John D. MacDonald books

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Read Books by John D. MacDonald

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Death Trap (1966)

This 1957 novel from John D. MacDonald has the grandmaster hitting his prime. He had been writing novels since 1950 and would not start his Travis McGee series until 1964. Hugh McReedy is one of JDM's competent protagonists. A construction worker advancing in the field, he is reminded of an immat...

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The Long Lavender Look (1996)

1 jun 15#43 from macdonald for me, travis mcgee #12...though i think this is the 9th or 10th mcgee story for me. trying to read them sequentially but i just finished Pale Gray For Guilt and the next in line is not available yet. 'til then, this.onward & upward.3 jun 15finished. good story. mcgee ...

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A Key to the Suite (1968)

21 jan 15, wednesday morning, 10:58 a.m. e.s.t.#28 from macdonald for me. just finished a great story, first one i read from this writer, A Single Shot, check him out.(1962) a key to the suite, john d macdonaldstory begins:the gentle hand of a girl pressed him awake, and he looked up along a tail...

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The Price of Murder (1976)

I agree with most who think this is not up to JDM's usual high standards, though there is a lot to like in it, of course. The whole thing feels contrived (the differing points of view), and the central relationship, between junior college professor Lee Bronson and the ditzy, shallow Lucille, stra...

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Judge Me Not (2001)

so this is maybe #6 or 7 from macdonald for me...paperback i have, fifth printing, march 1964 says the copyright is 1951. description says 1948. an early macdonald, regardless, hey?story begins:when the woman left his side he turned, in his sleep, toward the window.the late october sun slanted a...

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The Scarlet Ruse (1972)

8 jun 15#46 from macdonald for me, the 15th travis mcgee story. just finished One Fearful Yellow Eye, an excellent 5+ star story. i've noted in the last few stories that the "bad" guy isn't on the main stage much...but in the last...yes and no.15 jun 15...i'm back. now i am reading this one, havi...

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Bright Orange for the Shroud (1996)

#39 from macdonald for me...and this will be the 6th (i think) travis mcgee story...missed #4 was it? which is coming in the mail i believe. just finished A Deadly Shade of Gold which might be the best of the lot so far.25 may 15i start to read.strange, how the travis mcgee stories seem to get t...

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A Deadly Shade of Gold (1996)

With the fifth in the Travis McGee series, MacDonald really hits his stride. There was something really electric—sexy, scary, violent—in the air in 1965, the year this one was published; in fact there's a new book out about the year. Think of the early Emma Peel episodes of The Avengers, or the f...

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The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything (1985)

Having never read anything previously by renowned author John D. MacDonald, I discovered his 1962 paperback "The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything" after reading about it in David Pringle's excellent overview volume "Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels." Writing about the novel in that vol...

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The Lonely Silver Rain (1996)

3 jul 15#54 from macdonald for me and the last travis mcgee story, #21if you have only read macdonald's travis mcgee stories you have missed out on some great stories, a pile of them, they all rock & roll, they are as real as it gets and they are a joy to read. only the last 3-4 mcgee stories hav...

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Nightmare in Pink (1995)

On the front of the book it informs me that this is a Travis McGee novel, A Nightmare In Pink. After 150 pages I finally realized that this was not the follow-up to The Deep Blue Goodbye I was hoping for. This a James Bond rip off. Double O'Dong in 50 Shades of Ballsack.Double O'Dong is irresi...

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The Deep Blue Good-By (1995)

I'm a huge fan of suspense fiction, absolutely loving the surprising and unexpected twists and turns. I've read (and re-read) a lot in this genre over the years, but John D MacDonald (JDM) had escaped me. I'm not sure why. I had heard of the movie "Cape Fear", which was adapted from JDM's book T...

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The Green Ripper (1996)

Full disclosure: this is one of my all-time favorite novels, one of my all-time favorite thrillers, and my favorite Travis McGee novel. Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t think so.You could begin the series with this book, and many people have. However, doing that gave some readers the wrong impressio...

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Darker Than Amber (1994)

Holy shit snacks. I can't believe I read the whole thing.First off, let's get one thing straight. Reading this was a dare. All parties involved, including myself, knew I would most likely despise this book and find it a vile-coated offering with a noxious nougat center. I started to shelve th...

