Set in the Florida Gulf, the Travis McGee books are one of the more acclaimed runs in mystery fiction, enjoyed by prince and proletarian alike for decades. But like an Everglades alligator, the series has always occupied space a little under the surface.
Attempts to put McGee on the big or little screen in a serious way never panned out. Look for writer John D. MacDonald in a bookstore’s Mystery section and you may find one title or two — or zero.
He doesn’t eat up shelf space like Agatha Christie, Michael Connelly or Sue Grafton. In fact, if you scan alphabetically for John D. MacDonald, who died in 1986, you’re likely to bump into Ross Macdonald and his Lew Archer series instead.
That’s a shame. I would not make great claims for the McGee books, of which there are 21, published from 1964 to 1985. But I like them. And after a very long period in which I averaged one or two a year, I finally read the last three, wrapping up with “The Lonely Silver Rain” in December.
Each has a color in the title, MacDonald’s way of helping book browsers keep them straight. “The Deep Blue Good-by” is the first, followed by “Nightmare in Pink,” “A Purple Place for Dying,” all the way through tan, crimson, gold, turquoise and many, many more.
Who is Travis McGee? He’s a self-described beach bum who lives on a houseboat and calls himself a salvage consultant. If you have lost something or were cheated out of it, he will attempt to get it back for you for half its value, plus expenses.
“Half?” many clients yelp. Better to have half than zero, McGee tells them. They realize he’s right.
He thinks of himself wryly as a knight errant, akin to Don Quixote — see why I like him? — with a bent lance, rusty armor and a swaybacked steed, venturing forth in the service of justice.
Orlando Davidson, the Claremont native who wrote the 2022 mystery “Baseline Road,” read all the McGees in his 20s.
“It’s hard to see Jack Reacher existing as a character if Travis McGee hadn’t paved the way for him,” Davidson tells me. “Not a cop, not a private detective; simply a righter of wrongs who sometimes gets paid.”
What most of us love about the books aren’t the plots, which tend to blend together despite the color-coded titles. It’s the writing, especially when McGee, as narrator, offers a vivid description, gets on his soapbox or muses about life.
A few favorite quotes:
On communication (“Bright Orange for the Shroud”): “A friend is someone to whom you can say any jackass thing that enters your mind. With acquaintances, you are forever aware of their slightly unreal image of you, and to keep them content, you edit yourself to fit. Many marriages are between acquaintances.”
On attraction (“The Quick Red Fox”): “When she laughed or smiled broadly I could see that one of the eyeteeth, the one on the left, was set in there aslant, making a little overlap with the tooth in front of it. When an imperfection looks very dear to you, heed the message.”
On coaxing people to talk (from “Nightmare in Pink”): “There is only one way to make people talk more than they care to. Listen. Listen with hungry earnest attention to every word … A good listener is far more rare than an adequate lover.”
On a windy, chilly day in Florida (“The Lonely Silver Rain”): “And the wind had also whipped all the urban smutch out to sea, all the stink of diesel, gasoline, chemicals and garbage fires, leaving a sky so blue it was like the sky of childhood.”
On his regrets for not having children, especially a son (“Cinnamon Skin”): “What you want are the full-grown variety, big and sturdy and loyal and true. But you never wanted what came in between: diapers and shots, PTA and homework, yard mowing, retirement programs, Christmas lists, mortgage interest, car payments, dental bills and college tuition.”
While visiting a scholar (“A Deadly Shade of Gold”): “He grunted up off his straight chair and went over to a corner full of books and got down on all fours, giving the impression of a large sad dog digging a hole.”
At a hardware store (“The Long Lavender Look”): “Old men were browsing through the hand tools and cupboard latches, spray cans and wallboard just as, in the world of long ago, they had prowled the candy store to find out how best to spend the hoarded dime.”
On college students (“A Purple Place for Dying”): “They were being structured to life on the run, and by the time they would become what is now known as senior citizens, they could fit nicely into planned communities where recreation is scheduled on such a tight and competitive basis that they could continue to run, plan, organize, until, falling at last into silence, the grief-therapist would gather them in, rosy their cheeks, close the box and lower them to the only rest they had ever known.”
Wow. I mean, wow.
On an out-of-shape opponent (“Free Fall in Crimson”): “He was in that peak of physical conditioning which would cause him to get winded by changing his socks.”
On a lawyer friend (“The Lonely Silver Rain”): “He was in a new firm. These fellows group and regroup as often as square dancers.”
The Inland Empire came up once in passing, in 1981’s “Free Fall in Crimson.” McGee’s friend Meyer does some research into a suspect.
He reports: “There is certain standard information about Desmin Grizzel. Raised in Riverside, California, out on the edge of the desert, a one-parent family, with the children divided among foster homes when the mother was killed in a midnight brawl in a parking lot.”
My odyssey through the books came in stages. While working as an aide at the Olney Public Library in high school, I read the most recent four, and also the first three or four. A quarter century later, at a used bookstore in New Orleans, I spotted the first one for a couple of bucks and, on a whim, started from the beginning.
They are books slightly before my time, which made them more tantalizing. Will I ever reread them? I don’t know, but I’m glad to have finally read them.
Give me a gold star, a bronze medal or a blue ribbon.
David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, colorfully. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on X.