Thrillers & Suspense
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Darker Than Amber: A Travis McGee Novel
From a beloved master of crime fiction, Darker Than Amber is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.
A fishing trip is anything but relaxing when Travis McGee is involved. As McGee and his friend Meyer settle down to some midnight casting, a woman falls into the water from the bridge above them. Her name is Evangeline, and the hints she gives about the events leading to her near drowning suggest a less than pristine past. But McGee has saved her, and now he wants to see her make a new life-even if it means confronting a gang of murderers that makes his blood run cold.
"John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in his field."-Mary Higgins Clark
Evangeline may be the intended target in a complex scheme, but she's no ordinary victim. Behind her darker than amber eyes is a woman who lures men onto her boat and robs them, throwing them overboard when she's done with them. And now she's enlisted the resistant Travis and Meyer to rescue her "savings" from her partners in crime.
When Evangeline winds up dead, McGee and Meyer must get involved. But the stakes are high-and Evangeline may not be the only casualty of her cruel game.
Features a new Introduction by Lee Child
A fishing trip is anything but relaxing when Travis McGee is involved. As McGee and his friend Meyer settle down to some midnight casting, a woman falls into the water from the bridge above them. Her name is Evangeline, and the hints she gives about the events leading to her near drowning suggest a less than pristine past. But McGee has saved her, and now he wants to see her make a new life-even if it means confronting a gang of murderers that makes his blood run cold.
"John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in his field."-Mary Higgins Clark
Evangeline may be the intended target in a complex scheme, but she's no ordinary victim. Behind her darker than amber eyes is a woman who lures men onto her boat and robs them, throwing them overboard when she's done with them. And now she's enlisted the resistant Travis and Meyer to rescue her "savings" from her partners in crime.
When Evangeline winds up dead, McGee and Meyer must get involved. But the stakes are high-and Evangeline may not be the only casualty of her cruel game.
Features a new Introduction by Lee Child
Editorial Reviews
Praise for John D. MacDonald and the Travis McGee novels
"The great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller."-Stephen King
"My favorite novelist of all time . . . All I ever wanted was to touch readers as powerfully as John D. MacDonald touched me. No price could be placed on the enormous pleasure that his books have given me. He captured the mood and the spirit of his times more accurately, more hauntingly, than any ‘literature' writer-yet managed always to tell a thunderingly good, intensely suspenseful tale."-Dean Koontz
"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
"A master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer . . . John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in the field. Talk about the best."-Mary Higgins Clark
"A dominant influence on writers crafting the continuing series character . . . I envy the generation of readers just discovering Travis McGee, and count myself among the many readers savoring his adventures again."-Sue Grafton
"One of the great sagas in American fiction."-Robert B. Parker
"Most readers loved MacDonald's work because he told a rip-roaring yarn. I loved it because he was 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
"The consummate pro, a master storyteller and witty observer . . . John D. MacDonald created a staggering quantity of wonderful books, each rich with characterization, suspense, and an almost intoxicating sense of place. The Travis McGee novels are among the finest works of fiction ever penned by an American author and they retain a remarkable sense of freshness."-Jonathan Kellerman
"What a joy that these timeless and treasured novels are available again."-Ed McBain
"Travis McGee is the last of the great knights-errant: honorable, sensual, skillful, and tough. I can't think of anyone who has replaced him. I can't think of anyone who would dare."-Donald Westlake
"There's only one thing as good as reading a John D. MacDonald novel: reading it again. A writer way ahead of his time, his Travis McGee books are as entertaining, insightful, and suspenseful today as the moment I first read them. He is the all-time master of the American mystery novel."-John Saul
"The great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller."-Stephen King
"My favorite novelist of all time . . . All I ever wanted was to touch readers as powerfully as John D. MacDonald touched me. No price could be placed on the enormous pleasure that his books have given me. He captured the mood and the spirit of his times more accurately, more hauntingly, than any ‘literature' writer-yet managed always to tell a thunderingly good, intensely suspenseful tale."-Dean Koontz
"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
"A master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer . . . John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in the field. Talk about the best."-Mary Higgins Clark
"A dominant influence on writers crafting the continuing series character . . . I envy the generation of readers just discovering Travis McGee, and count myself among the many readers savoring his adventures again."-Sue Grafton
"One of the great sagas in American fiction."-Robert B. Parker
"Most readers loved MacDonald's work because he told a rip-roaring yarn. I loved it because he was 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
"The consummate pro, a master storyteller and witty observer . . . John D. MacDonald created a staggering quantity of wonderful books, each rich with characterization, suspense, and an almost intoxicating sense of place. The Travis McGee novels are among the finest works of fiction ever penned by an American author and they retain a remarkable sense of freshness."-Jonathan Kellerman
"What a joy that these timeless and treasured novels are available again."-Ed McBain
"Travis McGee is the last of the great knights-errant: honorable, sensual, skillful, and tough. I can't think of anyone who has replaced him. I can't think of anyone who would dare."-Donald Westlake
"There's only one thing as good as reading a John D. MacDonald novel: reading it again. A writer way ahead of his time, his Travis McGee books are as entertaining, insightful, and suspenseful today as the moment I first read them. He is the all-time master of the American mystery novel."-John Saul
Readers Top Reviews
HMS WarspiteJoseph S
When Travis McGee and his buddy Meyer decided to do some midnight fishing under a bridge, they never expected a lady with concrete overshoes to be dropped practically on their heads. Nor did they expect the tale the lady had to tell after being rescued. And this was a tale they couldn't walk away from... "Darker Than Amber" is one of the better Travis McGee novels, with our hero facing off against a ruthless crew. The plot moves right along to its fulfilling ending, thanks to steady direction by author John D. McDonald. Well recommended to fans of the series.
