_The Scarlet Ruse_
by John D. MacDonald
read by Robert Petkoff
Life hasn't been all that sweet lately for Travis McGee, who's finding
it time to stop enjoying his latest installment of retirement and to
take on another salvage job. But the job he'd hoped for hadn't panned
out, and it appears that the city of Fort Lauderdale is intent on
ridding itself of those residents who fail to live in one of its many
apartments, condominiums, or houses, letting it be known that those who
dwelt aboard their boats were now unwelcome within the city limits.
It seems that the only job open to him at the moment is one his friend
Mayer is pressing on him, to check out the situation involving Mayer's
friend Hirsch Fedderman, who assists people to invest in rare stamps.
Hirsch can't say precisely how, but it appears someone somehow managed
to change the stamps in a client's album, substituting inferior items
for those high quality rarities that Hirsch had purchased for the man.
How was it done? That neither Hirsch nor either of his employees, Mary
Alice or Jane, can say. And when Jane ends up murdered in her own
home, the question now is, was she involved in the switched stamps or
is her death another part of the cover-up?
Mary Alice is panicking, certain that her husband's family will be
after her for partnering with Trav, while McGee has a strong intuition
that somehow Fedderman's client, a mob strongman, intends to kill both
McGee and his perhaps not-so-innocent passenger as he takes the Busted
Flush out for a run from trouble. And it takes a complicated scarlet
ruse to delay the danger....
McGee's usual strong instinct for recognizing when he's being set up is
delayed in this one, and as usual some beautiful women suffer badly and
die. I see MacDonald doing what his successor James Lee Burke also
tends to do--to leave his hero in worse and worse straits each time he
just manages to cheat death. I'm not certain Tony ever read this book.
I certainly didn't recognize it. Petkoff does an excellent job
reading this one--he gets better by the book, I swear. Got this from
Audible, and I have one more to load onto my MP3 player to read when I
again get tired of the Stephen Pinker book I'm working on. Recommended
for those who like a good action book filled with snippets of
philosophy and observations as is true of all of MacDonald's works.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise
cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
