A previously undiscovered story by John D MacDonald, the author of The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear twice, will be released for the first time in the Strand Magazine on Tuesday.
The Accomplice tells the gritty tale of Joey, a young employee at a grocery store who catches the eye of Belle, the much younger wife of the store’s owner.
„Take a look at John when he gets back,“ Belle suggests to Joey. „Think of the possibilities and the money we could make if he wasn’t around. And he has four thousand in insurance.“
„But he’s only in his fifties,“ Joey points out.
„She chuckled. ‚Just think about it, Joey.‘
He pondered the idea throughout the night.
Andrew F Gulli, the managing editor of the Strand, has recently unveiled unpublished works by James M Cain, Truman Capote, and Rod Serling, as well as an essay by GK Chesterton.
The Accomplice was discovered in the MacDonald archives at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Gulli then verified with Calvin Branche, a MacDonald expert, that it had never been published – although a different story about a grocery clerk involved with an older woman, also titled The Accomplice, was published in 1980.
Describing the unpublished story as a product of the late 1940s, Gulli believes it portrays a young man „trapped in a moral dilemma, torn between allegiance to his employer, his strange attraction to a unique femme fatale, and the temptation of material gain.“
MacDonald, born in Sharon, Pennsylvania in 1916, was a graduate of Syracuse and Harvard. He served in the US Army and the Office of Strategic Services during World War II before transitioning to full-time writing.
Branche first encountered MacDonald’s work in Connecticut in the 1960s at a local bookstore selling paperbacks for as little as a dime. He believes MacDonald is less well-known today due to the passage of time, but notes that new readers are consistently impressed by his work.
MacDonald’s reputation as a master of noir fiction is solidified, particularly through the book that inspired Cape Fear, filmed in 1962 with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, and in 1991 by Martin Scorsese with Nick Nolte and Robert De Niro. MacDonald’s 21 Travis McGee novels were also highly successful.
MacDonald was incredibly prolific, producing 78 books and approximately 450 stories. According to Branche, MacDonald’s stories were so highly regarded that he often had multiple pieces published under pseudonyms in pulp magazines.
Gulli believes MacDonald brought a unique perspective to his genre, exploring human behavior, societal disillusionment, and broader social issues of his time, such as environmental concerns and corporate greed.
In 1964, MacDonald described his work as striving for freshness, insight, valid characterization, and methodological accuracy within traditional storytelling conventions.
When MacDonald passed away in 1986, the New York Times highlighted his disciplined writing routine and attention to detail in his craft.
The version of The Accomplice published in the Strand delves into the raw materials found in grocery stores, emphasizing details like canned goods and meat counters, and the tense interactions between characters.
While some weaknesses in character development were noted in the unpublished version of The Accomplice, these were refined in the later published edition, reflecting MacDonald’s strong ethical sensibilities.
Gulli places MacDonald among the noir legends of literature, praising his ability to expose the moral decay and psychological turmoil of post-war America with precision and foresight.
Esteemed authors such as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Lee Child have lauded MacDonald’s work, with some considering him one of the greatest authors of popular fiction in the 20th century.
Kingsley Amis hat ihn „nach jedem Maßstab ein besserer Schriftsteller“ als der Pulitzer-Preisträger Romanautor Saul Bellow, „nur MacDonald schreibt Thriller und Bellow ist ein menschliches Herztyp, also wer trägt die Top-Note Lorbeeren“.