stumbles into old friends at the most unlikely places, bailing him out of trouble. Sorry, this one just didn't click for me. In many ways, it reminded me of the Pale Gray for Guilt story, but there was much less action in this book.

Would there be a Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey or Randy Wayne White without John D. MacDonald? Maybe, but it's not too difficult to find a dozen authors who owe a debt to MacDonald, who pioneered the Florida crime novel. Of course, it's one thing to be a pioneer, it's another to be good. Happily, MacDonald is both, as most aptly demonstrated in his Travis McGee series.

A Tan and Sandy Silence is the 13th in the series. It opens with McGee doing what he likes most, enjoying life on his houseboat, the Busted Flush. All is well till he is visited by Harry Broll, the boorish husband of McGee's old friend Mary Dillon. Mary walked out on Harry three months back after catching him with another woman. Broll is convinced McGee is hiding her. Broll is not so much interested in reconciliation as getting Mary to complete some paperwork essential to an investment.

McGee isn't hiding Mary, but he's also a little worried that she never contacted him. A bit of investigating eventually points to her hiding out on the island of Grenada (giving the island a drop of notoriety a decade before Reagan put it on the map with a minor military adventure). He still has enough doubts to go there, where he will find out about a scheme to deprive Broll of a lot of cash. At the heart of it is a typical MacDonald villain, an intelligent sociopath who McGee will underestimate.

This is another fun thriller with the usual share of Travis McGee cynicism about society that sets it apart from other novels of the era. MacDonald was a great storyteller, and this book, even if not the strongest in the set, is still good enough for any mystery fan.

The first intimations of McGee's impending dotage are fascinating. Hearing him acknowledge he may be losing a step, may be a tad less intuitive..... Frankly, it's a little painful. The expected carnage of women continues as in most John D.'s books, but the level of intimacy is surprisingly low. In many ways this is the book that highlights McGee's relationship with Meyer and brings them closer together in their awareness of each other's abilities. Several reviews weren't very strong on this book. I disagree; I think it's one of his better runs with Travis.

Another Travis McGee book. This one seemed to take forever to get going, to set up the problem, and then as soon as you understood the problem, MacDonald popped you a good one, and the rest of the book was a catch-up from that moment. But that's the simple "mystery" of this McGee novel, and as such is never that special. The attraction of McGee, at least in these later books, are MacDonald's comments within them on the human condition, both specifically with regard to the Quixotish nature of McGee, as well as a general feeling of malaise which centers around money and violence. The McGee novels are as much about philosophy--ethics, particularly--as they are about mystery. Or maybe the point is that the philosophy is the mystery, and as we get to know McGee better, we understand more about his philosophy. I seem to remember the Spenser novels of Robert Parker to be similar to this as well. Are there other mystery series in which the character growth is as important, if not more so, than the particular story of the time?

I've read all but one of the Travis McGee novels, and this is the only one that felt like John D. was just going through the motions. I think he was burned out, and it really shows. He was too prolific to maintain high quality. This was the 13th book in an 8 year span (in addition to several non-McGee novels); by contrast, the last 8 books in the series are spread out over 14 years, which helped MacDonald keep the quality high.

I can understand why MacDonald need to write this book: so he could write off the cost of a trip to Grenada (a small island in the southern Caribbean that President Reagan later made famous by liberating it from a Marxist dictatorship). But I cannot recommend that anyone read it.

There's stuff in here that wouldn't have made it into a James Bond film even during the Roger Moore years, like McGee floating out to sea on a rip tide and being picked up by a sailing yacht/floating bordello crewed by beautiful naked young ladies. But no need to detail all of the nonsense in this book. Suffice it to say that no one hits a home run every time at bat. The series as a whole is still great stuff.

It's 1971 and a little more than halfway through the Travis McGee series when we meet our hero here, brooding about the passage of time and a growing sense of his own mortality. Time for him to stop risking his neck in the "salvage consulting" business, perhaps?

"I think you've been doing it for too long, darling," he is warned early on by a wealthy woman who wants him to settle down as her catamaran companion. "One day some dim little chap will come upon you suddenly and take out a gun and shoot you quite dead."

One of the worst things you can do with a Travis McGee novel is read that little bit of text on the back cover before you read anything else. You know, those two or three sentences that give you some idea what this mystery is about. Especially with "A Tan And Sandy Silence." Here, a big part of the pleasure is discovering as Travis does just what is up, as the story takes its time setting itself up and unfolds rather magnificently.

The first chapter gets us off with a bang, or rather six of them, all fired at Travis by an enraged husband who demands to know where his wife is. Travis for once is innocent, but the episode leaves him shaken. Could he nearly have gotten his ticket punched by an out-of-shape palooka like Harry Broll? And where is his wife, anyway? Since she is one of Travis's old flames, he wonders if he should find out. And keeps wondering for a few chapters. Meanwhile, we wonder what this novel we are a fifth of the way through is going to be about. Unless we read the back-cover blurb, anyway.

For me, the pleasure of MacDonald's story construction was more than a little compromised by a weakish mystery, full of improbable standoffs and left-field coincidences. The positive is that McGee is interesting company throughout, nowhere more so than when he must face some unhappy truths about his situation in the company of one of those nasty female characters MacDonald drew so uncomfortably well. When we meet her, well into the story on the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, it's easy to fall into the trap of wanting Travis to give her the business. He sort of does, but pauses long enough to discover the potential of a better person under her hard shell. Then everything changes all at once, and the story gets harsher and colder.

The action of the story gets more implausible as it goes on, but the core of it remains interesting, especially to McGee fans: Our hero is beginning to doubt his own abilities. Worse, after years of bedding women, he is beginning to lose his taste for employing his masculinity so casually. MacDonald puts us on notice here that McGee is a man of flesh and blood, able to feel not only pain but fear. It sharpens the narrative substantially.

Which is a good thing when the story gets a bit slack here and there. The weakest part is a ship full of happy prostitutes who remind us what an unabashed male fantasist MacDonald could be, even when it hurt his story. The best part is a deepening of McGee's tie with his financially minded companion, the wry Meyer, who makes for a worthy sounding board for the book's longer philosophical stretches. There is a lot of philosophizing here.

"The real guilt is being a human being," MacDonald has McGee observe. "That is the horrible reality which bugs us all. Wolves, as a class, are cleaner, more industrious, far less savage, and kinder to each other and their young."

Better McGee novels tie down such thoughts to firmer narratives, but "A Tan And Sandy Silence" is a gripping read even when it's not holding together that well as a story. As a visit with an old friend who is facing the prospect of getting older with less than his usual suavity, "Tan" has a good deal going for it. If you are following the McGee series, and don't mind a few loose ends, you may feel your interest for Travis deepening after reading this book.

I have been reading these books since the 60's and you cannot get a more enjoyable read. Travis McGee, his friend Meyer and the busted Flush, plus all the antics that go on make for one of the best book series I have ever read. Try one and I will bet you can't put it down!