Nightmare in Pink: A Travis McGee Novel

Four decades ago, Travis McGee disdains the modern world, yet builds an honorable life for himself in the midst of it. How? By becoming a beach bum in Florida! Not truly a bum, more an independent contractor who takes a job when money from the previous job starts waning. His deal is ever the same: "I recover what was taken from you--conveniently, the yous are mostly damsels in distress--and I keep half."

In Nightmare, "Trav" is paying a debt to an old war buddy who lies paralyzed and suspects his sister's fiancé died under circumstances that suggest foul play. He wants Travis to travel to New York and get to know his sister, provide some comfort and assistance, then "poke around" and see what he can find out.

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Brian Wright
Copyright 2007

I was thrilled to see that the Travis McGee series was being made available on Kindle. I had read these books years ago and loved them. I still think the books are great, but question the pricing. These are old books, the author long dead, and they are priced like new releases. Somebody has gotten very greedy with these titles. I bought two of them and then rebelled. I will not not buy another at these prices. The books are a great as I remembered, if somewhat dated now. Worth reading if you have never read them before, but severely overpriced.

Beautifully written, complex characters. The ppl r from the WWII generation, not now. Everybody smokes, but never weed. Everybody drinks gallons of alcohol. Their way of looking at the world is not quite ours, but let's u b there. All McDonald is that.

I have enjoyed reading at least six Travis McGee novels. This book is a disaster that should never have been written. It is preachy, sentimental, full of explicit sex scenes that don't really move the plot along. It seems to have been among the early McGee novels, but it reads like the wishful thinking of an aging man full of sexual regrets and fantasies. The writing itself is trite and the characters--especially the women--are unbelievable, with a touch of misogyny. Skip this one.

I read all the Travis McGee novels back when they were originally published and I'm glad to see them republished, but this is the worst one I've ever read. I love McGee's ruminations, but in this case it seemed to be at least three-fourths of the book. Didn't care for all the "honeys" and "dears" either. Maybe it's just that I liked his later books a lot better.

I read a bunch of Travis McGee mysteries some years ago and they didn't seem dated. This one does. I gather that this effort was the second one in the series and perhaps the author had not yet found his Travis McGee voice.

I found Travis insufferable. Mentally he is an authority on everything and, except when he is exhibiting an excruciating false modesty, is the smartest guy in every room. The story should never have been set in New York, which Travis hates, in great and insufferable detail. I lived quite uncomfortably in New York for four years but found things so slanted in this narrative that it generated new found sympathy in me for good old Gotham. Besides being a stable genius, as someone once said, Travis is the repository of male sexuality, an instant turn on for a wide array of helpless females who are in need of a good course of sexual adjustment. A few (or many--as many as they can handle) bouts with the testosterone laden McGee, and the girls (always we call 'em girls) leave with a smile on their face and a warm glow in the rest of their parts. I don't think that McGee will have much of an audience among modern women. Travis tends to be sympathetic to his women--but he and they both know that intercourse with Travis is the ultimate in human experience.

The story devolved into pulp level science fiction as Travis gets committed to a madman's psychiatric hospital in the suburbs. Always decent Travis escapes by killing five innocent people, four of them by spiking the coffee urn with a deadly mixture of psychotropic drugs. That's OK--we need to get self reliant Travis back to his houseboat. He has one more girl to cure of her blues.

Travis may hate NYC, banks, investment bankers, socialites and anyone who lives in the City, including all trade unions, but rest assured that his amazing self reliance is the cure for all the ills of modern civilization.

Unfortunately, Travis's antiquated opinions will make him an inadequate guide for the 21st century.

"Nightmare in Pink" is the second novel in John D. McDonald's 21-novel Travis McGee series. Although McGee gets involved in mysteries, he is not a police officer or a private investigator. Instead, he is a "salvage consultant" who lives on a houseboat ("The Busted Flush") in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He prefers to be a beach bum, get a tan, reel in some fish, drink some beer, etc., and seems a little uncomfortable in the big city. He is also a ladies' man.

