Murder Room
38 total works
Introduction by Dean Koontz
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.
Praise for John D. MacDonald
“John D. MacDonald was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King
“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
“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 hurricane of terrifying intensity is looming over Florida. Along a state highway, a handful of foolhardy souls trying to outrun the storm are forced to seek shelter in an abandoned house.
Thrown together by nothing more than chance, this disparate bunch of misfits includes an undercover agent seeking revenge for a personal tragedy, a burgeoning criminal in over his head, a beautiful young widow trying to start over, and a businessman whose life's work is crumbling before his eyes. Their refuge from the awesome power of nature becomes a sort of grand and grisly hotel - especially once the invisible hand of flying death descends.
Sam Glidden owed all his success to the opportunities he'd received from Thomas McGann, president of the Harrison Corporation. But now McGann was dead, and Mike Dean, a wildly flamboyant business speculator, was looking to add the Harrison Corporation to his long list of conquests.
McGann's spoiled offspring, Tommy and Louise, saw the chance to make instant big bucks by selling out their shares. But Sam Glidden couldn't stand to see everything he'd worked for gobbled up by a barracuda like Mike Dean. So he wangled an invitation to the sand-and-surf soiree Dean planned for Louise and Tommy in the Bahamas ...
Alex Doyle is a tough man on a tough assignment in Ramona Beach, Florida - the kind of place that doesn't trust strangers and is policed by a sheriff who echoes the locals' sentiments with a billy club. But Alex isn't an outsider, exactly. He grew up in Ramona Beach - until they railroaded him out of town. 'Can't trust trash,' they said.
Alex has never been back, until his employer sends him home to locate a government scientist and get him out alive. Unfortunately for Alex, Ramona Beach has a long memory. Unfortunately for Ramona Beach, so does Alex.
A gunman on the run, a seventeen-year-old girl on a family vacation, a jaded working girl, a guilt-stricken widower, an abandoned mistress. All heading fast down a route to sudden death. Then for one horrifying instant their lives are frozen in time, when a Cadillac drives at speed into oncoming traffic.
Lives are lost, and those that survive must endure a violent sequence of events that ensure life will never be the same again - for any of them.
Contains the two novellas Border Town Girl and Linda.
Border Town Girl
Once, Lane Sanson had been a Somebody - war correspondent and a bestselling author. Now he was a Nobody, bumming around Mexico. Lost, lonely, hungry for hope, he was a pushover for a border town B-girl - the perfect fall guy for a lethal frame up . . .
Linda
She was born with the morality gene missing. As beautiful, as inviting, as treacherous as the sea around her, Linda is one of the most compelling women ever created by John D. MacDonald.
Her veneer was big city ... But one look and you knew that Toni Raselle's instincts were straight out of the river shack she came from. I watched her as she toyed with the man, laughing, her tumbled hair like raw blue-black silk, her brown shoulders bare. Eyes deep-set, a girl with a gypsy look.
So this was the girl I had risked my life to find. This was the girl who was going to lead me to a buried fortune in stolen loot.
Offering indisputable evidence of the early talent that was to lead him to the top of the bestseller lists everywhere, these fourteen tales of crime and corruption, of sleuthing and suspense, of treachery, intrigue, and revenge, by the incomparable John D. MacDonald, were selected from the hundreds that originally appeared in the immensely popular pulp magazines of the late 1940s.
Superb entertainment from one of crime's most famous and accomplished writers.
'The stories share MacDonald's love of a buzz ending and the biting setup' Chicago Sun-Times
Clint Sewell knew there wasn't a wife within fifty miles who didn't have reason to murder Mary Olan - because there wasn't a husband around who didn't think the grass was greener in Mary Olan's bedroom.
The latest occupant was Sewell's boss, Dodd Raymond - a man not above using Sewell to cover up his sins. And maybe not above letting Clint take the rap when the fabulous Mary is found dead in Sewell's bedroom closet with his belt around her neck.
For years the Delevan family image reflected only the best of everything - wealth, position, influence, and the kind of expensive good looks that take generations to cultivate.
No one dared suspect that their glittering facade, their cherished privacy masked hidden lusts, furtive pleasures and twisted dreams that would soon erupt into a pattern of strange violence that threatened to destroy them all.