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Ballroom of the Skies (1968)

I enjoyed this book. It lit up my imagination, lots of visuals came throughout the story. MacDonald had a writing style that I thoroughly enjoyed, many choice sentences that could have have stood completely alone, which in this day of age, where internet "memes" are all the rage, is a wonderful p...

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Cape Fear (1965)

An insane criminal threatens to destroy a family, and the police are powerless to protect them. For fourteen years convicted rapist Max Cady nursed his hatred for Sam Bowden into an insane passion for revenge. He lived only for the day he would be free -- free to track down and destroy the man wh...

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The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper (1996)

Travis McGee had a wonderful, spur of the moment, love with Helena after her husband tragically died. He was much younger than her and she wasn't looking for a new husband, just a good time. Which Travis was able to give her on his boat while taking her traveling. When she left after that summ...

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Cinnamon Skin (1996)

28 jun 15#53 from macdonald for me and #20 travis mcgee...one left after this one but the man wrote something like 70 novels so all is well and all manner of things are well. onward, ever onward. just finished Free Fall in Crimson if it matters...does one read influence the next. oh you betcha.3 ...

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The Turquoise Lament (1996)

2o jun 15#49 from macdonald for me and the 16th travis mcgee story. if you have not read any of the other stories from macdonald, if all you've read is the travis mcgee stories, you're missing out. you owe it to yourself to read at least some of them. they're good stories. macdonald nails it all ...

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The End of the Night (1971)

A journey into a world of fear and violence carried to their logical extreme—murder.

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One Fearful Yellow Eye (1999)

8 jun 15yikes...lost my take, my notes, my index! no, still have that...on paper scratches, but had most of it generated here, had an audio listed of this story, too, for some reason. i blame atari. and smartphones, haunted by atari. plg. supply the missing vowel.this is an excellent story, 5+ st...

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A Tan and Sandy Silence (1996)

Being accused at gunpoint of hiding another man's wife is a rude shock. But it's an even bigger shock when Travis McGee discovers that the woman in question is Mary Broll, a dear old friend. Now she's disappeared, vanished without a word to anyone.

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The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1996)

"The professional's professional of suspense writers." THE NEW YORK TIMES Travis McGee has been offered easy money by a longtime lady friend. But when she gets killed, McGee's got a boatload of mystery. Navigating his boat into troubled waters, he heads for the seamier side of Florida--where dr...

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A Bullet for Cinderella (2015)

Her veneer was big city … but one look and you knew that Toni Rassell’s instincts were straight out of the river shack she came from. I watched her as she toyed with the man, laughing, her tumbled hair like raw blue-black silk, her brown shoulders bare. Eyes deep-set, a girl with a gypsy look. So...

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Soft Touch (1981)

Jerry Jamison wants out: out of a sloppy marriage, a dull job and the empty suburban rat race. Once Jerry had a beautiful bride and a good salary at her old man's successful business - that was before his wife turned into a lush. Before the business started to go to pieces. And before the lazy af...

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The Empty Trap (1983)

Lloyd Wescott is a big boy, and he understands that big money doesn’t smell like roses. When he’s hired to build and run the Green Oasis resort, he doesn’t know too much about the pedigree of its owner—and he doesn’t want to. He won’t ask any questions. Just as long as the place is legit and he c...

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The Last One Left (1980)

22 dec 14, monday evening#12 from macdonald for me.(1967) the last one leftstory begins:at the small bon voyage party at the delmar bay yacht clud kip and selma had given howard and junie prowt a little brass plaque to affix to one of the bulkheads of the hojun. it read, "oh lord, thy sea is so v...

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Free Fall in Crimson (1996)

27 jun 15#52 from macdonald for me, the 19th travis mcgeee story. check out macdonald's other stories a rich lode of story well worth the read. before this i read The Green Ripper, a so-so story28 jun 15finished. good story. i liked it. in this one, mcgee is asked to discover what happened to ron...

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A Purple Place for Dying (1995)

18 may 15, #36 from macdonald for me, the 3rd travis mcgee story i will read and this is travis mcgee #3 just finished Nightmare in Pink...and been some time since i read the first, The Deep Blue Good-Bye20 may 15, finishedgood story. takes place out west state not named, esmerelda county, and t...

