A Flash of Green

A Novel

By: John D. MacDonald

Narrated by: Richard Ferrone

Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

A classic novel by John D. MacDonald with an exclusive introduction written and read by Dean Koontz.

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. 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.

©1962 John D. MacDonald. Copyright renewed 1990 by Maynard MacDonald. (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Good story

Maybe a little long winded with a not very satisfying ending if you like things upbeat but real characters real dialogue a real plot and subplots and couldn’t stop listening once it started. That’s John D.

I see now just how polemical JDM can be...

I’ve read this novel at least once, and I am a confirmed John D. MacDonald fanboy, So I was keen to hear this story via Audible, and just finished it today.

This is a good story; one of the better, and certainly one of the most ambitious, of JDM’s non-Travis McGee novels. Here, he can unleash his deserved fury at the real estate development culture that has very nearly destroyed Florida (this book is set in 1961, I think), at small-minded civic boosterism and intolerance, at how money does what money does: corrupt and entitle.

But hearing the book made me realize how overstuffed this plot is (when he brings in evangelical preachers at the 10th or 11th hour, I thought he might have jumped the shark. The is easily twice as long as his typical “pulpier” novels, and therefore feels out of character, like he’s trying to make a point (or rather several points).

Finally, I do give props to the actor for a herculean task – rendering so many characters – but the man sounds too urban and too New York (or somewhere northern) to do justice to south Florida. He’s a good narrator, but I’m not sure he was the best choice for this book.

Disjointed depressing

This is an audio book I depend on hearing the voices the voices were not correct for the characters speech addiction was good but you can't make a 65 year old lady sound like a 16 year old girl also too many characters none of them with any real likableopersonality they were all said sorry sex story is about the degradation of Florida's environment and the corruption Of the good old boys that work the system by getting into politics early. It is especially painful for me having retired to Costa Rica and from Florida and fighting the same battles I am a John Deere McDonald fan I lived in Florida and now in Costa Rica Carol

Written 60 years ago

Poor Florida . Ruined by developers and rampant pillaging of its natural beauty. This classic story about the sordid and corrupt dredging and development of fictional Grassy Bay off of Sarasota is a perfect example of political corruption in Florida. Money talks. Elmo Bliss is the typical corrupt politician. The book is the classic as promised by Jack Davis in another great Audible book, The Gulf.
10/10 about the pillaging of Florida. The book was written in 1962, but is applicable in 2022

My least favorite

This is my least favorite of all novels from this author. It was plodding and I really didn't care much about any of the characters especially the protagonist. It's the most forgettable book that I have listened to in a very long time.