This book, one of John D. MacDonald’s paperback originals reprinted when his Travis McGee novels took off, covers a story of one Alex Doyle, former resident of Ramona Beach, Florida, and his return home. Back around the end of the war, orphaned Alex Doyle decided to join the military; on the night before his induction, he went drinking for the first time and awoke from his overindulgence with some cash stolen from his adopted family’s store in his pocket. Run out of town (but allowed to join the military instead of jail), Alex Doyle serves honorably and joins the State Department. But when the Department of Defense needs a scientist to return to the organization, they turn to Doyle to shepherd him back because the scientist married a Ramona Beach woman and settled there. To get the scientist back, Doyle promises to solve the scientist’s wife’s murder.
It’s a short novel, a paperback thriller. I liked it well enough. It lacks the depth of some of the Travis McGee series, but come on, it’s a paperback thriller.
Worth a couple quarters if you find it at a book fair, or a couple bucks if you’re a raving John D. MacDonald fan like me and find it in a used bookstore.
