John D. MacDonald’s many novels sold over 70 million copies. One of MacDonald’s strengths was his knowledge of business. Many times in the Travis McGee series, Travis will talk about the Stock Market and the Economy with his renown economist friend, Meyer. Business elements appear in many of MacDonald’s thrillers.
A Key to the Suite (1962) shows how business convention is run and how management uses conventions to evaluate their staffs. Floyd Hubbard is sent to a beach resort convention center to fire the head of Sales for the corporation, Jess Mulaney. But, Mulaney and his partner, Fred Frick, hire a high-class call girl to seduce Hubbard and then embarrass him in front of his colleagues. They figure that incident could save their jobs.
But nobody predicted the mayhem that would result when the plot goes off the rails. Dean R. Koontz, in his excellent Introduction to A Key to the Suite, praises John D. MacDonald’s ability to create believable settings for his novels. I found the details of the operation of a business convention fascinating. And, then there’s the dangerous plot to trick Floyd Hubbard on top of that. A Key to the Suite shows JDM at the top of his game. Do you have a favorite JDM novel? GRADE: A
Although I don’t have any specific memory of this particular novel I know I read it because I read them all. My introduction to JDM was the Travis McGee series in the early sixties. I’d seen his standalone books on bookshelves and pb racks for years but had never read one, perhaps because they lacked the eye grabbing ultra lurid covers featured on so many crime paperbacks of that era. But McGee got me hooked and I read those as they came out until the end in the 80s. It was probably the mid-70s when I started on his other books and found that they were as good, and sometimes better, than the McGee novels. Some of them that stand out were THE EXECUTIONERS, THE LAST ONE LEFT, and the delightful THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH AND EVERYTHING with its pocket watch that stopped time. It’s both surprising and sad that JDM’s popularity has faded since his death.
Michael, I pretty much followed your path with John D. MacDonald. I read the early Travis McGee paperbacks and then sought out JDM’s standalone novels. Like you, I’m shocked at how fast John D. MacDonald works have faded into obscurity.
I don’t have a checklist handy, but I believe I read all but three or four of John D. MacDonald’s books in the late ’60s, early ’70s. There was talk of a new Travis McGee movie a few years ago, starring Leonardo DiCaprio of all people, but like most Hollywood rumours, nothing ever materialised. MacDonald’s musings about sex and women haven’t aged well, as I found when I revisited several of the Travis McGee books a couple of years ago. JDM and his colleagues in the paperback industry benefited from the high tide of male readers from the late ’40s to the early ’90s. Now, most guys would rather watch ESPN or play video games than pick up a book, I guess.
Fred, clearly JDM was writing most of novels for a male audience. Later, in the 1970s, his perspective changed a bit with his female characters. Viewed through the lens of 2022, JDM’s musings on sex and women are dated. But, not as badly as Donald Hamilton’s views.
MacDonald more of a feminist/egalitarian than most Gold Medal stalwarts, to be sure. To read THE EXECUTIONERS and then to turn to the two essentially half-assed films made from it, even given Mitchum’s performance in he first, is to realize how slow to face reality some people prefer to be. McGee’s condescension to women, as paternally well-meant as it was, is frequently not reflected in the non-series novels.
Todd, Travis McGee reflected the opinions about women for that time. I’m sure if JDM was writing today, his attitudes and the attitudes of his characters would be more in line with 2022.
Thing was, JDM’s apparent thoughts about women, at least as expressed in the non-McGee books as I recall them, were more in line in with egalitarian thinking…as was commonly suggested over the years about the McGee character, he was a Rotarian hippie. Now, MacDonald might’ve been an unreconstructed fool at some level, for all I know, but I don’t think his attitudes toward women ran that way, as driven by the evidence of his fiction writing as a whole.
Todd, taking novels out of their social and temporal context always leads to criticism. Evolving social mores always cast doubt on the Past.
There are good reasons certain things change over time. And bad reasons. But my point remains, I’m not sure MacDonald agreed with McGee’s attitudes toward women, as demonstrated, perhaps no more correctly, by his other work I’ve read.
All the Travis books but few othets.
Patti, JDM scored Big Time with the Travis McGee series which started out as paperbacks and vaulted into hardcovers and bestsellerdom.
THE EXECUTIONERS and THE END OF THE NIGHT come to mind. I still have many that I haven’t read. I definitely have not read this one. I like his sleazy Florida settings.
I too was shocked how forgotten the once mighty JDM has become these days. I remember him at a Bouchercon with an endless line to get his books signed, with Mike Nevns pulling out a suitcase filled with books, thereby prompting a “three books only: rule that many authors followed for years.
THE EXECUTIONERS is my default favorite as well, but any number of other novels could ye shake it loose…I’m at best halfway through the non-series novels. Did read all the McGee’s, in part because they were easiest to find.
Todd, I’m with you on THE EXECUTIONERS. JDM struck gold with the Travis McGee series.
I read a lot of the Travis McGee novels but none of the non-series books that I can remember. I loved the Travis McGee books at the time, but now find some of the treatment of women difficult to read. I was pretty young at the time, was living in the South where such attitudes were close to the norm.
Tracy, the Travis McGee books were everywhere in the Sixties and Seventies. John D. MacDonald died in 1986 and in the following years, his books became scarce.
I was able to find them with little trouble for at least the next decade. New editions seemed to thin out a bit after that.
Todd, the slow decline of used bookstores also limited searches for JDM’s work. Later, the Internet opened a whole new way to find old books.
I read the Travis McGees and several of the standalones and have a complete collection but one in my basement. Once when in Fort Lauderdale I went looking for where they had marked his boat slip, but didn’t find it. A couple of years ago, I pulled a McGee off the shelf and reread it and realized that it hadn’t aged well. For some reason, I almost never come across a MacDonald paperback in thrift stores or book sales.
Kent, same here. Very few JDM paperbacks show up at thrift stores or Library Book Sales now. I haven’t read a Travis McGee novel in years, but I suspect many of them have not aged well.