In this novel, McGee leaves his haunts in Florida and journeys to New York City. What could bring him out of his regular hunting grounds? When he was in the war, one or the other of he and his buddy Mike could take leave in Tokyo while the other pulled guard duty. McGee lucked out and spend the night in the arms and legs of a geisha while Mike got blown up and ended up in a wheelchair, barely functioning. Guilt trip! Mike's younger sister, Nina, who McGee had known when she was just a kid, is now a grown woman and her husband had been killed in a mugging. Nothing unusual about that, except for the $10,000 in cash she finds in the apartment after the killing. Something's not kosher here and McGee is asked to look into it as it appears to somehow involve an embezzlement scheme the husband had started to uncover at his office.

The first half of the book is rather slow as McGee charms one society dame after another in effort to gain information. While such witty repartee may be appealing, it detracted from the plot and lacked the great action that Brass Cupcake, McDonald's first novel, had.

The book really doesn't really start to move until the second half when McGee finds himself drugged with LSD (or some similar substance) and feels the table in the restaurant melting around him before he is involuntarily committed to a mental institution where the evil doctors threaten to lobotomize him. At that point, the novel really soars. The descriptions of McGee trying to keep his grasp on reality and the action scenes at the hospital and elsewhere are top-notch.

Of course, the book is filled with McGee's observations of life, the universe, and everything, one of the things that people love about this series.

This book has a lot to appeal to many groups of readers, including conspiracies, romance, and action.

“Nightmare in Pink” is the second novel in John D. McDonald’s 21-novel Travis McGee series. Although McGee gets involved in mysteries, he is not a police officer or a private investigator. Instead, he is a “salvage consultant” who lives on a houseboat (“The Busted Flush”) in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He prefers to be a beach bum, get a tan, reel in some fish, drink some beer, etc., and seems a little uncomfortable in the big city. He is also a ladies’ man.

In this novel, McGee leaves his haunts in Florida and journeys to New York City. What could bring him out of his regular hunting grounds? When he was in the war, one or the other of he and his buddy Mike could take leave in Tokyo while the other pulled guard duty. McGee lucked out and spend the night in the arms and legs of a geisha while Mike got blown up and ended up in a wheelchair, barely functioning. Guilt trip! Mike’s younger sister, Nina, who McGee had known when she was just a kid, is now a grown woman and her husband had been killed in a mugging. Nothing unusual about that, except for the $10,000 in cash she finds in the apartment after the killing. Something’s not kosher here and McGee is asked to look into it as it appears to somehow involve an embezzlement scheme the husband had started to uncover at his office.

The first half of the book is rather slow as McGee charms one society dame after another in effort to gain information. While such witty repartee may be appealing, it detracted from the plot and lacked the great action that Brass Cupcake, McDonald’s first novel, had.

The book really doesn’t really start to move until the second half when McGee finds himself drugged with LSD (or some similar substance) and feels the table in the restaurant melting around him before he is involuntarily committed to a mental institution where the evil doctors threaten to lobotomize him. At that point, the novel really soars. The descriptions of McGee trying to keep his grasp on reality and the action scenes at the hospital and elsewhere are top-notch.

Of course, the book is filled with McGee’s observations of life, the universe, and everything, one of the things that people love about this series.

This book has a lot to appeal to many groups of readers, including conspiracies, romance, and action.

John D. MacDonald can do no wrong. NIGHTMARE IN PINK, the second volume of Travis McGee's investigations, might not be as eventful as THE DEEP BLUE GOOD-BY, but it doesn't matter. All these novels need is McGee's razor sharp and generous bits of social analysis. Interlace that with any detective work really and you've got yourself a killer story every time and this is no different.

NIGHTMARE IN PINK is a particularly pertinent read in this day and age because it deals with the rich and the reckless, the American financial elite and believe me, they haven't evolved all that much since 1964. John D. MacDonald is a terrific author and an underrated pop culture philosopher. I'm thinking of dedicating an entire month to his work on Dead End Follies next year. If you're tempted to get into mid-century pulpists, make him your first stop.

Synopsis/blurb.......
From a beloved master of crime fiction, Nightmare in Pink is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.

