Dress her in indigo

by John D. MacDonald

1987

Publication

Fawcett. c1969.

Collection

Tags

Status

Available

Description

Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:From a beloved master of crime fiction, Dress Her in Indigo is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.   Travis McGee could never deny his old friend anything. So before Meyer even says please, McGee agrees to accompany him to Mexico to reconstruct the last mysterious months of a young woman�s life�on a fat expense account provided by the father who has lost touch with her. They think she�s fallen in with the usual post-teenage misfits and rebels. What they find is stranger, kinkier, and far more deadly.   �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   All Meyer�s friend wants to know is whether his daughter was happy before she died in a car accident south of the border. But when McGee and Meyer step foot in the hippie enclave in Oaxaca that had become Bix Bowie�s last refuge, they get more than they bargained for.   Not only had Bix made a whole group of dangerous, loathsome friends, but she was also mixed up in trafficking heroin into the United States. By the time she died, she was a shell of her former self. And the more McGee looks into things, the less accidental Bix�s death starts to seem.   Features a new Introduction by Lee Child.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member tripleblessings
Travis McGee traces a dead woman's path among hippies and drug freaks in Mexico in the 60s.
LibraryThing member andyray
Number twelve in the McGee series takes Travis and Meyer to Mexico where they investigate an "accident" that killed a friend's daughter. One of the best interactive scenes of the "old guard" and modern youth occurs in this book where Trav sets some young kids straight.
LibraryThing member clong
I had read a few of John D MacDonald’s novels as a teen some 30 years ago, and found them both entertaining and no doubt a bit titillating. This year my mom leant me a box of old MacDonald paperbacks to peruse, and Dress Her in Indigo was my seventh book out of the box so far this year. I’d
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have to rate it as my least favorite, at least of the Travis McGee books, this time around. I’m not sure whether it’s really all that much worse than the others, or I’m simply growing a bit tired of the series.

The plotting did offer a nice change of pace from the familiar McGee formula, with victims, sexual diversions, and bad guys all a varying considerably from the previous books I’ve read in the series. And the Mexican setting offered a bit of intriguing color.

But McGee has somehow lost much of his appeal, and I found the other characters to be uniformly neither believable nor sympathetic, with Lady Becky striking me as particularly gratuitous.

McGee does get to beat up both a gay man and a lesbian, and he proves to himself and the book's readers that hippies really are all dirty losers. I suppose some readers might get satisfaction out of that, but it didn’t do anything for me.
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LibraryThing member datrappert
The tragedies pile up quickly in this one--a brain tumor, a paralyzing car accident, and a fatal crash--and that is only a down payment on the pain to come as McGee and Meyer head to Oaxaca to find out how a rich man's daughter spent her final months on Earth. From an enjoyment standpoint, having
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Meyer along greatly improves things, as he and McGee work together to unravel several puzzles. As usual, the mysteries of women are at the book's center. MacDonald contrasts the behavior of young Americans, decadent Europeans, and sensuous Mexicans. There is more sex than usual, with McGee proving irresistible to any woman with half a brain or a functioning libido. The plot holds together rather well in this one, except for a way-too-long explanation by one of the characters near the book's end. But the book's real star is Mexico. MacDonald obviously loved the place and its people, and they both emerge unscathed from the violent story. In short, this book has all the strengths of the best McGee novels while avoiding the annoyances and plot overreach that mar the worst ones. MacDonald is marginally less preachy in this book, and when he does preach, such as about the bad effects of tough marijuana laws, you will find yourself agreeing with him rather than just being amused.
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LibraryThing member terrygraap
Another excellent book in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. McGee and his friend, Meyer find out how a young girl lived and died in Mexico. A unique twist at the end.
LibraryThing member terrygraap
Another excellent book in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. McGee and his friend, Meyer find out how a young girl lived and died in Mexico. A unique twist at the end.
LibraryThing member HenriMoreaux
Another strong entry in the McGee series, this time round Travis is searching to find out what happened to an American tourist in Mexico whose last days were spent partying, experimenting with drugs and sex before ending up dead on a remote road.
LibraryThing member ikeman100
OK, I'm a sucker for all the MacDonald books. Another good thriller. Fun read.
LibraryThing member lamour
McGee and Meyer are hired to go to Mexico to find out what the last the man's daughter Bix's last days were like. The police have concluded it was an accident caused by driving when impaired with drugs. As they track down the other four young people who drove to Mexico with Bix, the bodies start to
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pile up and several strange characters come out of the woodwork.

As they search out the mystery, they both discover beautiful women to bed or battle to get to the solution.
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LibraryThing member Dorothy2012
My least favourite of the Travis McGee books. A lot more soliloquies about the sex act than usual. Set in Mexico with a lot of despicable behaviours.

Language

Original language

English

ISBN

0449132935 / 9780449132937

Original publication date

1969
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