This blog has been dormant for a while, and that’s been due to time constraints. I’m bringing it back online. More on that later.

Today, July 24, is the birthday of John D. MacDonald (1916-1986). MacDonald wrote for the pulps and transitioned to paperbacks when the pulps died. (I wish someone would collect all his science fiction.) For today’s birthday post, I want to look at One Monday We Killed Them All.

Dwight McAran beat a girl to death and went to prison for it. He’s about to get out. Dwight is Fenn Hillyer’s brother-in-law. Fenn is a cop. They don’t get along.

Dwight’s sister Meg, Fenn’s wife, thinks Dwight has made some bad but is basically a good person. He just needs the police and powerful businessman whose daughter Dwight killed to get off his back and give him a chance. She’s said he can stay with her and Fenn and everything will eventually be fine.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

Do you think Fenn’s family life is about to get…complicated?

John D. MacDonald

Dwight is a bad man. And he’s had a few years in prison to think about how he wants to get revenge on the whole town of Brook City. Set on the flatlands next to the hills in a state in the Midwest, this one has class conflict, corruption, prison breaks, and lots of tension.

Fenn knows Dwight is a career criminal. He wants Dwight gone. But Dwight served his entire sentence. He is a free man. And Meg, well, she refuses to hear anything negative about her brother. Her loyalty to her brother and her husband will be tested. She’s going to make some very bad decisions where Dwight is concerned, decisions she’ll come to regret.

One Monday We Killed Them All is John D. MacDonald at his best. I hadn’t read this one before, but it will definitely go into the rotation.

As to why I’m reviving this blog, it has everything to do with John D. MacDonald.

Not too long ago, 18 months give or take, a national chain that sells used books, music, and games opened here. Early on they bought a bunch of vintage paperbacks that had belonged to a gentleman who had recently passed. They put them on an endcap with prices in the $8-10 range. While there were westerns and science fiction in the mix, most of the titles were crime novels. There were more John D. MacDonald than all others put together.

Recently they had been putting a few out front in the dollar bin as part of an inventory reduction sale. Seems corporate wasn’t happy about the endcap being used for a bunch of old books that weren’t selling. Then they started putting two for one stickers on them, with the price still a dollar.

I swung by regularly, but I was able to convince the manager to give me a call when they decided to clear off the endcap. I would buy as many as I wanted and help them clear space if they would let me have them for a dollar.  She did.

Have I mentioned that I am desperately in need of shelf space?

The pictures are of the John D. MacDonald titles I picked up. (Click to enlarge.) There were some Lawrence Block titles and a handful of Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels written under his Richard Stark pen name. I’ve got some of these books, and all of the Travis McGee titles are duplicates. I didn’t bother with trying to make a list of what I had. I just took advantage of the opportunity.

I’m not going to turn this into a John D. MacDonald blog, but since I’m going to be reading quite a bit of his work in the future, I decided to reinvigorate this blog.  I’ll read and review some of the other titles I picked as well as others that strike my fancy.