Travis McGee's permanent address is the Busted Flush, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale, and there isn't a hell of a lot that compels him to leave it. Except maybe a call from an old army buddy who needs a favor. If it wasn't for him, McGee might not be alive. For that kind of friend, Travis McGee will travel almost anywhere, even New York City. Especially when there's a damsel in distress.

The damsel in question is his old friend's kid sister, whose fiancé has just been murdered in what the authorities claim was a standard Manhattan mugging. But Nina knows better. Her soon-to-be husband had been digging around, finding scum and scandal at his real estate investment firm. And this scum will go to any lengths to make sure their secrets don't get out.

Travis is determined to get to the bottom of things, but just as he's closing in on the truth, he finds himself drugged and taken captive. If he's being locked up in a mental institution with a steady stream of drugs siphoned into his body, how can Travis keep his promise to his old friend? More important, how can he get himself out alive?

I didn't get too worked up over this second Travis McGee instalment in MacDonald's long running series. It was enjoyable enough but when compared to last month's The Deep Blue Goodbye just didn't seem as strong or as interesting. For one thing the locale was different as McGee was off his home turf in Florida and playing away in New York, not that I have anything against books set there. Secondly, I'm a sucker for a well described action scene.....a brawl, a mugging, a shooting.......and there just wasn't enough of that here to get the adrenaline pumping.
Overall enjoyable, but just closing it, I was left with a tinge of disappointment. Still I'll be back with McGee in April for number 3 - A Purple Place For Dying
3 from 5
I acquired my copy by agreeing a swap for one of my finished books, on the excellent Readitswapit website.

With a strong, moody debut novel ("The Deep Blue Good-By") and this bang-up follow-up, it's sure been easy to finally slip into John D. MacDonald's classic "Travis McGee" series.

The fast, taut "Nightmare in Pink" is set in New York City and its environs and concerns white collar crooks scamming millions from unsuspecting investors. I expected a decent story, and more than got that, but what I didn't expect was a scary one. I mean, horror-novel scary. And I got a kick out of being caught unaware like that.

You see, the crooks here have a very special way of lulling their marks into submission, and, just as chilling, of getting the curious and other threats to their scam out of the way. I won't get too specific, but let's just say these methods involve shady physicians, unsupervised mental health facilities, and certain controversial (even in the early 60's, when this story is set) cranial operations involving long, thin, shiny implements. And, yes, our man McGee gets into quite a spot involving these factors. Will his sharp mind survive the book intact?

In addition to the chills and suspense, other satisfying elements include a nicely drawn friendship between McGee and an old war buddy, an eventual romance with the war buddy's daughter (which gallant McGee tries to resist at first), and McGee's usual, and still fascinating, mental pronouncements about this or that aspect of American life. It helps that McGee's opinions about things still resonate and make us nod in agreement more than forty years after MacDonald wrote them.

It's been said that this series didn't really start to pick up stream until about the fifth or sixth book. If that's the case, those upcoming books must REALLY be good, because "Nightmare in Pink" and the entry before it are both fine, satisfying reading experiences, laced with thrills, emotion, intelligence, and surprises.

MacDonald puts most of today's detective series novelists to shame and I delight to know I have many of his books yet to read. This this book mines the mind-washing darkness of the post-Korean war period, with a plot that rings true and a story I hated to see end. He is the heir-apparant of Raymond Chandler and other noir writers, meaningful and clever without being ponderous and trite. No skipping paragraphs to move the story along while reading MacDonald: the guy has something to say.

