The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper - (Travis McGee) by John D MacDonald (Paperback)

About the Book

Includes an excerpt from "Dress her in indigo."

Book Synopsis

From a beloved master of crime fiction, The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.

He had done a big favor for her husband, then for the lady herself. Now she's dead, and Travis McGee finds that Helena Pearson Trescott had one last request of him: to find out why her beautiful daughter Maureen keeps trying to kill herself. But what can a devil-may-care beach bum do for a young troubled mind?

McGee makes his way to the prosperous town of Fort Courtney, Florida, where he realizes pretty quickly that something's just not right. Not only has Maureen's doctor killed herself, but a string of murders and suicides are piling up--and no one seems to have any answers.

Just when it seems that things can't get any stranger, McGee becomes the lead suspect in the murder of a local nurse. As if Maureen didn't have enough problems, the man on a mission to save her will have to save himself first--before time runs out.

"The Travis McGee novels are among the finest works of fiction ever penned by an American author."--Jonathan Kellerman

Featuring a new Introduction by Lee Child

Review Quotes

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

About the Author

John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short-story writer. His works include the Travis McGee series and the novel The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. In 1962 MacDonald was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980, he won a National Book Award. In print he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life, he was a truly empathetic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business, he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, "They pay me to do this! They don't realize, I would pay them." He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son. He died in 1986.