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 ...

Like the other McGee novels, The Empty Copper Sea is a Cook's tour of the shadier side of the Sunshine State. We meet its Sun Belt aristocracy of bankers, contractors, insurance agents and big-money operators, and its confused underclass of retirees in mobile homes and condos, drifters with dark tans and darker notions, and the restive, frustrated middle class. Most of all, we meet people who in one way or another are sticking it to other people…. [MacDonald's] is not a cheerful view of...