This is the official 'second' in John D. MacDonald's series about Travis McGee, the slightly tarnished knight from Lauderdale, whose chosen steed is a 52 foot houseboat. Second also in setting the general pattern of McGee books - a friend convinces McGee to take the case of another friend, usually a beautiful woman, and McGee grudgingly comes to the rescue - sometimes out of a sense of honor, and sometimes just for the money.
This time the 'asker' is Mike Gibson, a war buddy of McGee's who now lives as a permanent resident of the veteran's hospital. The 'fixee' is Nina, Mike's sister - distraught when her boyfriend (Howard Plummer) dies in a mugging. Nina finds a large bundle of money in a closet and becomes convinced that Howard was up to no good. Now Mike wants to help her out of her depression, even if she is unwilling. McGee, as usual, to the rescue.
As you might expect, Plummer's death was not what it seemed, and McGee finds himself enmeshed in a spectacular fraud that is bilking a company of millions while sending its victims to a mental ward. Which is where McGee winds up as well, in a nightmarish twist that plays like 'On Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.' Dropped into a hole from which there is no way to escape, McGee must fight for survival against a medical staff determined to steal his mind from him.
Perhaps the beauty of this story, other than MacDonald's powerful writing, is that it turns the 'tough-guy detective' genre on it's ear for a bit as McGee struggles with induced insanity, falls in love, and barely survives by the skin of his teeth. This is a tough-guy with plenty of weaknesses and soft spots. McGee, who serves as narrator, doesn't try to explain away his moments, good and bad, but reports them with a straightforward touch that makes him and easy favorite.
While this may not be the best of the series, for some reason it rings true and is one of my favorites. It predicts many of the themes and tricks that will go on to be imitated time and again. But never with quite the élan than MacDonlad has.

There are thousands of reviews of this man's Travis McGee series. He is the undisputed king of American detective/mystery writing and if someone else makes this claim (publishers of so many iconic crime writers have done just this) THEY SHOULD BE ASHAMED.

If you are a serious literature reader and tend not to delve into mysteries and detective procedurals then this is the author to read should you be seeking a change. It is hard to imagine anyone not having read MacDonald; I cut my adolescent teeth on him.

No matter what you like to read, be it vampire serials or non-fiction, there is absolutely a place in your mind where this book and the other 20 in the series will slot in providing you moving, marvelous moments of polished writerly adventure. If you loved Treasure Island for example this man will not disappoint. Few giants deserve six stars but MacDonald does.

Noted authors such as Donald Westlake and Robert B Parker doff their cap to him, and you should too.

Nightmare in Pink is my second Travis McGee (and the second in the series), and it is even more riveting than the first.

McGee gets a call from an old war buddy who is in a VA hospital. Mike Gibson is blind and disabled, and when he asks McGee to check something out for him, McGee acquiesces-mostly out of guilt. Mike's beautiful and younger sister, Nina, is engaged to be married when her fiancé is mysteriously killed in a mugging. While cleaning out his things, Nina discovered $10,000 (we're talking 1960's here) and thinks he was in on something shady. The police haven't been able to solve the mugging and they haven't been told about the money, so McGee agrees to snoop around. Unfortunately, the case is in New York City and this Florida boat-bum is literally a fish out of water.

Mike and Nina quickly join forces (in more ways than one) and uncover a complicated financial scam to rob the fiancé's former boss of millions. Of course, the closer they get to solving the crime, the more they expose themselves to danger. At one point, McGee is even drugged, kidnapped, and held against his will in a mental hospital, where he is subjected to experimental hallucinogens. How he escapes will have you on the edge of your seat.

McGee again continues with many profound observations. One that I especially liked is "A good listener is far more rare than an adequate lover."

Nightmare in Pink had only two drawbacks that I could see. As with The Deep Blue Good-By, this book is a bit light at 143 pages. Also, while the plot was riveting, it was also unbelievable in spots. But John D. MacDonald has a new fan, and I have A Purple Place for Dying up next.

Unlike the first Travis McGee novel, The Deep Blue Goodbye, which is set in Fort Lauderdale, McGee's stomping grounds and the place he likes to call home, Nightmare in Pink takes him to the Big Apple, where he is a sailor away from the sea and not altogether comfortable. His mission is to help the sister of a friend who finds herself with a dead boyfriend and ten thousand dollars she thinks are ill gotten gains.

With some shrewd detective work McGee determines that the boyfriend stumbled on to the scheme of a lawyer who is bilking his rich client of millions of dollars. McGee makes connections with the client's family, who commission him to find out what is happening and protect the family and estate. Easier said than done.

McGee thinks he has the case well in hand only to find he has been careless. His carelessness almost kills him. From the moment McGee finds himself trapped in his Nightmare in Pink to the exciting conclusion, the action is fast and furious with many innocent dead bodies along the way.