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The Quick Red Fox (1995)

26 may 15...#40 from macdonald for me, the 7th travis mcgee story. just finished Bright Orange For The Shroud. onward & upward28 may 15finished. good story...not great, good. why? maybe because there are a number of deaths, some related to the larger scheme of wrong, some not related, and in the...

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A Flash of Green (Fawcett Gold Medal) (1984)

This book is flawed, but it hits some incredible peaks on the way to its somewhat disappointing conclusion. There are scenes that don't work, but there are also incredible insights into human nature and deep characterizations and observations. This was an ambitious novel for JDM and it has a lot ...

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April Evil (1980)

An odd assortment of criminals and the woman who loves one of them are setting up for a crime.

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All These Condemned (1985)

25 jan 15, sunday morning, 6:07 a.m. e.s.t.#30 from macdonald for me. just finished The Only Girl in the Game a good story set in las vegas(1954) all these condemned, john d macdonaldthere is a quote from decimus junius juvenalis, satire number twelve:they reckon death a blessing,yet make of life...

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Area of Suspicion (1986)

Narrative couldn't hold my interest for very long, so I ended up putting it down after 50 pages. Utterly predictable characters, situations, plots, and lurid prose style. Unlike The Deep Blue Good-by, in which MacDonald used a self-conscious "hardboiled" style in order to reflect back upon the ge...

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Border Town Girl (1985)

Two novellas John D. MacDonald. Border Town Girl was originally published in Dime Detective Magazine as "Five Star Fugitive". Both are unmistakably from the pen of JDM but are completely different. Border Town Girl is a story of conflict and characters that reminds me of his Mexican Border thrill...

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Murder for the Bride (1951)

29 dec 14, monday morning, 6:41 a.m. e.s.t.#17 from macdonald for me. just finished The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything a story i enjoyed more than the 3-stars i provided and well worth a read. this must be one of the earliest stories.(1951) murder for the bridestory begins:it was one of those ...

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The House Guests (Gm) (1988)

Yes, I am reading a rambling memoir about some guy's cats. My favorite part is the story about the time his cat ate a whole rabbit and bloated up like a balloon and slept for a week!Someday I'll write a book like this.

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Please Write for Details (1981)

American bachelor Miles Drummond, living in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and running out of money, half-heartedly places an ad in a few US newspapers announcing a summer art workshop. Much to his surprise, thirteen students write for details, and arrive in Cuernavaca a few weeks later.The hotel Miles has ...

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Clemmie (1988)

17 jan 15, saturday afternoon, 4:41 p.m. e.s.t.#26 from macdonald for me. just finished A Man of Affairs check it out a good read(1958) clemmie, john d macdonaldstory begins:he liked to drink sparingly after dinner, but now he realized he had let chet burney force three of his extra-potent highba...

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Cancel All Our Vows (1981)

One of the lesser of JDM's offerings."FOR FIFTEEN YEARS THEY HAD BEEN MARRIED. Fletcher Wyant and Jane. They had built a perfect marriage - -two wonderful kids, a warm beautiful home, their own private never-ending love affair. Fletcher thought he knew Jane completely. No dark secrets. No hidden ...

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Condominium (1985)

I can remember the opening shot of Barbara Eden (playing Barbara Messenger) floating in the middle of the vast ocean (in a row boat?) of the made for TV movie Condominium (1980). So when I saw a copy of John D. MacDonald's novel of the same name, I had to read it.Condominium was a departure for M...

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Murder in the Wind (1982)

A group of people are isolated in a house by a hurricane. A murder and the suspicions which follow tears the group apart.

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The Neon Jungle (1984)

The Varaki family run the local grocery store, but tragedy hits the family hard. The sudden death of the matriarch of the clan is followed by the favourite son's death in Korea. The teenage daughter falls in with a bad crowd and there's also the other son, Walter, who has been dipping into the ti...

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More Good Old Stuff (1985)

Offering indisputable evidence of the early talent that was to lead him to the top of the bestseller lists everywhere, these fourteen tales of crime and corruption, of sleuthing and suspense, of treachery, intrigue, and revenge, by the incomparable John D. MacDonald, were selected from the hundre...