The Varaki family run the local grocery store, but tragedy hits the family hard. The sudden death of the matriarch of the clan is followed by the favourite son's death in Korea. The teenage daughter falls in with a bad crowd and there's also the other son, Walter, who has been dipping into the till to fund his escape from Doris, his sharp-tongued wife. Then there are the villains ...
When their lives intersect the action builds to a bloody and explosive conclusion ...
Introduction by Dean Koontz
Sam Bowden has it all: a successful law career, a devoted wife, and three children. But a terrifying figure from Bowden’s past looms in the shadows, waiting to shatter his pristine existence.
Fourteen years ago, Bowden’s testimony put Max Cady behind bars. Ever since, the convicted rapist has been nursing a grudge into an unrelenting passion for revenge. Cady has been counting the days until he is set free, desperate to destroy the man he blames for all his troubles. Now that time has come.
Praise for Cape Fear
“The best of [John D. MacDonald’s stand-alone] novels . . . an acute psychological study of base instinct, terror, mistakes, and raw emotion.”—Lee Child
“A powerful and frightening story.”—The New York Times
“Terrific suspense.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Originally published as The Executioners
Introduction by Dean Koontz
Crissy Harkinson knows all about the cash that left the Gold Coast of Florida, headed for the Bahamas on board a pleasure boat. It came from Texas, unrecorded, intended as a bribe. Now it is Crissy’s last chance for the big score she’s been working toward for years, using her brains and her body.
Then other people get involved, including a Texas lawyer too cool to commit himself to anything or anybody, a beautiful Cuban maid who might not be as silly as she seems, and a pitifully broken girl, adrift and unconscious in a tiny boat on the giant blue river of the Gulf Stream. Turns out these are shark-infested waters. And none of them are going down without a fight.
Praise for John D. MacDonald and The Last One Left
“As a young writer, all I ever wanted was to touch readers as powerfully as John D. MacDonald touched me.”—Dean Koontz
“A stunning adventure.”—Chicago Tribune
“John D. MacDonald created a staggering quantity of wonderful books, each rich with characterization, suspense, and an almost intoxicating sense of place.”—Jonathan Kellerman
From the author of the world-famous Travis McGee thrillers, thirteen of John D. MacDonald's earliest and best crime and mystery stories brought together in one volume.
Written at the beginning of his career and originally published in American magazines only, these stories give us a taste of MacDonald's early achievements and show the range of his skill in the realm of mystery and thriller writing.
'Sharp, taut, realistic ... an impressive selection' Times
A choice collection of seven short stories by one of America's foremost storytellers and the author of the best-selling Travis McGee series.
Featuring 'Dear Old Friend', 'The Annex', Quarrel', 'Double Hannenframis', 'The Random Noise of Love', The Willow Pool and 'Woodchuck', this collection displays MacDonald at his classic best. Starring a cast of immoral broads, hedonistic thrill-seekers, naive victims and profligate playboys, these seven short stories showcase the writing that propelled John D MacDonald to success.
More than half a century ago, Papa Drovek opened his small grocery store at the junction of two country roads. As he bought more and more land, the roads became highways, and now the Droveks own a complex of hotels, restaurants, a truck stop, a shopping centre and two gas stations.
Papa's eldest son, Charles, is president of the Crossroads Corporation. His son Leo enjoys his token job, and daughter Joan manages the commercial tenants' leases. But when younger son Pete's wife gets restless and lonely, she becomes an easy pawn in a sleazy scheme of robbery and murder. The target? Old Papa Drovek himself.
Tucker Loomis is a hard and dangerous man with a ruthlessness all West Bay fears and respects, and an improbable amount of money. Wade Rowley is a common man who aspires to honour but gets caught up in the footwork of a skilled swindler.
In a pitiless game, with a few harsh rules and just one way of keeping score, the wrong man will die. And another will get away with more than murder.
'Lively, gritty ... complex and convincing' New York Times Book Review
Leo Rice seems like a nice enough guy, but why does he have to choose their beach? He could head ten miles up the Florida strip and everyone could just live happily ever after - no questions asked.
But Leo Rice does ask questions ... and suddenly Stebbins' Marina, an oasis of easy living, hard drinking and free love for its residents, is in jeopardy. And in less than a month, their paradise will be interrupted by twisted emotions, buried hatred - and brutal murder.