As is typical of a McGee mystery, loose ends are not always neatly secured. Sometimes bad things happen to the good guys. McGee is nothing is not a realist and he accepts what he must and has the scars to show for it. He is a survivor who will live to fight another day.

All the Travis McGee novels are quick reads and page turners. Once a reader has been initiated into the McGee philosophy and lifestyle with The Deep Blue Goodbye and Nightmare in Pink, the rest of the series is sure to be an attractive alternative to watching tv for diversion and entertainment.

John D. MacDonald's salvage consultant goes to New York City to help out the kid sister of an old friend. She's a babe, of course, and McGee helps her unravel a complicated financial scam while curing what ails her with some of his own, patented expert hay rolling.
Along the way, he makes a major error and winds up trapped in a crooked mental hospital straight out of "Shock Corridor" but with nurses delivering doses of refried LSD and brain melting sedatives.
This is a creepy installment. An early rant by MacDonald, about how one day a minor altercation on the streets of New York will lead to a riot that will wipe out the city, sets the tone; things get really nasty when Trav slips and falls into the clutches of the scheming Dr. Varn -- I don't think MacDonald was much of a recreational drug user but his descriptions of the wrong kind of hallucinations do a good of depicting a bad trip.
Before McGee escapes, some pretty terrible things happen to him; he also has to resort to some seriously dirty tricks and, by the end, he's a basket case. This being only the second outing by McGee, it's odd to think that MacDonald would bang up his tough guy hero so badly, so early. Which makes "Nightmare in Pink" a great, chilling read but probably not the best place for a new reader to begin.

I recently started reading the Travis McGee books for the first time (and in order.) DEEP BLUE GOOD-BY was a good, taught, lean -- if imperfect -- thriller. It was intruing enough, and McGee & his setting seemed to hold enough potential, that I was fired up to read NIGHTMARE IN PINK, thinking that the series, like many another recurring-hero series, would actually improve in sequence due to the author getting more and more comfortable with the character, setting, & style. Unfortunately, this book let me down.

First, it was set in New York City, which, while not neccessarily a bad thing in and of itself, does detract from a lot of the attractiveness of the McGee series -- to me, a big part of the selling point is that in other McGee books, the setting is South Florida (where I was born & raised) in the mid-1960s (over a decade before I was born.) New York seemed a much more generic setting -- I mean, how many books (and movies!) are set there? It's been covered already!

Also, the dialogue -- something I had a problem with in DEEP BLUE was that the dialogue seemed to be dated, even by the standards of four decades ago (I'm basing this on having read a lot of books & seen a lot of movies from back then.) The dialogue reads like 1930s and '40s movies, when the actors still hadn't yet realized that they were no longer on stage and so could talk more like normal people. Some of the dialogue is outright caricature. (How many times in one conversation can a character start and/or end a sentence with the word "Darling" before it starts to get annoying?) It's like MacDonald was trying to write hip dialogue and ended up with dialogue that WAS hip -- when he was a young man, ie before World War II.

The McGee series does, however, have enough of a good reputation that I'll assume this one is just a lemon that MacDonald, like all good writers, produce from time to time, and I'll at least give book #3 a chance to redeem the series for me.

This is the second novel in the Travis McGee series that seems to be making a comeback. It is a sign of the times. McGee would be a darling of the Tea Party set. He works "off-the-books" for cash, and there is no indication that he pays taxes. The case takes him out of Florida, doing a favor for a friend, but some other novels in the series also take him out of Florida and away from his houseboat, the Busted Flush. He is a different type of investigator, not having a PI license. People go to him, usually when they want his skills recovering assets. He might seem a little like Jack Reacher in Lee Child's novels, except that McGee has a home base at a Florida marina.

It is worth reading the series if you have not done so, or rereading if you want to go back to an old friend.

This is the second in the Travis McGee series, though it doesn't place itself chronologically -- ie, it doesn't refer to the events of the first book, and it does refer to other adventures, as if it's just another in McGee's long life. However, the next book in the series, "A Purple Place for Dying," does take place right after this one, so there is an advantage to reading them in order.

