A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald

One of the less well crafted of the Travis McGee books. I am a fan of John D MacDonald, and have read and reread the Travis McGee series many times. I never tire of the character and just enjoy the craft of this author. The stories seem almost timeless. You have to work hard to find references that allow you to peg the time setting. This one, he clearly was playing with where to come into the story. "In media res" is partly true, but things keep moving back and forth as information is uncovered. Travis and Meyer are concerned about Mary Broll when her husband comes by and asks Travis to give her a message after she had disappeared for three months. Seems Harry, the Husband, thought she would run to Travis. No one "hires" Travis, he just gets the niggling feeling that she would have gotten in touch and heads to Granada, where she supposedly went, to confirm that she is okay. The true villain in this piece pops up fairly late in the game, then turns out to be one of the most chilling psychotics of the whole series. If written in the 90s we would have thought JDM was trying to be more "edgy". He uses some inconceivable coincidences to get Travis through the steps to a solution, almost like he had a deadline and had to finish up. Not his best, but the worst of the Travis McGee Series is better than almost any other author's best work.

The Shack by William P. Young

Better than usual book about a "tangible" encounter with God in the Christian concept of Three Persons in the Trinity. Certainly thought provoking for me as a spiritual exploration of the Trinity, it has a tough mystery to solve that allows the principal character to be "processed" through conversations with these three unique characters. For conservative, tradition-based Christians, the license of having for example a large, ebullient African American woman as "God the Father" (a la a similar character in The Matrix) might be too much. But, the main character wrestles through personal pain in a process that would be familiar to most psychologists. Found it readable and less "pop religion" than other books of this type. If someone is wrestling with pain, it might give some inspiration. Unfortunately, some of the circumstances in the plot might not be worth exploring for some readers.