The Quick Red Fox

A Travis McGee Novel, Book 4

By: John D. MacDonald

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

It was the standard blackmail scheme. For years, sultry Lysa Dean's name on a movie had meant a bonanza at the box office. Now a set of pictures could mean the end of her career.

When first approached for help by lovely Dana Holtzer, Lysa's personal secretary, Travis McGee is thoroughly turned off by the tacky details. But being low on cash, and tenderly attracted by the star's intriguingly remote secretary, McGee sets out to locate his suspects -- only to find that they start turning up dead!

©1964 John D. MacDonald Publishing, Inc. Renewal © 1992 Maynard MacDonald (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[T]he great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller." (Stephen King)

"[M]y favorite novelist of all time." (Dean Koontz)

"[W]hat a joy that these timeless and treasured novels are available again." (Ed McBain)

Good entry in the series, fantastic narration

Travis McGee is a cynical, philosophic knight in tarnished armor. Here he gets involved in a Hollywood blackmail scheme. MacDonald's views on women, and especially lesbians, are woefully outdated, and there was a scene or two here that made me cringe, but the writing is top-notch and McGee is a great character. I got to see Robert Petkoff in the musical Fun Home just a few weeks ago, so it was nice to have a face to go with the voice! I thought he did a marvelous job with the narration, and I'll get getting the other books in the series.

So glad this series is available

I played VB @ Bahia Mar We had 2 courts. Macdonald has always been a favorite of mine. Travis McGee and Meyers a staple of my reading life. They are as good today as they were then. Now I get to keep them on audible.

A man from the first half of the 20th century

These are classic mystery stories written at a time when $10,000.00 was equal to $100,000.00 in today dollars. Also men and women had different rolls. If you take that into the balance of the story, you can enjoy the mystery, and how Trav solves each problem he encounters. I have started with book one, and have now completed book 7. They all get better I have found. Just have to get used to some of the dated language and interplay between characters. It's not 2012, but late 1960's. I still find the stories really well written and have enough mystery and strange turns of events to make each Travis McGee story a gem.

John D hasn't aged well

This book would be a good thesis starter on John D's attitude to women. At one point the plot leads to a woman being held/comforted by radical butch lesbians so he beats them up and then decides to spank them!
I found John D in this novel sometimes really good but sometimes taking too many short cuts in the plot, an example being constructing the twisted and complicated motivations of a dead character, a photographer, out of whole cloth. He did this too many times, as well he tends to moralize and comes across as pretty old fashioned in his attitudes. The plot was pretty tight though and was under 7 hours.
The narrator was good although a bit boyish in voice for my tastes. Not sure if I'll buy another, think I might try another mystery writer I grew up with, Ross MacDonald, and see how he aged.

McGees loneliness begins to come front and center

Time travel in many ways. Film cameras and dark rooms. Negatives. Being able to get on an airplane on an hour from your hotel before you even have a ticket. A quaint attitude towards gay and lesbian sex.
As Travis's personality develops his lines and waspish moral values play a more Central role.
Not surprisingly Hollywood comes off poorly. MacDonald had bad luck with Hollywood.

Not Cohesive

I like JD usually, but this one lost me. I was never sure what was actually happening in the narrative, clunky.

Another Great from MacDonald

Petkoff’s range is astounding! He truly brings the characters to life. MacDonald, once again, infuses on-point social commentary and twists of plot in another McGee thriller!

Hate the ending

I can’t believe the end was the end. My first Travis McGee book. Pretty good.

A prophet writing in the wilderness of the 1960s

"The world is shiny and the surface is a little too frangible. Something can reach out of the black and grab you at any moment. Everybody wears a different set of compulsions. You can be maimed without warning, in body or in spirit, by a very nice guy. It is the luck of your draw. I did not feel like a nice guy."
- John D. MacDonald, The Quick Red Fox

A solid, early addition to the Travis McGee series. All the cynical, hard John D. MacDonald prose I could ask for. Part of what I love about MacDonald is his ability to both write like a cheap 10¢ noir novelist and at the same time like an iconic, modern-day Cassandra. 50-years ago, inside these pulp detective novels, he was warning past readers about our sick, slick present. Reading MacDonald is to constantly come across sentences and paragraphs that fill you with unbounded joy. Seriously. Here he is describing San Francisco:

"San Francisco is the most depressing city in America. The come-latelys might not think so. They may be enchanted by the sea of mystery of the Nob and Russian and Telegraph, by the sea mystery of the Bridge over to redwood country on a foggy night, by the urban compartmentalization of Chinese, Spanish, Greek, Japanese, by the smartness of the women and the city's iron clutch on the culture. It might look just fine to the new ones.

But there are too many of us who used to love her. She was like a wild classy kook of a gal, one of those rain-walkers, laughing gray eyes, tousle of dark hair -- sea misty, a lithe and lovely lady, who could laugh at you or with you, and at herself when needs be. A sayer of strange and lovely things. A girl to be in love with, with love like a heady magic.

But she had lost it, boy. She used to give it away, and now she sells it to the tourists. She imitates herself. Her figure has thickened. The things she says now are mechanical and memorized. She overcharges for cynical services."

But he is best when he is bemoaning the loss of privacy, the loss of liberty, the creep of industry an government interference.

"I get this crazy feeling. Every once in a while I get it. I get the feeling that this is the last time in history when the offbeats like me will have a chance to live free in the nooks and crannies of the huge and rigid structure of an increasingly codified society. Fifty years from now [this book was originally published in 1964, so 2014] I would be hunted down in the street. They would drill little holes in my skull and make me sensible and reliable and adjusted."

Not quite Philip K. Dick, but close. Different genre, different prophet writing in the wilderness, but same damn brain-dead apocalypse.

Good read, John D. McDonald never disappoints.

Would you consider the audio edition of The Quick Red Fox to be better than the print version?

yes

What about Robert Petkoff’s performance did you like?

I really liked Robert Petkoff's performance, however, I missed Darren McGavin. His voice is who I think on when I think of Travis McGee

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes