The Quick Red Fox (A Travis McGee Book) (Gold Medal Books)

Like eating potato chips...:
Reading John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series is like eating potato chips: you can't eat just one. But unlike potato chips, each book tastes better than the last. In The Quick Red Fox, the 4th book in this series, MacDonald really hits his stride. Film-star Lysa Dean calls in McGee on a top secret and very sensitive job. Dean was at a party with nine other people when some compromising pictures were taken. The actress has been blackmailed once over these photos, and a year after the original blackmail scheme, she receives more photos and a threatening letter. Afraid that the release of these pictures will jeopardize her film career and interfere with her planned marriage to husband number five, she asks McGee to investigate. She also gives McGee her young, beautiful and efficient, but very frosty personal assistant, Dana Holtzer. McGee and Holtzer crisscross the country trying to interview the other members from that fateful party. Some are scarred, some are missing and some are mysteriously murdered. But despite all the odds and lots of dead ends, McGee is able to assemble the pieces of this intriguing puzzle. The Travis McGee series continues to get better and this was the best one yet. I can't wait to start number five.

Classic Travis:
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.

Saving not-so-maidenly damsels in distress:
"Suddenly I knew what she reminded me of. A vixen. A quick red fox. I had seen one in heat long ago on an Adirondack morning in spring, pacing along well in front of the dog fox with a very alert and springy movement, tail curled high, turning to see if he still followed, tongue lolling from between her doggy grin." - McGee's first impression of red-haired sex symbol Lysa Dean A mutual screenwriter friend in San Francisco, one of two real male friends Lysa has, recommends Travis to her to resolve a very sordid blackmail problem: after wrapping a movie a year and a half before, she'd taken three weeks holiday with a now-departed boyfriend who, apparently out of spontaneous boredom, brought in several casual acquaintances of both sexes for fun and games, which a month later turned up in a series of very candid anonymous photographs. Lysa paid off the anonymous photographer at the time, her reputation for professional reliability being a little too precarious and her conservative fiancee being *far* too rich for her to risk either by sending hired muscle after the blackmailer. But now a set of copies of the photos have begun turning up in Lysa's mail with threats that suggest a potential sexual predator has gotten hold of a set of prints and created new negatives, and that Lysa's life as well as her reputation may be at stake this time. Travis' job is to find the blackmailer and account for all the photographs and negatives rather than to protect Lysa, who is *not* the female lead this time out. (Travis has a streak of the prude in him.) Instead, Lysa's confidential secretary/personal assistant, Dana Holtzer, is assigned to accompany Travis, assist, and monitor the situation. Travis misreads Dana at first as a repressed prude not worth his respect and is set firmly straight to his great embarrassment; she knows a *lot* more about some kinds of tragedy than he does. Yet another fine example of Travis' adventures as a knight in tarnished armour; not only is Ms. Dean a far-from-innocent lady fair, but Dana has some very complicated issues herself, though of a more wholesome variety. Travis comes to respect Dana as being worth at least ten of her employer. The story is a kind of morality tale, in a way, as Travis tracks down the other players in that orgy in the land of eternal summer and finds a trail of broken relationships and torn-apart lives, each tragedy apparently unrelated to the rest save that the kind of people who'd be involved in that sordid holiday might be expected to come to grief. Each is an interesting and individual problem, apart from the puzzle of how the blackmailer happened upon Lysa's indiscretion and why a second set of photos has now turned up. Points of interest: - Lysa turns up years later in FREE FALL IN CRIMSON with a separate problem and further information about how certain events played out. - MacDonald does *not* turn Travis' cynical insight loose upon the Hollywood culture in general, but there's plenty of philosophical musing along the way. - Meyer is mentioned in passing, but doesn't actually appear in a book until DARKER THAN AMBER, to the best of my recollection. - Interesting photographer friend of Travis' is introduced in passing as a consultant. - Rather negative portrayal of some female homosexual/bisexual characters herein may offend some readers.

Possibly the weakest of the Travis McGee novels.:
It's still a fairly good read, lively, suspenseful, generally worthwhile. But there are two major flaws that bring its rating down considerably. One is that the main romantic interest is NOT the "damsel in distress"; that position is occupied by a thoroughly unsympathetic character, one who McGee is manipulated by in ways that we rarely see. The other is that, while it isn't uncommon for some aspect of this series to seem rather outdated these days, generally, the main character's attitudes seem remarkably reasonable if a bit old-fashioned; in one scene in this book, he is demonstrated to be completely clueless and utterly unsympathetic towards lesbians. While I wouldn't have been surprised or offended had he proved somewhat clueless and condescending, his attitude in that scene (and clearly, that of the author) were neolithic and downright hostile enough to really grate on my nerves. Really ruined what otherwise would have been a pretty fair to middling book.

OK read. Nothing exceptional.:
I picked this book up from the library. I chose it mainly because some group on some mystery site selected it in their 100 best. After reading it I can't imagine it being a 100 best anything. It was a good read and a throwaway book at best. It's a typical paperback PI short novel. I found the relationship between the main character and the woman he beds to be quite a bit unrealistic. Especially when she gets hit in the head and this causes her to dump him. Great reasoning there, but we must keep our hero unemcumbered musnt we? It was a bit short on action. And when we finally do find out who did it, it seems a bit contrived to me. The lesbian thing was silly and wouldn't be allowed in a book published today. Not PC for sure. Overall it was easy and fast to read. It is the only one of MacDonald's books I have ever read. I am going to try The Dreadful Lemon Sky because it is considered by a lot of lists to be a classic PI book. If it is more of the same then that is probably it for me for this author.