In "Nightmare" Travis goes to New York. If you can't deal with that, then this one's not for you, but otherwise it's a knockout. The suspense is great, the philosophizing feels amazingly current, and MacDonald clearly knows New York. The book is great mix of retro setting and modern-feeling plotting and characterization. If anything, it's smoother than "The Deep Blue Good-By," since it doesn't need to introduce anything.

The Travis McGee series is terrific. I'm still reading my way through it, but I haven't found any reason not to go in order. "Nightmare in Pink" is great.

Travis McGee lives aboard the Busted Flush, his 52 foot custom houseboat, in Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale. He is "purely McGee, that pale-eyed, wire-haired girl-finder, that big shambling brown boat-bum who walks beaches, slays small fierce fish, busts minor icons, argues, smiles and disbelieves, that knuckly scar-tissued reject from structured society, who waits until money gets low, and then goes out and takes it from the taker, keeps half, and gives the rest back to the innocent."
When McGee's old war buddy Mike Gibson asks him to go help his little sister Nina, he heads to Manhattan. Nina's fiance, Howard Plummer, was killed in what appears to have been a simple mugging, but then Nina found ten thousand dollars hidden in her apartment. Since Howard worked for Charles McKewn Armister IV, helping to manage his $60 million, Nina fears he may have been skimming money.
McGee starts looking around & becomes suspicious when he finds out that Armister had a nervous breakdown recently & has undergone drastic personality changes since then. Soon he uncovers a scam by Armister's attorney, Baynard Mulligan, and his personal secretary, Bonita Hersch, who have been siphoning off money from Armister's accounts. But just as he's getting close to breaking the case, McGee is slipped a mickey & wakes up in Toll Valley Hospital, the same mental institution where Armister was taken. There the malevolent Dr. Varn subjects him to a slew of psychoactive drugs & McGee is soon fighting to maintain his sanity & save his own life.
At some point, probably right after college, I read all 21 Travis McGee books. Like Mickey Spillane (Mike Hammer), Brett Halliday (Mike Shayne), Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe), etc., John D. MacDonald created a unique hero, set him down within the hard-boiled genre & cranked out million selling adventures. The Travis McGee books never rise above the genre, a la Chandler or Ross MacDonald, but they are an enjoyable artifact.
GRADE: C+

This is the second in the Travis McGee series, though it doesn't place itself chronologically -- ie, it doesn't refer to the events of the first book, and it does refer to other adventures, as if it's just another in McGee's long life. However, the next book in the series, "A Purple Place for Dying," does take place right after this one, so there is an advantage to reading them in order.

In "Nightmare" Travis goes to New York. If you can't deal with that, then this one's not for you, but otherwise it's a knockout. The suspense is great, the philosophizing feels amazingly current, and MacDonald clearly knows New York. The book is great mix of retro setting and modern-feeling plotting and characterization. If anything, it's smoother than "The Deep Blue Good-By," since it doesn't need to introduce anything.

The Travis McGee series is terrific. I'm still reading my way through it, but I haven't found any reason not to go in order. "Nightmare in Pink" is great.

Travis McGee lives aboard the Busted Flush, his 52 foot custom houseboat, in Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale. He is "purely McGee, that pale-eyed, wire-haired girl-finder, that big shambling brown boat-bum who walks beaches, slays small fierce fish, busts minor icons, argues, smiles and disbelieves, that knuckly scar-tissued reject from structured society, who waits until money gets low, and then goes out and takes it from the taker, keeps half, and gives the rest back to the innocent."
When McGee's old war buddy Mike Gibson asks him to go help his little sister Nina, he heads to Manhattan. Nina's fiance, Howard Plummer, was killed in what appears to have been a simple mugging, but then Nina found ten thousand dollars hidden in her apartment. Since Howard worked for Charles McKewn Armister IV, helping to manage his $60 million, Nina fears he may have been skimming money.
McGee starts looking around & becomes suspicious when he finds out that Armister had a nervous breakdown recently & has undergone drastic personality changes since then. Soon he uncovers a scam by Armister's attorney, Baynard Mulligan, and his personal secretary, Bonita Hersch, who have been siphoning off money from Armister's accounts. But just as he's getting close to breaking the case, McGee is slipped a mickey & wakes up in Toll Valley Hospital, the same mental institution where Armister was taken. There the malevolent Dr. Varn subjects him to a slew of psychoactive drugs & McGee is soon fighting to maintain his sanity & save his own life.
At some point, probably right after college, I read all 21 Travis McGee books. Like Mickey Spillane (Mike Hammer), Brett Halliday (Mike Shayne), Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe), etc., John D. MacDonald created a unique hero, set him down within the hard-boiled genre & cranked out million selling adventures. The Travis McGee books never rise above the genre, a la Chandler or Ross MacDonald, but they are an enjoyable artifact.
GRADE: C+

