By noon, in a gray February world, we had come down through snow flurries to land at Albany, and had taken off again. When the snow ended the sky was a luminous gray. I looked down at the winter calligraphy of upstate New York, white fields marked off by the black woodlots, an etching without color, superbly restful in contrast to the smoky, guttering, grinding stink of the airplane clattering across the sky like an old commuter bus.

And while I was slowly finding that clarity manuscripts book proposals and copies of books by recommended authors rolled in. The novel Cry Hard Cry Fast was adapted as a two-part episode of the TV series Run for Your Life in November 1967. I was very impressed by the logic of the denial and by the empathy shown to the person making the request.

His best-known works include the popular and critically acclaimed Travis McGee series and his novel The Executioners which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. National Book Award in the one-year category Mystery. John Dann MacDonald (July 24 1916 – December 28 1986) was an American writer of novels and short stories known for his thrillers.