{"id":2869,"date":"2005-12-30T18:46:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-30T23:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=2869"},"modified":"2010-04-20T22:33:53","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T03:33:53","slug":"book-reports-the-empty-trap-by-john-d-macdonald-1957the-executioners-by-john-d-macdonald-1958","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/30\/book-reports-the-empty-trap-by-john-d-macdonald-1957the-executioners-by-john-d-macdonald-1958\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Reports: The Empty Trap by John D. MacDonald (1957)The Executioners by John D. MacDonald (1958)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I bought these books, paperbacks, from Hooked on Books for $2 and $3 respectively. So that’s a testament to how expensive books can be at Hooked on Books and also a testament to how much I like John D. MacDonald.<\/p>\n

The Empty Trap<\/i><\/a> details a revenge-based story told partially in flashback. A hotel manager finds himself working for a syndicate-connected hotel owner and discovers that he has no way out of the business. Unfortunately, the woman telling him this is the hard-but-soft songbird wife of said owner. The hotel manager figures the only way out is to absquatulate (meaning 1<\/a>) with some of the mobster’s money and the mobster’s wife; the mobster thinks the hotel manager and the wife should indeed absquatulate (meaning 2<\/a>). The goons leave the now-former hotel manager for dead in the Mexican desert, but in leaving him only mostly dead, they set the stage for revenge.<\/p>\n

The Executioners<\/i><\/a> reminded me a lot of the movie Cape Fear<\/i> (or at least the promos I’d seen of the movie), and a quick glance at Amazon.com reveals why. The book was the source for the movie. Ah. As you might already know with that hint, a man and his family suffer the unwanted attention of a released felon against whom the father testified. The police and other locals provide little help, so the family goes on the run and finally has to make a stand.<\/p>\n

Both books have plots that have become stock over the last fifty years, but I read them to see how John D. MacDonald did them. He did them well and rapidly; these books weigh in at fewer than 170 pages each and respresent the best of the immediately post-pulp era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I bought these books, paperbacks, from Hooked on Books for $2 and $3 respectively. So that’s a testament to how expensive books can be at Hooked on Books and also a testament to how much I like John D. MacDonald. The Empty Trap details a revenge-based story told partially in flashback. A hotel manager finds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6177,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2869\/revisions\/6177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}