A Man of Affairs: A Novel

By John D. MacDonald and Dean Koontz

A Man of Affairs, one of many classic novels from crime writer John D. MacDonald, the beloved author of Cape Fear and the Travis McGee series, is now available as an eBook.
 
Beneath the Bahamas sun rages a titanic power struggle. A mastermind of the dog-eat-dog world of corporate corruption, Mike Dean uses every asset at his disposal—women, liquor, his own personal magnetism—to take businessmen’s minds off their troubles, soften their consciences, muddy their good sense, and bend them to his will. But one of his house guests refuses to see things Mike’s way. One of them won’t be bought. One of them has a mind, and a heart, of his own. And he’s determined to beat Mike at his own game.
 
Features a new Introduction by Dean Koontz
 
Praise for John D. MacDonald
 
“The great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King
 
“My favorite novelist of all time.”—Dean Koontz
 
“To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen.”—Kurt Vonnegut
 
“A master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer . . . John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in the field. Talk about the best.”—Mary Higgins Clark

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9780812984927

Reviews for A Man of Affairs

[waldhaus1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A big guy discovers he's not a phony and gets the girlWith an interesting foreshadowing of the more contemporary business world there is a threatened hostile takeover of a family business as the center of the story. There are a couple of deaths. Conveniently they move the plot along. Unpredictable enough to keep the readers interest. The story ends with an interlude in Cuernevaca. MacDonald lived there from time to time. Cigarette smoking comes up a lot. Paints an interesting picture of life in the fifties.

[andyray_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Here is the beginnings of Travis McGee in the early 1950s. His name here is Sam Glidden. He is 6'4" tall, 245, 32, and bronzed, wirey, and cutesy smart. Hm. Sound familiar? his is not one of JDM's more popular novels and I don't know why. Only reason I gave it a 4 and 1/2 rather than five is because of its Hollywood ending. MacDonald's only flaw.

[linkmeister · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I need a new tag for this book. It's not a mystery, and there's only a modicum of suspense. What it really is is a 175-page commentary on corporate raiders circa 1957, when it was first published. The thing is, though, the commentary isn't dated at all. You can see T. Boone Pickens, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, or the Enron gang as substitutes for the principal villain in this book without stretching your imagination at all.The story revolves around a corporate shark's attempt to take over a publicly-traded but closely-held manufacturing firm. One of the firm's rising executives is trying to block the takeover, expecting that the company will be gutted and sold after the stock price has been manipulated upwards. The raider has brought the principal shareholders and the exec to the Bahamas for a wine-and-dine weekend, hoping to persuade them all to sign proxies over to him. Tragedy follows, including a barracuda attack which kills one of the stockholders.The story is a good moral tale fraught with questions about loyalty and self-valuation.