A Flash of Green tells the gripping story of small-town corruption and two people brave enough to fight back, featuring many of the themes John D. MacDonald explored better than anyone in his legendary career as a leading crime novelist.

Introduction by Dean Koontz

The opportunists have taken over Palm City. Silent and deadly, like the snakes that infest the nearby swamps, they lay hidden from view, waiting for the right moment to strike. Political subterfuge has already eased the residents toward selling out. All that’s left now is to silence a few stubborn holdouts.

James Wing is only trying to help a friend’s widow. At least that’s what he tells himself after warning Kat Hubble that the beautiful bay she and her neighbors have struggled to save is going to be sold to developers. He knows that he shouldn’t have told her anything. He’s a reporter, trained to reveal nothing. But he’s falling in love with her. Now cutthroats have set their sights on Kat—and they’ll do anything, use anyone, to stop her from interfering in their plans.

Praise for John D. MacDonald

“John D. MacDonald was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King

“The first modern writer to nail Florida dead-center, to capture all its languid sleaze, racy sense of promise, and breath-grabbing beauty.”—Carl Hiaasen

“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

John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short-story writer. His works include the Travis McGee series and the novel The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. In 1962 MacDonald was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980, he won a National Book Award. In print he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life, he was a truly empathetic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business, he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son. He died in 1986.