The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 6 December 2006
by John D. MacDonald
MacDonald's novels are widely read, there are many of them, and they are very popular. So there isn't much a reader today can add to what is known and appreciated about one of the most prolific authors in the late 20th century. He wrote twenty-one Travis McGee novels, each of which has the name of a color in the title. In this one, Travis is fishing under a highway bridge south of Miami when a girl literally drops in on him and his friend Meyer. That she has cement blocks tied to her feet only encourages McGee's curiosity. Travis, who likes to call himself a "salvage consultant," agrees to help Tami find thirty thousand dollars she has squirreled away somewhere if she runs into any trouble finding it. It wouldn't be a novel if there weren't plenty of trouble. Thus, McGee is on the tail of the story behind the girl in the cement overshoes. The trail leads him and his friend (and Dr. Watson character) Meyer up and down the Florida coast and on a Bermuda cruise. What transpires is a grift, of sorts, with grifters (and murderers) as marks. What makes the book so compelling, aside from being almost hilariously entertaining, is MacDonald's evocation of a Florida from a time now mostly forgotten. It is the time of Florida in the era of the old Flipper television show. It is a young vacationland with an influx of traveling tourists and not yet overwhelmed with the kind of development that makes people like Travis (presumably with the voice of MacDonald) and Carl Hiassen (who wrote a generous introduction to this book) so justifiably cranky. It is also an era of different sexual mores, and the women are often weak or compliant or both. They certainly, as a rule, find McGee very attractive. Still, he is honorable, to a point. In style and in narrative drive, one can see that MacDonald is a source of inspiration for present-day mystery writers like Sue Grafton.