This 2nd of the Travis McGee series takes place in New York City where Travis fits about as well as Crocodile Dundee. John D. has not quite found his way with Travis yet, and it shows.
Travis is enjoined to look out for a buddy�s little sister in the big bad city. Little sister is a babe (surprise!) and has her share of troubles. Her fiancé has just been murdered, and she has found a stash of $10,000 that she fears he scammed. Nina is distressingly a �will you respect me in the morning� type of young lady that rings no truer now than it did in the early �60s, and Travis� famous philosophizing is really put to the test, however enchanted he is.
�Nightmare in Pink� is worth the price of admission just for the middle third of the book where Travis is captured in a private mental hospital and loaded with psychedelic drugs. His hallucinatory terrors are brilliantly and horrifyingly described, and the after-effects linger through the entire book.
The plot is a convoluted financial scam that MacDonald loves, but doesn�t suit Travis too well (Meyer is not yet on the scene). Also cold, urban settings are not kind to a knight errant beach bum. Grade C-

Fort Lauderdale, the Busted Flush, this is a Travis McGee mystery. Mike Gibson had a service injury and Travis did not, and so Travis is willing to leave Florida to go to NYC to see Mike's sister, Nina, who has recently lost her fiance. The fiance, Howard Plummer, was the victim of a mugging-- assailant unknown. Howard had worked for Armister-Hawes, an investment bank. He had complained to others that he had not been able to see Charles Armister to talk with him, and that the bank was undergoing divestment without any strategy evident to make up for the lack of holding a growth portfolio.

Travis's former client, Connie Thatcher, informs him that she knows the sister-in-law of Charles Armister, Terry Drummond. He discovers that Terry Drummond hasn't been able to see Charles, either, and she would like to do this to encourage him to return to living with her sister. At the present it seems that Charles is living with his secretary and his lawyer. It is feared that he is somehow under their thumb. Travis McGee certainly does find himself in the midst of a nightmare as he undergoes a stay at a mental hospital where Charles Armister was treated.

The plotting of the mystery is very tight, very good.

I like the Travis McGee series so far. Good Character, you will like. I will list other series I like to compare my reading taste: Covert One, Mitch Rapp, Jack Reacher, Gabriel Allen, Stone Barrington, Myron Bolitar,

Travis McGee books need no reviews. They're American Classics and should be read. I'm not so sure they really need to be read in order. This is supposed to be the second, but there's no reference that I can find back to the first. The author talks about McGee's past and mentions a few other cases, but it seems it's just to fit the current plot. As I was reading along I started wondering why it was called Nightmare In Pink, just as he was sitting down with Rossa. The story went into over-drive at that point and I couldn't do anything else until I finished it.

Winding a mystery and romance together in to a readable tale is what makes a MacDonald classic. But, exploring the world of high society fraud while engaging in a serious relationship is a new dimension for both McGee and the author. "Pink" may well be the best of the Travis McGee series and a "keeper" for MacDonald fans.

Was introduced to author John MacDonald after being told to try some lighter reading. Something fun and not to DEEP and dark (my usual selections). I've enjoyed his writing style. Nightmare in Pink is my 2nd book of his to read. The main character Trav McGee is a laid back badass, who's just trashy enough to relate to. MacDonald is an easy-read author but certainly not a dum-dum.

NIGHTMARE IN PINK is John D. MacDonald's second book in the Travis McGee series. This book came out in 1964 but shows little age. Being in New York instead of Ft. Lauderdale isn't as exciting but the dialogue is crisp and witty and this second book helps us get to know McGee. As always, read the series books in order. Great character and wonderful classic series. Very Highly Recommended