The Green Ripper by John D. MacDonald

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


"While in the big bed in the master stateroom her narrowed eyes glinted in faint reflected light, my hands found the well-known slopes and lifts and hollows of her warmth and agility. [...] With neither of us knowing or guessing that it was the very last night. With neither of us able to endure that knowledge had we been told."

The Green Ripper (1979) is the eighteenth novel in John D. MacDonald's renowned series featuring Travis McGee. I had read several installments about 30 years ago and quite liked them as competently written thrillers that offered two or three hours of mindless entertainment. I was curious what my reaction will be now that I have grown up a bit. Well, this McGee novel surprised me a little in the beginning with higher than expected quality of prose but in the end it confirmed the classification of just a readable yet unremarkable thriller.

Travis McGee is a "salvage consultant" and part-time beach bum living on his 52-foot houseboat The Busted Flush in a Fort Lauderdale marina. His current girlfriend, Gretel, works in a health club where she witnesses a meeting between the club owner and a sinister guy she once knew. The man was connected with a mysterious religious cult in California: her ex-husband's sister had joined the cult and has not been heard from since. Gretel suspects that there is something quite wrong with the health club business. And unfortunately she is right: not only does one of the club owners die in an unexplained accident but also she herself succumbs to a sudden, grave illness. I really like the beginning of the story that provides the setup: well written, serious, and moving - it reads almost as "real" literature.

But then Mr. MacDonald remembers he is writing a thriller and he delivers. A completely implausible, ridiculous plot that involves the Church of the Apocrypha based near Ukiah in California. McGee infiltrates the cult under the guise of looking for Gretel's ex-sister-in-law. The connections reach even as far as the U.S. government. Without giving any spoilers I will just say that the second half of the novel offers a really thrilling ride of events, totally preposterous of course, yet engrossing.

An OK, readable thriller that makes me want to try a few other installments in the McGee series. One can't survive on a very-high-quality diet of Nabokov, Coetzee, or White alone.

Two and three quarter stars.




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