NEW YORK — Crime writer John D. MacDonald, a master of the genre, was so prolific that sometimes even he couldn’t keep up with what he was doing.
He might have dozens of stories in submission at once and would leave some unfinished or unpublished as he moved on to a new idea. One of the surviving manuscripts was recently discovered and appears this week in the literary quarterly The Strand Magazine, which has run rarities by Ernest Hemingway,Tennessee Williams and many others. “The Accomplice” is an early work from the author known for his Travis McGee series and for the novel “The Executioners,” retitled “Cape Fear” in two film adaptations.
The newly seen story, a narrative of lust, betrayal and dangerous choices, was found in the archives at the University of Florida.
“Raw and gritty, the narrative embraces classic noir tropes, only to flip them in quintessential MacDonald style with an unexpected and thought-provoking finale,” Strand managing editor Andrew F. Gulli writes in the current issue.
“The Accomplice” is set in a grocery store where a “nearly” 18-year clerk named Joey works alongside the middle-aged owner, John Mallon, and his younger wife, Belle, whom MacDonald introduces as tall and long-faced, very white and so thin and taut that “her hips stuck out against the dresses she wore.” Before long, she is paying close attention to Joey, who would prefer — at first — that she keep it all professional.
“It scared him a little when he realized that when they were alone, in the store he’d head for the space behind the meat counter or the entrance to the cellar where the stock was kept, knowing that she would find some excuse to go by him,” MacDonald writes.
“After he realized that, he had a hard time getting to sleep at night and sometimes he would dream about her. In the dreams she was cold to touch, and like snakes. And then she would get mixed up in the dream with other girls.”
In a plot turn known to fans of “Double Indemnity” and other noir favorites, Belle proposes that they kill her husband and use the insurance money to go into business together.
“She whispered, ‘How are we going to do it, Joey?’”
MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, in 1916, and later moved with his family to Utica, New York, where he was still living when he wrote “The Accomplice.” He settled in Sarasota, Florida in the early 1950s and remained for decades before dying in Milwaukee, in 1986. His books have sold millions of copies and numerous authors, including Stephen King, have cited him as an influence. He is especially loved in Florida, and was honored in song by another famous state resident, Jimmy Buffett, who offered tribute in “Incommunicado.”
According to MacDonald scholar Calvin Branche, the author likely wrote “The Accomplice” in the late 1940s-early 1950s and set it aside amidst other projects. His wife, Dorothy, had gotten one of his stories published while he was serving overseas in World War II, and he was anxious to follow up, writing some 80 hours a week. MacDonald was still a few years away from his Travis McGee books, but Branche said that “The Accomplice” did anticipate the moral struggles of McGee and other MacDonald protagonists.
“(Joey) stands up to her temptation despite having initially thought her plan and a future with her might be good,” Branche says. “The reader is pleased with this conclusion, and it is the kind of insight characters find in many of the stories.”