Twists come at a fast draw in ‘A Purple Place for Dying’ (1964)

Twists usually come at the end, but “A Purple Place for Dying” (1964) has one of the twistiest beginnings of a Travis McGee novel. John D. MacDonald’s salvage-agent sleuth visits a potential client in Esmeralda County in the West (context clues suggest Arizona). He does his usual thing of saying he probably won’t take the case, and then something suddenly happens that changes everything.

Rather than a mystery littered with clues, “Purple” hooks McGee (and us) because nothing adds up. It seems only one person could possibly be the murderer, yet McGee has good reason to believe he didn’t do it. An aspect of the killing doesn’t fit. The book’s initial jolt powers it through to a conventional action-based end, but by that time we have multiple characters to care about. I find this to be the best of MacDonald’s four McGee novels of 1964.

Esmeralda might (or might not) be a homage to the California city in the 1958 Philip Marlowe novel “Playback.” That city is taken over by connected development interests, and so is “Purple’s” county, although it’s rural and cowboy-fied. By today’s standards, it’s a throwback because Sheriff Buckelberry, although mildly corrupt and irritated with McGee, is ultimately interested in solving the case rather than covering for someone or covering his own behind.

---

---

A full immoral life vs. a sheltered moral one

McGee takes the assignment from Jasper Yeoman, the businessman who effectively runs Esmeralda County and whose wife has been murdered. He’s frank and open with McGee about his corruption, especially in an excellent passage in chapter nine. Yeoman outlines how he cleverly extracts money in shady deals, moves the money around, has a team of lawyers and accountants, and plans to slowly “discover” old records if the taxman shows interest. He figures he can drag it out for the duration of his life (and after that, who cares), and it’s hard to argue he’s wrong.

MacDonald contrasts this morally bad guy who lives a full life with “Purple’s” eventual female lead, the 20-something sister of a murder victim. She’s a morally good person who lives a timid, sheltered life. (The contrast is my own observation. Travis doesn’t do the philosophizing himself; for one thing, he doesn’t have Meyer to shoot the breeze with. Although he mentions his friend offhand, we aren’t introduced to him yet.)

Travis (himself a good person who lives a full life) does his usual knight-errant thing of changing the woman for the better by being in her orbit. In this way, she is an object (a challenge to be undertaken) from his perspective. Although her first name is mentioned at one point, I couldn’t find it when paging through; she’s referred to as “she” or “Miss Webb” most of the book.

One paragraph is a rather modern soft lecture on consent that doubles as noble characterization for McGee. Miss Webb learns she can say “no” and therefore ease into sexual interactions at her own rate rather than being terrified of being raped.

Since the frustrating (although not complex) case is slow to yield answers, it’s a relief for McGee to deal with the clear traits of Miss Webb, and to have a noble health-restoration mission that calls to mind “The Apartment” and the central damsel in “A Deep Blue Good-by.” “A Purple Place for Dying’s” initial female lead, Jasper’s wife Mona, commands every scene and would’ve been a more challenging woman to match wits with. But there are 18 McGee books after this, so we’ll likely get another strong-willed one.

Sleuthing Sunday reviews the works of Agatha Christie, along with other new and old classics of the mystery genre.