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You Live Once (1981)

26 dec 14, friday afternoon, 12:56 p.m. e.s.t.this is #14 from macdonald for me...128 page paperback with the title you kill me..."previously published as you live once"copyright 1956 john d macdonald...original title: you live oncethis edition, january, 1961, you kill mestory opens:i have never ...

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One Monday We Killed Them All (1961)

Besides his well-known "Travis McGee" series, John D. MacDonald wrote a large number of 'stand-alone' mysteries. This is one of the first of his I read.I like the way JDM writes. It takes a bit of getting used too---and of course, some of his books are better than others. They are getting ...

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Pale Gray for Guilt (1996)

#42 from macdonald for me...just finished The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper...don't know if that is #8...this one is #9 and I've read 8 or 9 travis mcgee stories now. i have not found any spoiler type thingies from one story to another...although there is some merit to the idea of reading these...

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Slam the Big Door (1960)

saturday morning, 20 dec 14#11 from macdonald for me. just finished The Drowner, a story that has some flaws, still an okay story...and the flaws make it special. people make mistakes...they don't always get it right...or something is off. and now i'm on this one. slam the big door (1960) story b...

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The Deceivers (1981)

Her name was Cindy, and she was his neighbour's wife - the woman next door in the kind of suburbia that didn't make headlines. These were real people, nice people like Cindy and Carl who fought with the desperation of the damned to keep from wanting each other. Suddenly, though, it was the right ...

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Contrary Pleasure (1985)

For years the Delevan family image reflected only the best of everything - wealth, position, influence, and the kind of expensive good looks that take generations to cultivate. No one dared suspect that their glittering façade, their cherished privacy masked hidden lusts, furtive pleasures and tw...

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Where is Janice Gantry? (1961)

new year's day...1 jan 15, thursday afternoon 4:39 p.m. e.s.t.#21 from macdonald for me...just finished The Deceivers, a great story, check it out. (1961) where is janice gantry?, john d macdonaldthis one begins:sometimes the hot night wind brings bad dreams. it came streaming and steaming out of...

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A Man of Affairs (1984)

Beneath the Bahamas sun rages a titanic power struggle. A mastermind of the dog-eat-dog world of corporate corruption, Mike Dean uses every asset at his disposal - women, liquor, his own personal magnetism - to take businessmen's minds off their troubles, soften their consciences, muddy their goo...

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The Only Girl in the Game (1981)

Her employers are the high priests of Las Vegas and she is their handmaiden. Her job is to lead the lambs to the sacrifice, to keep them happy at the tables, where her partners slaughter the suckers. She longs to be free of the entertainers rubbing elbows with thugs at the craps tables, the divor...

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Brass Cupcake (1981)

In Flower City, a sleepy resort town on Florida's Gulf Coast, wealthy Elizabeth Stegman is murdered in a jewel heist gone bad - her missing jewels insured for £750,000.It falls to hardboiled ex-cop Cliff Bartells to find the killer, retrieve the jewels and console the decedent's niece and only he...

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The Beach Girls

It gives the man who can do it a disturbing flavor of competence. Disturbing to me. I sat up in the bunk and watched him when he first started moving around on his boat with that light. I didn’t know he was back. Nobody knew when he was coming back, and I couldn’t make a point of asking directly....

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The Damned

Without glasses, his eyes saw all the night lights haloed by astigmatic mist. He felt drained, exhausted. If they hadn’t finally brought the man around, that man who used to live in Kerrville, he never would have understood what they were trying to tell him. &n...

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The Good Old Stuff

There were streaks of drying mud on the right sleeve of her pale yellow sweater. There was more mud on her freckled right arm. Death had flattened her body to the ground. Her tweed skirt was pushed up halfway between knee and hip. Her heels rested in the mud and her brown sandals toed in. The bla...

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Dress Her in Indigo

In the city. Sergeant Martinez brought a stack of papers out to the car. It was not a list, but rather a sheaf of faintly imprinted carbon copies of the Embassy requests, about forty of them. "He says it is for all of this year up until now," Enelio explained. Meyer went through them swiftly, wit...