Steve F.John T.
I've been a fan of John D. McDonald for a long time now. While this is not his best book, it's the first one I read and the only one ever done as a feature film (somebody please see about releasing the film!) I wanted to revisit it to see if it held up. After a slow start it does. Fishing one night the lead character Travis McGee and his good friend Meyer are interrupted by a woman named Vangie who is tossed off a bridge with weights attached to her ankles. McGee is barely able to save her. It is only while he and Meyer are nursing her back to health that they find out about some of her past. Part of a group who prey on men on cruises, this woman has earned the wrath of her partners who are afraid she'll turn on them. Just as McGee thinks he's gotten her full trust, she runs off, is caught by her partners and killed. Not willing to let it go, McGee and Meyer find out how these crooks set up their prey and where. McGee then hires an actress to impersonate Vangie at just the right moment to set his trap in motion. I've always enjoyed McDonald's descriptions of people, how they talk and the sounds things make (ex. "the buckety swash sound of water in the bottom of an aluminum canoe"). The description given of the series protagonist, Travis McGee is a knight in slightly tarnished armor. He will help people who are in desperate need of it but his price is always half of what they have or are going after. But he does have a moral code and there are some lines he will not cross. If you've not read any of John D. McDonald's books, here's a good place to start.
Jim
Travis Magee always gets involved in danger trying to help out the people who need it most.
Allison Strong
The protagonist of this book is a tenderhearted philosopher in a South Florida Beach Bum's body. The author uses the protagonist to make points about the underside of our society. My friends and I call these passages "Rants" and the more Travis McGee books I read, the more I adore the rants. Lots of fun, but because the book was written decades ago some of the gender and race references are dated and un pc.
Mark Brown
Easier to follow than most in this series. McGee exhibits admirable restraint whilst rescuing damsels, ferreting out clues with his buddy Meyers, and doing even more self-examination. A good rainy-day read from an exceptional author.
Short Excerpt Teaser
One
We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge.
They came to a yelping stop overhead, out of sight, dumped her over the bridge right and took off.
It was a hot Monday night in June. With moon. It was past midnight and just past the tide change. A billion bugs were vectoring in on us as the wind began to die.
It seemed to be a very final way of busting up a romance.
I was sitting there under the bridge in a skiff with my friend Meyer. We were under the end of the bridge nearest the town of Marathon, and it is the first highway bridge beyond Marathon on your way to Key West-if you are idiot enough to want to go to Key West.
My bachelor houseboat, The Busted Flush, was tied up at Thompson's Marina in Marathon. It had been there since Saturday afternoon. After I got in I phoned Meyer at Bahia Mar in Lauderdale, where he lives aboard his cabin cruiser. I'd been gone a little longer than I'd planned, and I had one small errand for him to do, and one small apology for him to make for me. I said that in return, if he wanted to come on down to Marathon by bus, I could put him into a good snook hole at the right time of year, tide and moon, and then he could come on back to Bahia Mar with me aboard the Flush, and we'd get in late Wednesday afternoon, probably-not that it mattered.
Meyer is the best of company, because he knows when talk is better than silence, and he tries to do more than his share of all the less interesting chores.
Until I asked him to join me, and heard him say yes, I had thought I wanted to be completely alone for a few days.
I'd just finished spending ten days aboard the Flush with an old friend named Virginia, known as Vidge. She had come rocketing down from Atlanta, in wretched shape emotionally, trying to find out who she used to be before three years of a sour marriage had turned her into somebody she didn't even like anymore. In the old days she'd never been skyrockets-just a quiet, pretty, decent gal with a nice oblique sense of fun and games, and the manifest destiny of being a good wife.
After three years of Charlie, she was gaunted, shrill, shaky, and couldn't tell you what time it was without her eyes filling with tears. So I took her cruising. You have to let them talk it out. She felt enormous guilt at not being able to make the marriage work. But the more she talked, the more I realized she hadn't had a chance. She was too passive, too permissive, too subdued for an emotional fascist like Charlie. He had leaned too hard. He had eroded her confidence in herself, in everything she thought she was able to do, from meeting people to cooking dinner to driving a car. Finally he had gone to work on her sexual capacities. Were the sexes reversed, you could call it emasculation. People like Charlie work toward total and perpetual domination. They feed on the mate. And Vidge didn't even realize that running away from him had been a form of self-preservation, a way of trying to hang fast to the last crumbs of identity and pride.
