Cape Fear: A Novel

John D. MacDonald

Jan 2014 · Sold by Random House

About this eBook

How far would you go to save your family? In John D. MacDonald’s iconic masterwork of suspense, the inspiration for not one but two Hollywood hits, a mild-mannered family is tormented by an obsessed criminal—and with the authorities powerless to protect them, they must take the law into their own hands.
 
Introduction by Dean Koontz
 
Sam Bowden has it all: a successful law career, a devoted wife, and three children. But a terrifying figure from Bowden’s past looms in the shadows, waiting to shatter his pristine existence.
 
Fourteen years ago, Bowden’s testimony put Max Cady behind bars. Ever since, the convicted rapist has been nursing a grudge into an unrelenting passion for revenge. Cady has been counting the days until he is set free, desperate to destroy the man he blames for all his troubles. Now that time has come.
 
Praise for Cape Fear
 
“The best of [John D. MacDonald’s stand-alone] novels . . . an acute psychological study of base instinct, terror, mistakes, and raw emotion.”—Lee Child
 
“A powerful and frightening story.”—The New York Times
 
“Terrific suspense.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
 
Originally published as The Executioners

About the author

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.