TRAVIS McGEE
He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half....
He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half....
I owned
this book years ago, when I first got into crime fiction in the early 90’s. I
discarded it, un-read a couple of years later on the basis that it looked old,
it was old - therefore it must be rubbish.
Fast forward 20 years and my outlook has somewhat changed. I’m old myself now; 50 this year and still
older than the book, which by definition cannot now be dismissed automatically as
rubbish on grounds of age alone. I was encouraged to give it a chance to by a
friend I’ve made on the Goodreads site - Cathy from Florida.
So a
big hat tip to Cathy then, as the book was extremely enjoyable. McDonald’s
creation, Travis McGee is the star of the show in this his first outing. Travis
is a “salvage” expert. He specialises in recovering people’s property for a
50/50 split of the spoils, but only when he needs the money. The rest of the
time he enjoys a life of leisure on his boat in sunny Florida.
McGee
agrees to help Cathy recover her mystery inheritance that’s been swindled from
her by Junior Allen, a smooth talking, rapist ex-con. McGee’s investigation
sees him delving into Cathy’s father’s past and his wartime exploits as well as
more recent events with Junior’s involvement with another local lady. Fast
forward a bit.......... McGee eventually catches up with Allen and attempts to
reclaim Cathy’s gem stones as well as making Allen pay for his exploits.
MacDonald
portrays McGee as a part-time sage-cum-philosopher as well as a man of action
when the need arises. He’s a loner with a heart, albeit a chauvinistic one, and
whilst that may be irritating and a turn off for some readers, I actually liked
him and want to read more about him.
The
Deep Blue Goodbye was MacDonald’s first Travis book in a series that ran for 20
years and a further 20 books. I won’t bite off more than I can chew, but I’ve already
line up the second in the series for reading next month sometime – Nightmare In
Pink.
4
from 5
I managed
to obtain a second-hand copy of this by agreeing to swap another of my books on
the useful ReadItSwapIt website.
No comments:
Post a Comment