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 Grand Master 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 empathetic 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. He died in 1986.
Praise for John D. MacDonald and the Travis McGee novels
“The great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing
storyteller.”—Stephen King
“My favorite novelist of all time . . . All I ever wanted was to
touch readers as powerfully as John D. MacDonald touched me. No
price could be placed on the enormous pleasure that his books have
given me. He captured the mood and the spirit of his times more
accurately, more hauntingly, than any ‘literature’ writer—yet
managed always to tell a thunderingly good, intensely suspenseful
tale.”—Dean Koontz
“To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D.
MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of
Tutankhamen.”—Kurt Vonnegut
“A master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer . . . John D.
MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in the field. Talk
about the best.”—Mary Higgins Clark
“A dominant influence on writers crafting the continuing series
character . . . I envy the generation of readers just discovering
Travis McGee, and count myself among the many readers savoring his
adventures again.”—Sue Grafton
“One of the great sagas in American fiction.”—Robert B. Parker
“Most readers loved MacDonald’s work because he told a rip-roaring
yarn. I loved it because he was the first modern writer to nail
Florida dead-center, to capture all its languid sleaze, racy sense
of promise, and breath-grabbing beauty.”—Carl Hiaasen
“The consummate pro, a master storyteller and witty observer . . .
John D. MacDonald created a staggering quantity of wonderful books,
each rich with characterization, suspense, and an almost
intoxicating sense of place. The Travis McGee novels are among the
finest works of fiction ever penned by an American author and they
retain a remarkable sense of freshness.”—Jonathan Kellerman
“What a joy that these timeless and treasured novels are available
again.”—Ed McBain
“Travis McGee is the last of the great knights-errant: honorable,
sensual, skillful, and tough. I can’t think of anyone who has
replaced him. I can’t think of anyone who would dare.”—Donald
Westlake
“There’s only one thing as good as reading a John D. MacDonald
novel: reading it again. A writer way ahead of his time, his Travis
McGee books are as entertaining, insightful, and suspenseful today
as the moment I first read them. He is the all-time master of the
American mystery novel.”—John Saul
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