I read John D. MacDonald's PLEASE WRITE FOR DETAILS (1959) a
few days ago. It's not a mystery or thriller, but in the
Grand Hotel vein, with a large group of people drawn together
for a while, then parting. A nebbishy fellow who needs some
money gets some help from a rich, sloppy blonde and arranges
a summer art school in Cuernevaca, Mexico. A variety of
Americans come down: a retired soldier, two rich young Texan
beauties, a guy whose wife left him, a noble architect, two
elderly small-town widows, a beautiful young recent widow,
etc. By the end of it they've all mixed together over the
summer with the teachers and local people, and the weak ones
are stronger, the hurt ones mended, the bad ones punished.
It's tightly written, and interesting to see how JDM sets up
the people and has things unfold. Anything like this can
suffer because of the self-imposed restrictions, but JDM's a
damned good writer and he makes it work, though it's a minor
work in his canon. You can draw a line from it to CONDOMINIUM
(1977) (which I also liked, but some don't).
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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