As you’ve noticed, I am working my way (happily) through the old John D. MacDonald paperbacks re-issued for Kindle by The Murder Room. Deadly Welcome was a particular pleasure, because it’s one I hadn’t read before.

Alex Doyle works in sort of troubleshooting capacity (never really explained) for the US State Department. But one day he’s ordered to the Pentagon and informed he’s now on loan to the military. They have an assignment for him, one he’s uniquely qualified to carry out.

There’s a Colonel M’Gann who’s been doing important defense work. A while back he got married to a woman named Jenna Larkin, originally of Ramona Beach, Florida. She seemed to be a good wife, and nursed him back from a stroke. They moved to Ramona Beach together. Then she was murdered, strangled on the beach. Now Col. M’Gann has withdrawn from the world. The military wants him back. They’d like Alex to go down there and see if he can solve the murder. That might bring the Colonel back.

Alex doesn’t want to do it. The very reason they chose him is because he originally came from Ramona himself. He even knew Jenna Larkin (all the boys did). Back there he was considered white trash. He got framed for a theft and only avoided prison by enlisting in the Army. He expects no great welcome in his home town.

Indeed, once he arrives, pretending to have money he wants to invest in a local business, almost his first encounter is with the deputy sheriff, who works him over with a truncheon just to show him who’s in charge. Alex pretends to be properly cowed, but he’s not the same guy who got run out of town so long ago. He’ll get his own back in his own time. Along the way he’ll meet Jenna’s sister, a beautiful woman with a traumatic past. And he’ll uncover a possible motive for the murder, which helps him come up with a way to trap a killer.

Deadly Welcome isn’t a terribly memorable book. There’s a little too much amateur psychology here, perhaps. But it’s a well-crafted, plausible story with a satisfying conclusion. Journeyman work, and well worth the price.