Cinnamon Skin

"My God, McGee, can't you come up with something more original?" "I thought it was." "It's a song, you idiot. Piel Canela: Cinnamon Skin. They sing it all over Mexico." - sometimes a compliment just doesn't work CINNAMON SKIN begins on an ominous note; McGee's gentle, scholarly friend Meyer, a year after the events of FREE FALL IN CRIMSON, is still suffering from having broken in the face of some very heavy threats by a particularly murderous psychopath. (As CINNAMON SKIN is self-contained - McGee summarizes Meyer's situation for his current, unusually long-running girlfriend Annie Renzetti at the start of the book - it isn't necessary to read CRIMSON first, although since it introduced Annie as well as Meyer's problem I'd recommend having it handy at least to read afterward.) However, just as the reader may begin to suspect that this book will follow a predicable formula - Meyer helps McGee with a salvage operation, regains his self-respect - two separate plans to try to help Meyer out yield unexpected results. An old friend and colleague has arranged for Meyer to give a talk in Canada, while Meyer's only living relative, his niece Norma, arranged to visit with her new husband Evan Lawrence, and thanks to crossed wires Meyer's out of town for part of Norma's visit while she and Evan stay aboard his houseboat, the JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES. Consequently, when Meyer's boat is bombed and lost with all aboard while on a fishing jaunt, Meyer himself isn't there. He's lost the last of his family, his home, and nearly everything he owns thanks to a self-proclaimed terrorist attack - but *that* snaps him out of his frozen depression. He's determined to see Norma avenged, and McGee (of course) is in on this from the start. But the facts don't add up. The supposed Chilean outfit that claimed responsibility doesn't seem to exist, and nobody else involved in Meyer's only Chilean-related project has ever been threatened. Who was the intended victim? Hacksaw Jenkins, a straight-arrow charterboat row captain known to stay away from drug action? Norma, a rising young field geologist for a Texas oil company? Evan, a footloose good ol' boy? The scene quickly moves from Florida to Texas as Meyer and McGee begin digging into the recent past of Norma and Evan. The necessary formalities of settling Norma's estate quickly set them on the beginning of a very long trail, where the missing pieces are the most significant of all: missing people, and missing money. The most notable settings in the book are Texas in high summer (various places, Meyer and McGee do a lot of driving without many fast-talking scams) and Cancun (which was a very new development at the time of the action of the book). Several nice touches, a few of which I'll mention. McGee's relationship with Annie, the very successful manager of a hotel in Naples, has issues other than his long field trips for his job: *her* job involves working for a large company, with up-and-out promotion prospects. Various

If there's anywhere I'd rather go with Travis McGee other than Florida, it's Mexico. John D. MacDonald dives into the country's culture and landscape in "Cinnamon Skin" with his patented combination of cynicism, idealism, lechery and expertly rendered action, and you'll be really glad you came along for the ride. "Cinnamon" is one of the later books in the series, and finds Travis and Meyer a little the worse for wear, time and loss having taken a toll. Travis starts the book by losing yet another good woman, and Meyer's still traumatized by events in the book before. That's what makes this series so great--the author's willingness to bring us along as his characters age, suffer and make mistakes. I'm a younger, female reader, but have yet to find any mystery writer working today who even comes close to MacDonald. Basically, when I need a mystery fix, I'm more likely to re-read one of these than bother with the hacks that clutter the best-seller lists. Warm thanks to the publishers who brought out these spiffy new editions--even though a big part of the fun of discovering MacDonald is stumbling across the tattered original paperbacks with 1970s reciepts used as bookmarks and "Valley of the Dolls"-like babes on the covers. Enjoy, and don't waste any more time on the inferior imitations!

A boat blows up coming into harbor in the Florida Keys. Within hours a Chilean Terrorist group claims responsibility for planting the bomb with intent to kill the famed economist Dr. Meyer. Private Detective Travis McGee is suspicious and tracks Meyer -- a good friend -- down and finds he was in fact, not aboard the ill-fated boat.Photographs from a nearby boat reveal that a man Evan Lawrence also may not have been aboard the boat. Lawrence recently married Meyer's niece, and when McGee's suspicions seem confirmed, the two friends (he and Meyer) begin a hunt to find out about Evan Lawrence's past.Thus begins Cinnamon Skin, a taut, fun mystery thriller that leads two friends through the criminal past that formed a killer. Some of the most deft touches in the novel come when MacDonald describes the lives of people along the Rio Grande Valley in southwest Texas. At one point, I actually got out a road map and traced their quest from Eagle Pass to El Paso and back all the way to Brownsville. MacDonald blends fact with fiction at just the right pitch in this, his twentieth Travis McGee novel.MacDonald writes like a writer who has earned it, man. He seems to know his story so well, there is very little drift in the way he tells a story. Each sentence is exact or darn near exact, and the end result is a taut mystery that is very fun and very entertaining -- the kind of novel you'll want to talk about with friends. I highly recommend Cinnamon Skin to folks who like good old storytelling at its best, most genuine form. It is the perfect airplane, poolside, vacation novel to help you beat the heat this summer. And its depth will leave you feeling satisfied at any time of year. Good stuff.Please hit the "helpful" button if you found this review helpful. I like to know you care.Stacey

In the last few Travis McGee novels, MacDonald focuses more than before on McGee's close friend Meyer. CINNAMON SKIN is a story in which Meyer takes the lead. He has to fight the demons of his past cowardice and also avenge the death of his niece. CINNAMON SKIN is one of the very best entries in the McGee series.