Book Review : John D. MacDonald - One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966)
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I shouldn’t enjoy reading Travis McGee novels as much as I do. He investigates things, but he’s not really a detective. He takes half of whatever people own, but he’s not a bad guy. He understands the human heart better than most, but he doesn’t have any meaningful relationship. McGee is a 100% idiosyncratic creation, yet speaks to universal desire for the karmic justice he inevitably provides in his adventures. The insular satisfaction I usually feel when finishing one of these novels was curiously absent at the end of One Fearful Yellow Eye, though.
This novel doesn’t quite work. At least not in the way the others do.
In One Fearful Yellow Eye, Travis McGee travels from sun-soaked Florida to cold-ass Chicago in order to assist his old friend Glory Geis. She flagged him for help after finding out her late husband, world-renowned neurosurgeon Fortner Geis, converted his estate into cash before he died and that cash conveniently disappeared. Vultures start congregating around the grieving widow, looking for hidden treasure, so she calls McGee to help her sort through the dirty business. Turns out that disappearing cash will create a lot of ruckus among people who feel entitled to it.
The major problem I have with One Fearful Yellow Eye is that nobody behaves in a spectacularly evil manner in it. I get that evil is supposed to have a banality to it, but siblings burning bridges with one another for 600 000$ is banal enough for me. It’s exactly what would happen to a great majority of families in real life when a rich relative’s testament is sloppily built. Some characters turn out to be quite evil in the end, but One Fearful Yellow Eye has a solid two hundred pages of an annoying family quarrel that it makes no sense putting yourself through for entertainment.
John D. MacDonald’s writing style of long, drawn-out and confronting conversations should feel more pertinent in a novel that has more to do with an English whoddunit than a detective novel, but it falls rather flat here. I believe the baffling normalcy and unlikableness of the supporting cast is to blame here again. Nobody wants to spend time listening to the complaints of rich, spoiled kids. Travis McGee is not the vehicle for anything here. He spend his time going back and forth, halfway amused and exasperated by the eccentricities of the Geis family.
One Fearful Yellow Eye was the second McGee novel John D. MacDonald wrote in 1996 and, unbelievably enough, the eighth over a period of two years. So, it reeks of creative exhaustion like you wouldn’t believe. The new northern setting is barely explored outside of a couple quips about the weather, it’s almost a locked room mystery by default because very little is seen outside of the Geis family, etc. One Fearful Yellow Eye is, by far, my least favorite Travis McGee novel and the only book in the series I would call unsuccessful, so far. This one you can skip.
3.1/10
