Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, John Dann MacDonald was educated at Syracuse University, where he took a B.S. in 1938, and at the Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he took an M.B.A. the following year. He has also studied at the University of...

Known as the creator of the bestselling Travis McGee series of detective novels, John D. MacDonald gained most of his fame and fortune from writing paperback originals. He moved into paperbacks in 1950, after turning out stories for the pulps since...

John Dann MacDonald (July 24, 1916 – December 28, 1986), writing as John D. MacDonald, was an American writer best known for his series of detective novels featuring protagonist Travis McGee. MacDonald was named a grand master of the Mystery...

On the 10th anniversary of his death, fans gather in Sarasota to celebrate author John D. MacDonald. When John D. MacDonald died in 1986, he was one of America's most popular mystery writers, the creator of the immortal Travis McGee. But MacDonald...

An occasional series in which The Post's book critic reconsiders notable and/or neglected books from the past. For my money, John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee is one of the great characters in contemporary American fiction -- not crime fiction; fiction, period -- and...

The two most obvious statements that can be made about John D. MacDonald as a writer are, one, that he is prolific (sixty-three novels and hundreds of short stories to date) and, two, that he is immensely popular (at least twenty-six of his titles have sold more than a million copies each). While popularity is certainly no assurance of quality, neither is it necessarily evidence of inferior work. What is readily apparent to any reader of MacDonald's novels is that he is a writer of great versatility ...

[Travis McGee] has the hint of meanness and suggestion of illegality that made Sam Spade such a fascinatingly ambiguous character; he has [Phillip] Marlowe's sense of self-directed irony, his striking physical presence, and though more open to sensual experience, he shares in main his moral outlook; and finally he has Lew Archer's sensitivity and interest in others, a willingness to get involved with people, probably more involved than Archer himself. Yet if McGee's character relates in...

"Cinnamon Skin" is as good as, or perhaps even a little better than, the standard Travis McGee. In this quest McGee and his eccentric economist friend Meyer are attempting to track down a man who has had several identities and several consorts whom he has killed. Bluebeard, in a word. The quest is, as it should be, the chief pleasure in a McGee mystery, but Mr. MacDonald also has a reporter's ear for odd facts and arresting tones of voice. McGee and Meyer get people talking about their ...