I agree with those who put forth A KEY TO THE SUITE and SOFT
TOUCH as two of JDMs best. Certainly there are six or seven
others equally as good.
I think there were two JDMs working at the same career. In
the pulp days, which he caught the tail end of, JDM did flat
out hardboiled which proved, in the long run, to be his best
work. And he also did quite a bit of work for the slicks. The
Saturday Evening Post stories, of which he was obviously so
proud, read flat and empty today. The early Gold Medal
stand-alones are his legacy.
Anybody who reads his letters to Dan Rowan of "Rowan &
Martin's Laugh-In" knows what a prig JDM could sometimes be
on a personal level, a Witchfinder in the making. Rowan is
dumping his present wife for a young babe and JDM feels
loyalty to the wife, whom he obviously respects and likes.
The problem is that he can't let go with a simple you're
making a mistake. He becomes the Pope. Rowan is about to be
ex-communicated from the world of JDM. And it's this papal
inclination that makes Trav baby such an insufferable twit. I
wrote somewhere that "Travis McGee is a Rotarian's idea of a
cool guy." I think that's pretty much true.
I still feel that JDM was the best pure storytellerof his
generation. I remember when I discovered Ross Macdonald. I
felt disloyal to JDM for thinking that Ross was a far better
writer than sturdy John. These days I feel that Ross Mc was
the most important private eye writer of all time and one of
the few writers--Simenon, Ross Mc's wife Margaret Millar,
Malcolm Braly, Ruth Rendell and a handful of others--who
turned the pulp formula into real art. I don't see anybody
today, for all the noise, who comes close as yet.
To his credit JDM understood the nickle-dime banality of most
evil--not the evil of Hannibal Lechter but the evil of the
bastard who kills a convenience store clerk for fifty bucks
and change. It gets too tricked up and self-conscious today,
make my day and all that theaterical bullshit. JDM just
looked it in the eye and saw it for the stupid tiresome
cruelty of the career criminal it is.
JDM was overpraised in his time but now that he's passed he's
being underpraised. Start with A KEY TO THE SUITE and go on
to SOFT TOUCH and DEAD LOW TIDE. I think you'll see what the
fuss was about when he was riding the top of the bestseller
list. I just wish it hadn't been with the interminable
McGees.
Ed Gorman
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