At first she talked endlessly, but she couldn't get all the way down to it. She kept saying what a great guy he was and how she had failed him in everything. The third evening, at anchor in a quiet corner of Florida Bay, I managed to get enough of Dr. Travis McGee's truth serum into her. Clean, pure Plymouth gin. By arguing with her, contradicting her, I edged her ever closer to the truth. And in the final half hour, before she passed out, she broke through the barrier and described how much she truly hated that destructive, domineering son of a bitch Charlie. It was very graphic, and she had no idea I was taping it. When she passed out I toted her to the guest stateroom and tucked her in. She slept a little better than around the clock, and was subdued and rueful the next day. That evening she started handing me the Charlie-myth again, and what a failure she was. I played her tape for her. She had hysterics which settled down into a good long hard cry. And after that she was famished enough to eat twenty ounces of rare steak. She slept the clock around again, and woke up feeling that maybe it would be pointless to give the marriage another big try. Vidge and I had a private history of a small affair way back. It would have been better if we had both wanted the same things out of life. But we had kidded ourselves and each other for a time-before reality set in.
The attempt to relive that pleasant nostalgia was a clumsy failure. Charlie had so thoroughly insulted her womanhood she was far too nervous and anxious to be reached. She was certain she had become frigid. I attempted another of...
We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge.
They came to a yelping stop overhead, out of sight, dumped her over the bridge right and took off.
It was a hot Monday night in June. With moon. It was past midnight and just past the tide change. A billion bugs were vectoring in on us as the wind began to die.
It seemed to be a very final way of busting up a romance.
I was sitting there under the bridge in a skiff with my friend Meyer. We were under the end of the bridge nearest the town of Marathon, and it is the first highway bridge beyond Marathon on your way to Key West-if you are idiot enough to want to go to Key West.
My bachelor houseboat, The Busted Flush, was tied up at Thompson's Marina in Marathon. It had been there since Saturday afternoon. After I got in I phoned Meyer at Bahia Mar in Lauderdale, where he lives aboard his cabin cruiser. I'd been gone a little longer than I'd planned, and I had one small errand for him to do, and one small apology for him to make for me. I said that in return, if he wanted to come on down to Marathon by bus, I could put him into a good snook hole at the right time of year, tide and moon, and then he could come on back to Bahia Mar with me aboard the Flush, and we'd get in late Wednesday afternoon, probably-not that it mattered.
Meyer is the best of company, because he knows when talk is better than silence, and he tries to do more than his share of all the less interesting chores.
Until I asked him to join me, and heard him say yes, I had thought I wanted to be completely alone for a few days.
I'd just finished spending ten days aboard the Flush with an old friend named Virginia, known as Vidge. She had come rocketing down from Atlanta, in wretched shape emotionally, trying to find out who she used to be before three years of a sour marriage had turned her into somebody she didn't even like anymore. In the old days she'd never been skyrockets-just a quiet, pretty, decent gal with a nice oblique sense of fun and games, and the manifest destiny of being a good wife.
After three years of Charlie, she was gaunted, shrill, shaky, and couldn't tell you what time it was without her eyes filling with tears. So I took her cruising. You have to let them talk it out. She felt enormous guilt at not being able to make the marriage work. But the more she talked, the more I realized she hadn't had a chance. She was too passive, too permissive, too subdued for an emotional fascist like Charlie. He had leaned too hard. He had eroded her confidence in herself, in everything she thought she was able to do, from meeting people to cooking dinner to driving a car. Finally he had gone to work on her sexual capacities. Were the sexes reversed, you could call it emasculation. People like Charlie work toward total and perpetual domination. They feed on the mate. And Vidge didn't even realize that running away from him had been a form of self-preservation, a way of trying to hang fast to the last crumbs of identity and pride.
At first she talked endlessly, but she couldn't get all the way down to it. She kept saying what a great guy he was and how she had failed him in everything. The third evening, at anchor in a quiet corner of Florida Bay, I managed to get enough of Dr. Travis McGee's truth serum into her. Clean, pure Plymouth gin. By arguing with her, contradicting her, I edged her ever closer to the truth. And in the final half hour, before she passed out, she broke through the barrier and described how much she truly hated that destructive, domineering son of a bitch Charlie. It was very graphic, and she had no idea I was taping it. When she passed out I toted her to the guest stateroom and tucked her in. She slept a little better than around the clock, and was subdued and rueful the next day. That evening she started handing me the Charlie-myth again, and what a failure she was. I played her tape for her. She had hysterics which settled down into a good long hard cry. And after that she was famished enough to eat twenty ounces of rare steak. She slept the clock around again, and woke up feeling that maybe it would be pointless to give the marriage another big try. Vidge and I had a private history of a small affair way back. It would have been better if we had both wanted the same things out of life. But we had kidded ourselves and each other for a time-before reality set in.
The attempt to relive that pleasant nostalgia was a clumsy failure. Charlie had so thoroughly insulted her womanhood she was far too nervous and anxious to be reached. She was certain she had become frigid. I attempted another of...