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A Flash of Green

More than half the sky had gone black and the thunder obscured the rather nasal voice of Reverend Blue. Jimmy looked so odd standing on the grass in the daylight in a dark suit. Beyond a row of pines she could see the pastel colors of the traffic on the Bay Highway.There was that awkward pause wh...

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The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything

It rang and it also flashed an imperative red light at him."Couldn't you have let me know you'd be delayed, dear?" Charla asked."I'm sorry about that.""Do you have anyone with you?""No.""That seems very odd.""What's odd about it?""Don't public figures usually have a swarm of people around them, e...

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I Could Go on Singing (2013)

She opened the door, said a toneless, expressionless good morning and went back to her typing. He dropped his topcoat and hat on the chaise and went and stood looking out the window, hands in his hip pockets, unlit pipe clenched between his teeth. The sound of typing stopped. “George is with the ...

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The Drowner

He was a rubbery, darting, bouncing little man, pink and scrubbed and starched. He had an Einstein shock of gray hair, eyes a-goggle behind thick corrective lenses, a wide range of explosive conversational tricks, expressions, gestures—puffing his cheeks, smacking his lips, rolling his eyes, slap...

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Dead Low Tide

It took unusual circumstances to betray Elly into that much effort. “Heavens, isn’t it awful! On the radio and in this evening’s paper. Now there was a man.” “Sure was.” “A man with a lot of juice. A real man—type man like my Sam was. Once we didn’t have a jack and Sam held up the front end of th...

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End of the Tiger

At about three in the afternoon I stopped at an isolated gas station. We were tired, and the children had begun a peevish wrangling in the back seat. I thought a gas and Coke stop would freshen us up. Heat shimmered in the desert, and far stone hills looked cooler than they were. The gas station ...

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A Tan & Sandy Silence

A quirky guy but very logical. A good improviser. If one logical plan doesn't develop the way he wants it to, he thinks up an alternative just as good or better. And ... Lisa dear, just what the hell good are you to him? The end of usefulness. He knows there's a chance you'll make new friends who...

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The House Guests (2013)

I.Q. in man, maze skills in rats, chickens who play baseball, chimps who pile the boxes to reach a banana, the quicker learning and longer retention of cattle as compared to horses, the circus dog who will walk grotesquely on his front feet—all these things are small illuminations in a great dark...

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Weep for Me

It turned the downtown streets into airless ovens. The humidity was high, and the jacket I was forced to wear at work was a misery. Since the statements had been handled and in the week there had been no kickbacks, I had found a new kind of confidence. It wasn’t like the first week of July. It wa...

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On the Run

The air-conditioned Imperial seemed to float in an efficient and ghostly silence. He had a slight headache from the drinks. He had the eight hundred dollars he had taken out of the game in the upstairs room at the Chula Club. He was a heavy balding man who looked ten years older than his forty ye...

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The Brass Cupcake

She couldn’t see Melody until she was right at the booth. “Cliff! Oh, Cliff, I…” she stopped suddenly and the air grew a bit frosty. “Miss Baron, Miss Chance,” I said, standing up. “Sit down, Kathy. I’ll get hold of a chair.” ...

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The Crossroads

Her heart seemed to stop. She sat very still, then flung the sewing aside, flicked the record player off on her way to the door.He came in, and as always he seemed to dwarf the room, make it look fussy and fragile. As she closed the door behind him he said, “Jeana, I …”“Chip, let me …”“It’s the d...

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Wine of the Dreamers

The night air, as always, was cool. Night in this land, he thought, is different. The land seems to rest from the heavy fist of the sun.Step out of the cool shadows of early morning and the sun is a vast white blow between the eyes. The sun sucks greedily at all liquids. A man lost for a full day...

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The Empty Copper Sea

MacDonald Dedicated to all the shining memories of those last two passenger ships which flew the United States Flag the Monterey and the Mariposa, and to the mariners who sailed aboard them. A man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost. -Thoreau One VAN HA...

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Deadly Welcome

His arms were leaden. Each slow movement had to be tested cautiously to see how much it was going to hurt. Even in areas where he could not remember being hit, his muscles felt as though they had been dipped in cement and rolled in broken glass. It was a day of high, white, scattered clouds that ...

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