Book Report: April Evil by John D. MacDonald (1955, ?)

As you might know, gentle reader, I am a great John D. MacDonald fan, and someday I hope to own all of these paperback originals. This one, written in the middle 1950s, deals with a bucolic Florida town near Tampa that has an old doctor who grew rich from land sales but kept the money, in cash, in his fortress like home. Word gets out, and some out of town hitters come looking for it at the same time as distant shirt-tail relations show up to sponge a bit and the niece-by-marriage hatches a plot to have the man committed.

The book switches points of view and really develops the individual characters in it. It seems slowly, almost, but it’s not; the book runs only 191 pages and really ramps up to a good climax as the individual storylines come to a focal point. MacDonald does this well in his paperback originals, some of which I’ve already reviewed in this space (use the search bar, I’m too lazy to do it for you).

This book is a good one in the set, and I’m eager for the next. Which will probably be in a couple of weeks.

Books mentioned in this review:


Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories