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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780449224816
ISBN number: 0449224813
Label: Fawcett
Manufacturer: Fawcett
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: April 20, 1996
Publishing house: Fawcett
Release Date: April 20, 1996
Sale Popularity Level: 91045
Studio: Fawcett
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'McGee has become part of our national fabric.'
SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER
Beautiful girls always grace the Florida beaches, strolling, sailing, relaxing at the many parties on Travis McGee's houseboat, The Busted Flush. McGee was too smart--and had been around too long--for many of them to touch his heart. Now, however, there was Gretel. She had discovered the key to McGee--to all of him--and now he had something to hope for. Then, terribly, unexpectedly, she was dead. From a mysterious illness, or so they said. But McGee knew the truth, that Gretel had been murdered. And now he was out for blood...
From the Paperback edition.
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Rated by buyers 
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John D. MacDonald is arguably one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, and the Travis McGee series certainly proves why. His ability to transport the reader to another time and place with just a few short lines is uncanny, and isn't that what escapism fiction is all about? Green Ripper is one of my personal favorites, and I have purchased many different editions over the years as I always seem to be loaning out copies that never make their way back home to me. MacDonald is superb, McGee is immortal, and the Green Ripper is one of the best.
Rated by buyers 
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Not my familiar McGee guy. But I did like his honest assessment of what a tackiness the dated Busted Flush seemed to be taking on as time was marching on and the lessened fulfillment of the lifestyle he was living as he was growing older. However one distressing aspect of the later MacDonald books is that he was becoming affected by the toehold that "political correctness" (though not the stranglehold of nowadays) was starting to have on the times and unconsciously reflected in all thought, word and deed. The appeal of the MacDonald books was the astonishing lack of political correctness to get a real picture of what was what instead of what should be what according to who lately is demanding it be so.
Just McGee's luck that in the late 70's women were coming into their career minded age and the house husband and Mr. Mom were getting to be the thing. Perhaps McGee could have lived in retirement with his new glamourous, successful, determined wife eventually pulling down some serious K for the rent and groceries and then he could ride off into the sunset as a permanent adolescent that would be fun for the kids he would be staying home taking care of. All except that she gets killed and then the plans change again and after settling that score he gets to return to his former lifestyle after that silly moment of thinking about moving on.
I'm not sure why McDonald didn't make this a separate book with new central character. It doesn't really fit the series and I wouldn't have bought this book had I known how far removed it was from the other books both in geography and appeal of the story. I much prefer the McGee who was in the small stakes salvage business and not trying to save the world.
Rated by buyers 
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At one point towards the beginning of this novel one of the characters draws a pointed contrast: one the one hand we have so-called ordinary murders, committed by individuals against other individuals for the usual motives of greed, lust, and jealousy; on the other hand there are political assassinations, the byproduct of larger forces which transcend individual lives. How can the private-eye genre, which is rooted in the world of individual guilt and responsibility, come to terms with political murder? The Green Ripper works through this problem in mostly gripping fashion. For another take on the same theme, see any novel written by Mickey Spillane between 1950 and 1970.
Rated by buyers -
The Travis McGees are jewels of economical writing (with some forgivable moralizing and preaching from the hero from time to time that judicious readers will learn to skip after a few books), and I've read and enjoyed them all. This episode is out of the ordinary. Usually, as Travis takes on one of his "salvage" operations, he's mostly a private eye poking into a mystery that demands, once or twice, that he face a violent confrontation.
"The Green Ripper" is instead a novel of revenge and combat, and a very satisfying one. McGee functions more as the violent hero of a thriller in this one, and he makes an estimable hero. The book is one of his final exploits, and the McGee of this novel (and of the final book, "The Lonely Silver Rain"), is more melancholy and brooding than the more upbeat Travis of the early novels. Here, it fits: McGee wants nothing but revenge, and finds it.
My recommendation is to read the McGee books in order. They're worth savoring, one every few months. By the time you reach "The Green Ripper," you'll appreciate the contrast of this novel's plot.
Rated by buyers -
The Green Ripper stands alone. If you are new to the McGee series, start with The Deep Blue Goodbye.
I grew up in the 60's in Ft Lauderdale and knew Bahia Mar well. But I also grew up in Fayetteville NY where John D lived and sold insurance after graduating from Syracuse -- or was it Harvard. Yet somehow I never read him until the 90's. What a treat it has been!
The Green Ripper may be the most important McGee book because of September 11th. Here John D gives us his ideas on terrorism. He gives it a religious basis. He explores its financing and organizational management structure. He gives it an international reach. He explains the psychology of the participants and their training mehtods. He shows the inability of law enforcement to prevent it. Written in 1979, he makes some predictions regarding the future -- that is, now.
Of course, it is a McGee book. Therefore we have a McGee-solution, which he called a Dissat-solution in "A Tan and Sandy Silence", heh. When McGee infiltrates a terrorist training camp, mayhem ensues, putting it mildly.
The book stands alone because of the effect it all has on McGee. Get to know him; read the earlier titles first. Then come to The Green Ripper. The epilogue will be particularly moving.
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