The Quick Red Fox by John D MacDonald

Fawcett Gold Medal 1964

Original cover art by Ron Lesser

John Dann MacDonald was an American crime author who lived from 1916 to 1986. After graduating with an MBA from Harvard University in 1939 he joined the United States Army Ordnance Corps and then in World War 2, Like E Howard Hunt, John D MacDonald served in the Office of Strategic Services. Also like Hunt, MacDonald was stationed in China in the same years. It makes me wonder if they ever crossed paths. MacDonald’s writing career was prolific and successful. He started off in the pulps, his first story, G-Robot, was published in 1936 at the age of 20. He then went on to have over 400 short stories published. Novel wise, The Travis McGee series, his most popular, had 21 entries. 43 non-series crime/thrillers and 3 science fiction novels. He wrote The Executioners which was made into a movie called Cape Fear in 1962 and then remade in 1991. He died at the age of 70 from surgery complications.

The Quick Red Fox was the fourth entry in the Travis Mcgee series.

The basic premise: Laid back Florida private detective Travis Mcgee is hired by mega super star actress Lysa Dean. She is being blackmailed with pictures of a party she attended that turned into a drunken drugged filled orgy. Travis must traverse the two coasts with his stuffy tagalong help, Lysa’s assistant, Dana Holtzer, to find the other members of the orgy party to see if they too were victims or part of the conspiracy.

This is the second Travis Mcgee book I have read and this one was way more enjoyable than Dreadful Lemon Sky. First off, his drinkin’ buddy Myer is not in this at all. The cutesy, chummy back and forth between the two really got on my nerves. I loved how Mcgee wasn’t just in one location. This book jumps from Florida to upstate New York, to San Francisco to Las Vegas. This was one hundred percent an investigation as he figures out the identities of the rest of the people at the orgy party, hunts them down across the US and gets their take on the party. Everyone is colorful but realistic with believable motive and reasoning.

Ok, maybe the Lysa Dean actress character was a bit of a stereotype. She all but says, “dahrling” at the end of every sentence. She’s a Midwest gal from Dayton Ohio. Wait, that’s where we’re from! It even tells you her childhood address. I thought it would be great to drive down there and take a picture but unfortunately, even though the street exists, there is no 1610 Madison Street.

McGee is a quiet giant of a man with deep philosophical rivers of thought flowing through his brain constantly. He has many beautifully written diatribes on humanity, our relationships with each other and the disgust he has when a person is treated as disposable. He loathes machismo for the sake of being macho but is, of course, the most macho of all. Basically, he doesn’t start fights, he ends them. Also, the man hates orgies. The fact is brought up many times throughout the book, though never in a preachy manner. McGee is just romantically sentimental. For sure he likes to sleep around constantly and never be in a real relationship, but he likes women as people and that elevates him above orgy people. That’s his reasoning anyway. It somehow comes off as admirable and pompous at the same time.

His co-star in this is Dana Holtzer, Lysa Dean’s assistant. She is cold at first, but the ice eventually starts melting around McGee’s aloof charm. The man isn’t trying to get into her pants though, he’s a gentleman. Like every other character in this book, she has a story and it’s a sad one. Her and her husband had a child who was so disabled they had to abandon it at a mental facility. Yikes. Then her husband is in a coma, I forget why, and is basically living on machines. This book has a lot of bleak in it. Not a lot of sunshine hitting the decks of Mcgee’s houseboat.

The rest of the cast run the gamut of wealthy cockroaches, grey area criminals and victims, domestic violence and mental abusers and everyone living the rough party lifestyle that seems fun at the time until years later when you look back and see how messed up your life has become. Serious drug and alcohol addiction and recovery vibes going on here.

The grit is in the characters. The driving force of the story is the investigation and that is quick and upbeat. Layers are consistently peeled as we get closer to the answer as to why all of this is happening. And it’s not just some get rich quick scheme focused around the actress. It’s a whirlwind shitstorm and everyone is invited. This is a bare bones investigation novel. Direct and to the point. He figures out the names of the rest of the people at the orgy right at the beginning and from there he tracks them down across the country, one by one getting their story. There is a little romance appetizer budding between McGee and Dana but it’s on the back burner simmering.

Couple fun things; There is some trash talking about other authors. McGee refers to the writings of Uris, Wouk and Rand as “portentous gruntings of witless ilk.”

He gets into a fist fight with two tough lesbian ladies. One of the ladies on the orgy list is now living in a trailer. McGee knocks on the door and it is EXACTLY like the scene in Kolchak the Night Strangler when he meets Charisma Beauty and Wilma Krankheimer. You know, I feel like often you see people stealing ol Richard Matheson’s ideas but here I think Mr. Matheson might be guilty of borrowing some MacDonald ideas.

This book was real world gritty. It didn’t have the laidback boathouse sunshine Florida backdrop of Dreadful Lemon Sky. It’s dark, bittersweet and lushly written. Brain and brawn. Classic PI novel with a balanced meshing of progressive and conservative attitudes and probably pretty modern for the time it was written.