Synopses & Reviews
From a beloved master of crime fiction, Bright Orange for the Shroud is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.
Travis McGee is looking forward to a “slob summer,” spending his days as far away from danger as possible. But trouble has a way of finding him, no matter where he hides. An old friend, conned out of his life savings by his ex-wife, has tracked him down and is desperate for help. To get the money back and earn his usual fee, McGee will have to penetrate the Everglades—and the mind of a violently twisted grifter.
“John D. MacDonald was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King
McGee has never seen a man so changed by one year of life. Arthur Wilkinson had been an amiable and decent young man looking to invest some of his considerable inheritance in a marina enterprise. Then a pretty blonde named Wilma Ferner showed up. She was soon Mrs. Wilkinson, and it took her only a year to leave Arthur bankrupt and broken.
But what starts out as a simple job turns into a dangerous situation when McGee comes face-to-face with a quick-thinking and quicker-fisted foe in the Florida swamps. Now Arthur’s fortune isn’t the only thing on the line: This job may mean McGee’s life.
Features a new Introduction by Lee Child
Synopsis
"McGee has become part of our national fabric."
SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER
Usually women came to take refuge aboard The Busted Flush. But this time a man stumbled on board, a walking zombie who fell into bed. Turned out poor Arthur Wilkinson was the latest victim of a fragile-looking blonde sexpot who used the blackest arts of love to lure unsuspecting suckers into a web of sordid schemes. Travis had thought he'd have a quiet summer. Instead he took on the most cunning, heartless, vicious con artists he'd ever met....
About the Author
John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short-story writer. His works include the Travis McGee series and the novel The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. In 1962, MacDonald was named a grandmaster of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980, he won a National Book Award. In print, he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life, he was a truly empathic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business, he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son, and died in 1986.