In the March issue of Mystery Scene magazine, Ed Gorman wrote an article on “My 10 Favorite John D. MacDonald Standalone Novels.” And here’s the list:
1. Dead Low Tide
2. Soft Touch
3. Deadly Welcome
4. Murder in the Wind
5. The Executioners
6. Slam the Big Door
7. The End of the Night
8. A Key to the Suite
9. A Flash of Green
10. The Drowner
This week, we’re up to Number Three: Deadly Welcome. This novel from 1959 features a State Department operative, Alex Doyle, who’s loaned to the Pentagon for a domestic mission. Doyle has to convince a key scientist whose wife has been murdered to return to the lab. But, in order to accomplish his mission, Doyle has to solve the murder. There’s a sociopath, a hidden treasure, the patented JDM romance, and a violent conclusion. I love it that JDM can put so much story into 160 pages!
Sounds great an once agin, great art on display George – The DJ for the 1961 hardcover is utterly bizarre though, the girl looks like Tinkerbell – makes it look like a Disney book!
Sergio, you’re right about that Tinkerbell cover! I thought that cover might draw your attention!
Well, it is different. I kind of like it. I remember the Gold Medal cover. This is another one I read it 1989 and have only vague memories of the plot.
Jeff, for veteran JDM readers, DEADLY WELCOME includes plenty of MacDonald’s plot staples: tormented hero, damaged love interest, a hidden treasure, and a sociopath. What’s not to like.
I just got a copy, the top center edition, at Robert’s Books. Sadly he didn’t have any Dell editions, which apparently are snapped up by collectors. Still, a McGiness cover ain’t bad.
I have that McGinness cover on a paperback, Rick, but the lettering is green, not red.
I didn’t know Dell editions were collector’s items. I’ll have to check my pile of JDMs!
Prashant, many of JDM’s DELL editions are “First Editions” as paperback originals. Collectors prefer them.
Actually George, my copy of Deadly Welcome has black print for the title, so they must have done it in a variety of colors, perhaps to see what sold the best.
Rick, you’re probably right on that variety of colors. Fawcett used that approach on several books.
As long as the female figure has sufficiently large breasts, all is fine, clearly…
Have you dug around in his short fiction that’s been webbed, George? I think most of them predated your active reading years by a few, at least…and it doesn’t have the Updates that Ed and perhaps Bill, James and you have bemoaned, in his collections…
Yes, I have read some of JDM’s short fiction on the Web, Todd. But I think he was a better novelist.