Mystery Series - Travis McGee

John D. MacDonald

John D. MacDonald (1916-1986) wrote thrillers and various standalone crime stories from 1936 on. In 1964, the first Travis McGee book appeared. McGee is not a detective, but a salvage consultant living on a boat in Florida. McGee is 6'4" tall, ex-military, and has a commanding presence. He consistently gets pulled into high-stakes adventures, usually to solve problems that are beyond the reach of the law. These are rather hard-boiled stories with lots of action and some sex (not explicit), but there is a cerebral element to all the problems he is called upon to solve. His sidekick is Meyer, an economist, with whom he shares everything. He has few emotional ties, but two women do appear in the series, both of whom have an impact on his life before they are abruptly removed (for different reasons). All the books in this series have a color in the title.

Recurring Characters of Note
G. Ludweg Meyer, economist and his best friend
Puss Killian, one of the few women Travis really loved
Gretel, another of the few women Travis loved

#1 The Deep Blue Good-by (1964)
#2 Nightmare in Pink (1964)
#3 A Purple Place for Dying (1964)
#4 The Quick Red Fox (1964)
#5 A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965)
#6 Bright Orange for the Shroud (1965)
#7 Darker than Amber (1966)
#8 One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966)
#9 Pale Gray for Guilt (1968)
#10 The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper (1968)
#11 Dress Her in Indigo (1969)
#12 The Long Lavender Look (1970)
#13 A Tan and Sandy Silence (1971)
#14 The Scarlet Ruse (1973)
#15 The Turquoise Lament (1973)
#16 The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1975)
#17 The Empty Copper Sea (1978)

#18 The Green Ripper (1979)
The Green Ripper is a child's mispronunciation of The Grim Reaper. McGee has been living aboard his boat with Gretel, one of his true loves. She has temporarily moved to a location closer to her new job as an all-purpose-person at a health spa. She is telling Travis and Meyer about an odd occurance where she recognized a man from her past with one of the owners. A few day later, the man is dead from a fall off his bicycle and Gretel is in the hospital with an unexplained flu-like disease. Her condition worsens, and the pathogen can not be identified.

When Gretel does not survive, Travis insists on an autopsy, and a clever murder is revealed.

McGee embarks on a quest to find the man Gretel recognized, find out what's going on and exact revenge. His quest takes him to a militant terrorist "church" in California with a chilling agenda.

#19 Free Fall in Crimson (1981)
#20 Cinnamon Skin (1982)
The Travis McGee Quiz Book (compiled by John Brogan, introduction by MacDonald) (1984)

#21 The Lonely Silver Rain (1985)
This is the final book in the series. It's not exactly clear if MacDonald intended to end the series, but it does make a nice conclusion. The final chapter takes place in a rain so heavy it bounces off the pavement. Travis calls it a "lonely silver rain."

A friend of McGee asks him to try to recover his custom yacht that was stolen. It's a real long shot, because stolen boats are usually quickly transformed so as to be unrecognizable. However, the custom build of this one does suggest a method to find it. When McGee finds the boat, there are three dead bodies aboard, and someone in the drug smuggling world seems to want to blame McGee and the boat owner for the murders.

McGee travels to Mexico to try to keep from being killed by finding out who is really to blame.

Meanwhile, someone is leaving whimsical pipe-cleaner cats in various colors on his own boat.