A Flash of Green

By John D. MacDonald

Book Overview

A Flash of Green tells the gripping story of small-town corruption and two people brave enough to fight back, featuring many of the themes John D. MacDonald explored better than anyone in his legendary career as a leading crime novelist. Introduction by Dean Koontz The opportunists have taken over Palm City. Silent and deadly, like the snakes that infest the nearby swamps, they lay hidden from view, waiting for the right moment to strike. Political subterfuge has already eased the residents toward selling out. All that's left now is to silence a few stubborn holdouts. James Wing is only trying to help a friend's widow. At least that's what he tells himself after warning Kat Hubble that the beautiful bay she and her neighbors have struggled to save is going to be sold to developers. He knows that he shouldn't have told her anything. He's a reporter, trained to reveal nothing. But he's falling in love with her. Now cutthroats have set their sights on Kat--and they'll do anything, use anyone, to stop her from interfering in their plans. Praise for John D. MacDonald "John D. MacDonald was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller." --Stephen King "The first modern writer to nail Florida dead-center, to capture all its languid sleaze, racy sense of promise, and breath-grabbing beauty." --Carl Hiaasen "To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen." --Kurt Vonnegut

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812985281
• ISBN13: 9780812985283
• Release Date: March 2014
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Pre-McGee

John D. MacDonald has always had the incredible knack for putting character development before plot. A FLASH OF GREEN is the precursor to the Travis McGee books, but MacDonald's gift for characters was already shining. Newspaperman Jimmy Wing, on the trail of a story which may ruin a small Florida ecosystem for development (what else is new?) decides to stick around for the ride, to see who's doing what. Chief among the perpetrators is Elmo Bliss--what a great name! And what a great character! I had just as much fun watching him than I did the narrator. Strangely, I felt I knew more about what made him tick, as opposed to Jimmy. (Then again Jimmy is terribly stand-offish). As the plot unwound, I felt that the pacing did, too. But what held this together, as I said, is the characters, and that's a big plus in my book!

All Fall Down

This is a strangely muted, yet exquisitely crafted , story from the creator of the Travis McGee detective novels. Local wheeler-dealers in a West Florida town devise a residential development that involves filling in a beautiful bay, to the dismay of the town's conservationists. Jimmy Wing, newspaperman, professes to help both camps, but is really in it only for the chance the view the "mechanism" of the conflict at close quarters. In the end, everyone emerges a loser; and Wing finds he has won a pyrrhic victory over his detachment from humanity. In this book, MacDonald probably brushes uncomfortably close to his real persona.