Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything

This book is way away from anything else John D. MacDonald wrote except for the fun, the realism mixed in with the fantasy, and it's just plain good. Kirby worked for his eccentric uncle giving away money and now he's been left with a handful of junk and a gold watch. People left and right from financiers to gangsters are looking for the money Uncle Omar must have hidden somewhere and Kirby is getting into more and more trouble, until he hooks up with Bonny Lee and discovers the secret of the watch. The watch, you see, stops time for everything but you and you can do anything you want until you come back and rejoin the world. His troubles are just beginning... I have always loved this book and even though it was written in the sixties it still hits home. Even with supernatural powers there is always the problem of how to live with the rest of the world, and the bonus of having fun while you figure it out.

As best I can recall, the 1980 TV adaptation of this book was my introduction to MacDonald's work. Fortunately the adaptation turned out to be unusually faithful to the text, and lived up to my recollection of the story as an enjoyable romp. The tone is lighthearted (unusually so for MacDonald), and Kirby Winter is quite different from Travis McGee, despite the fact that Kirby's uncle Omar was something of a "salvage expert" himself, with a reputation for fleecing con artists and other slick operators. Kirby's got a lot of book-learning, and can give a very sophisticated impression, but he's actually an inexperienced klutz when it comes to women, as we learn right away when he literally trips over a table after drinking with Charla, a long-time (but not old) opponent of Kirby's formidable uncle Omar who has been working up to seducing Kirby as a ploy to learning Omar's secrets. Kirby's phenomenal bad luck has struck with a vengeance as the story opens. Superficially, Kirby seems to have been groomed as the heir apparent of his uncle Omar Krepps, self-made multimillionaire founder of Krepps Enterprises. Omar organized Kirby's college education, hired him upon graduation, and has directed him personally as part of OK Devices, a very small, clandestine program within the company ever since. Now the mysterious little man who has directed Kirby's life for so long is dead. Over the years Kirby has worked for OK Devices, 27 million dollars have been funnelled into it from Krepps Enterprises. But instead of financial records the board of KE found books on sleight-of-hand. Furthermore, Wilma (per instructions) had a bonfire immediately after Omar's death, so the board of KE is now terrified of their tax liability if the missing OK Devices assets aren't located. Unfortunately, the only things Omar left Kirby in his will were his gold pocket watch, a letter to be delivered a year after Omar's death, and a peck of trouble. Not only is the KE board convinced he and Wilma stole the money, but the con artists and thieves from whom Omar "salvaged" assets are convinced that Kirby knows Omar's professional secrets. Uncle Omar (a self-made man who started life as a chemistry and physics teacher) seems to have felt that Kirby should prove himself. He's arranged a sink-or-swim final exam for Kirby, who'll have to figure out for himself how to establish his innocence and keep his uncle's old foes from eating him alive. Kirby gets off to a slow start, but shows backbone when facing down the board of KE; there's gumption there. And when halfway through the book Kirby begins to cotton on to the method behind Omar's madness, the fun *really* begins. Officially, GOLD WATCH is classified as a mystery, but could just as well have been labelled fantasy/science fiction (and in fact, that would've made more sense for the 1991 printing, which was packaged that way in all but name). Drive-in totals (as movie reviewer Joe Bob Briggs would say): - Mad scientist fu. (At le

Most science-fiction readers have fantasized, themselves, about being able to stop time and also about being invisble. This book is a good story about someone who's able to stop time and the troubles it causes for him. The idea has been copied elsewhere (such as in Nicholson Baker's The Fermata) but this author does it well, and in a format that's appropriate for all ages.

This book is another masterpiece by MacDonald, who never fails to weave a mesmerizing story and write a enjoyable page turner. I strongly recommend this story to anyone who enjoys even the slightest fantastic fiction. The late, great storyteller left us with a wonderful library of literature with which to enjoy , and I think everyone should have the chance to read at least one of his books. So by all means do get and read this one.

An undetectable edge on the rest of the world -- everyone's dream? In _The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything_, the late Mr. MacDonald turned his mastery of plotting and characterization toward "what-if" fiction, and more than succeeded. Lighthearted, yet never frothy, this story gave me more grins per page than any book in a long time. Even better, after I turned the last page, I was left with my imagination in overdrive. Highly recommended to those who don't like techie sci-fi or magic fantasy, but would like a dose of snickering non-reality. Like _Back to the Future_, but much better