Nightmare in Pink (Travis McGee Mysteries (Audio))

Rating:
Summary: Spooky, and probably the craziest episode in the series....
Review: John D. MacDonald's salvage consultant goes to New York City to help out the kid sister of an old friend. She's a babe, of course, and McGee helps her unravel a complicated financial scam while curing what ails her with some of his own, patented expert hay rolling.

Along the way, he makes a major error and winds up trapped in a crooked mental hospital straight out of "Shock Corridor" but with nurses delivering doses of refried LSD and brain melting sedatives.

This is a creepy installment. An early rant by MacDonald, about how one day a minor altercation on the streets of New York will lead to a riot that will wipe out the city, sets the tone; things get really nasty when Trav slips and falls into the clutches of the scheming Dr. Varn -- I don't think MacDonald was much of a recreational drug user but his descriptions of the wrong kind of hallucinations do a good of depicting a bad trip.

Before McGee escapes, some pretty terrible things happen to him; he also has to resort to some seriously dirty tricks and, by the end, he's a basket case. This being only the second outing by McGee, it's odd to think that MacDonald would bang up his tough guy hero so badly, so early. Which makes "Nightmare in Pink" a great, chilling read but probably not the best place for a new reader to begin.

Rating:
Summary: Pink Elephant Time
Review: This 2nd of the Travis McGee series takes place in New York City where Travis fits about as well as Crocodile Dundee. John D. has not quite found his way with Travis yet, and it shows.

Travis is enjoined to look out for a buddy's little sister in the big bad city. Little sister is a babe (surprise!) and has her share of troubles. Her fiancé has just been murdered, and she has found a stash of $10,000 that she fears he scammed. Nina is distressingly a 'will you respect me in the morning' type of young lady that rings no truer now than it did in the early '60s, and Travis' famous philosophizing is really put to the test, however enchanted he is.

'Nightmare in Pink' is worth the price of admission just for the middle third of the book where Travis is captured in a private mental hospital and loaded with psychedelic drugs. His hallucinatory terrors are brilliantly and horrifyingly described, and the after-effects linger through the entire book.

The plot is a convoluted financial scam that MacDonald loves, but doesn't suit Travis too well (Meyer is not yet on the scene). Also cold, urban settings are not kind to a knight errant beach bum. Grade C-

Rating:
Summary: Chemical Warfare
Review: This is the official 'second' in John D. MacDonald's series about Travis McGee, the slightly tarnished knight from Lauderdale, whose chosen steed is a 52 foot houseboat. Second also in setting the general pattern of McGee books - a friend convinces McGee to take the case of another friend, usually a beautiful woman, and McGee grudgingly comes to the rescue - sometimes out of a sense of honor, and sometimes just for the money.

This time the 'asker' is Mike Gibson, a war buddy of McGee's who now lives as a permanent resident of the veteran's hospital. The 'fixee' is Nina, Mike's sister - distraught when her boyfriend (Howard Plummer) dies in a mugging. Nina finds a large bundle of money in a closet and becomes convinced that Howard was up to no good. Now Mike wants to help her out of her depression, even if she is unwilling. McGee, as usual, to the rescue.

As you might expect, Plummer's death was not what it seemed, and McGee finds himself enmeshed in a spectacular fraud that is bilking a company of millions while sending its victims to a mental ward. Which is where McGee winds up as well, in a nightmarish twist that plays like 'On Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.' Dropped into a hole from which there is no way to escape, McGee must fight for survival against a medical staff determined to steal his mind from him.

Perhaps the beauty of this story, other than MacDonald's powerful writing, is that it turns the 'tough-guy detective' genre on it's ear for a bit as McGee struggles with induced insanity, falls in love, and barely survives by the skin of his teeth. This is a tough-guy with plenty of weaknesses and soft spots. McGee, who serves as narrator, doesn't try to explain away his moments, good and bad, but reports them with a straightforward touch that makes him and easy favorite.

While this may not be the best of the series, for some reason it rings true and is one of my favorites. It predicts many of the themes and tricks that will go on to be imitated time and again. But never with quite the élan than MacDonlad has.