My Affair with Travis McGee

John D. MacDonald introduced me to Travis McGee in 1982. The book was called Cinnamon Skin. McGee was a lanky, philosophical “righter of wrongs,” and just one read sent me back to the archives until I had gotten my hands on every novel in the Travis McGee series.

I hadn’t thought about these books in a long time. It’s been twenty-seven years since the last volume was published. When a friend was looking for a gift for an avid mystery reader, she wondered if she had ever read any of the “Travis McGees.” Just the mention of the books sent me back to another time. I’ve read so many mysteries since then, but I rarely find a series that grabs me like the books of John D. MacDonald.

He published the first “McGee” novel in 1964, The Deep Blue Goodbye. McGee was an independent spirit who lived on a houseboat in Florida, where he solved mysteries for people who often had nowhere else to turn. He had a long trail of girlfriends throughout the series, and one best friend, an economist named Meyer. Some of the best parts of these books revolved around the comraderie and profound discussions between Travis and Meyer.

There were twenty-one Travis McGee mysteries, and each had a color in the title. The series ended in 1984 with the release of The Lonely Silver Rain. After reading the new releases in the eighties, some of the older books from the sixties seemed a little dated……but the stories were so compelling that it didn’t matter. When John D. MacDonald left this world in 1986, he took McGee with him. Despite rumors that he left one last novel in the series to be published posthumously, it hasn’t proven to be so.

I relocated in 1993, and packed all of my Travis McGee paperbacks into a box. They are still at a friend’s house hours away—-at least I think they are. It’s time to try and retrieve the long lost box of books. After all the drama through the intervening years, I’ve forgotten most of the stories. I can start over, and read the series again. It will be interesting to see if I have the same taste in books that my younger self had. I may yet have one last fling with Travis McGee.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_McGee


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