A Flash of Green

A group of businessmen wants to fill in a bay on the west coast of Florida in a town called, ironically, Palm Bay. They’ll build houses on the landfill and make a killing. It’s been tried before by an out-of-town group and was thwarted by local environmentalists. But this group is local and secretly backed by a corrupt country commissioner and home builder, Elmo Bliss. Bliss also has his eye on higher political office one day. It’s the early 1960s, proving that some things never go out of style.

Jimmy Wing is also local, and a writer for the paper. He helped defeat the last proposal but this time the newspaper is on board, since the money, and advertising dollars, would be local. Jimmy has secretly compromised himself by taking show more money from Elmo Bliss to dig up dirt on the environmental group members that would oppose the project, in furtherance of Bliss’s blackmail scheme to shut them up. But will he continue betraying his town for a pittance?

John D. MacDonald creates an entire world in Palm Bay, as we expect writers to do. But maybe we don’t need to know everything about everyone we come across. Their clothes, the houses they live in, the buildings they work in, every detail of their personalities. MacDonald is like the anti-Hemingway. There’s a lot of gooey backstory.

But that’s a stylistic concern. What this novel addresses is the shady marriage of greed, political corruption and overbuilding that is causing environmental destruction in Florida, and elsewhere, and which continues to this day. The recent scandal of the state attempting to build golf courses in Florida state parks proves that. show less

I got chills as I read this book. You see, I, like Jimmy Wing, was a small town reporter with all the credentials. I could, like him, go anywhere and see anyone. Then Jimmy got suckered into being "important" and was corrupted by Elmo Bliss. I was "corrupted" by Earl Branch. Having said this, JDM has performed a remarkable feat: he has written a piece of fiction that has actually happened several times along Florida's estuaries and coasts. Thisis the way things operate. As a reporter and editor of our county's council, I've watched project after project get "killed," only to come back two or three years later and pass swiftly through. What Macdonald does in this work is bring us into that world so intimately one can be whatever show more character he identifies with. My character is Jimmy Wing. What's yours? show less

The characters come to life

The book isn't. a fairy tale with a happy ending. I thought I'd read it before but the details didn't fit what I remembered. In a way it is a story about the'plague'of people, and the need to hold onto one's dreams even as we disappoint ourselves from time to time. It is life is what happens to you when you are making your plans. I know MacDonald was disappointed by the development that he saw go up around him when he lived in Sarasota. I don't believe he saw Wing as his alter ego but did want to portray ways society and government can steamroller people. By titling it Flash of Green he was saying don't give up hope but remember sometimes that hope is a fairytale for children and tourists, but that sometimes show more patience and persistence and keeping the dream alive can make it come true. show less

Good 1960s drama/crime novel by the great John D. MacDonald. This is the type of novel that was very popular in the 1940s - 70s. I didn't really like the story so I only gave it 3.5 stars. It was long, ponderous, and a bit sad. This is one of my least favorite books by this master.

I love John D. MacDonald. This guy could write! His dialogue and characters are wonderful. The words and thoughts of his characters often show more introspection then the average human we meet from day to day. He is truly a craftsman. Of course the most fun and interesting of his works are the Travis McGee books. Thank God he wrote a lot of them.