John D. MacDonald (1916-86) was a prolific writer who for most of his life stuck to the pulp and paperback original milieu. He is most noted for his fabulous Travis McGee series (all books having a color in the title), although he also wrote one of my favorite mysteries, The Last One Left, which I think is his masterpiece (see below).
While techically not of the Golden Age of Detection, John D. Macdonald's Travis McGee
series is a classic in the thriller/caper genre (and also quite good
as mystery with some minimal detection). At one time I had all of the
McGee books, but lost them over various moves and now have only three
in one of those nice, now defunct, Detective Book Club hardcovers. I am in the process
of recovering the series, but have no intention of re-reading all of them in one marathon or reviewing all of them on this site.
The Deep Blue Good-by (1964) --
The first Travis McGee is a masterpiece and sets up the whole long series with all the basic
background material. What is so good about Deep Blue Good-by is that it has all of the
virtues of JDM without the flaws (e.g., the mawkish descriptions of TM's relationships, and the sometimes irritating Meyer). All the typical elements are there -- the boat bum scenery, the Alabama Tiger's perpetual house party, Travis's unusual profession of 'recoverer of stolen
property' with his 50% commission and quasi-legal methodology, his effective if somewhat mercenary way of curing birds with busted wings, without professional psychiatric treatment just simple lust and a good technique, his cleverness in intimidating people into revealing their secrets, all that good stuff. Also, as usual, an exceedingly nasty villain. In this case, McGee nearly comes a cropper by underestimating the latter, and there is a very poignant and traumatic for Travis ending. Grand premiere. Wonderful book.
The villain, as many of JDM's are, is totally amoral and an exploiter of the innocent. He is in particular a sadistic abuser of woman -- to Travis, the worst of crimes. He is also both shrewd in an animal-like sense, and physically very powerful, almost indestructable. The ending is extremely violent, but also apt and satisfying.
Nightmare in Pink (1964) -- While similar to all the McGee books, it sometimes goes to excess, although there are some really good characters in it. While TM is free-spiritedly lusty, with no hang-ups about sex, which is all good fun, he does tend to overdo the self-justification crap, such as the following:
It is a rare thing, that infatuation which grows with each sating, so that those caresses which are merely affection and the gratitude of release and sleepy habit turn in their own slow time into the next overture, the next threshold, the next unwearied increment of heat and need, using and knowing, learning and giving, new signs and signals in a private and special language, freshened heats and scents and tastes, sweetened gasps of fitting thus, knowing this, learning of that, rediscovering the inexhaustible here, the remorseless now.
Overwritten claptrap. What he really means is that they had a good
romp. But this is typical of McGee, along with his various guilt complexes about it. The ending is a true smash! A really nightmarish brainwashing sequence in a highly unusual private mental hospital, involving mind-altering drugs, lobotomies, electrodes in the pleasure center of the brain, etc. A combination of "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Manchurian Candidate" (both contemporary to this book). Once again, Travis underestimates the proficiency of his enemies and pays the price. It's refreshing to have a protagonist who is not infallible. But of course he does come through, very dramatically and violently.
As for his love life as the ultimate Stud and his self-justification for it, maybe I am just being envious. But he does seem to have an indecent and unfair success rate, some three or four women per book.
MacDonald maintains his cynical dislike of present-day events, as expressed here, for example:
I saw the paper where I had dropped it, just inside the door. I went over and got it and took it back to bed. While I had been in the blurry world of induced dreams and visions, the other world had trudged its way along to a November Tuesday. Education bill returned to committee. Three injured in Birmingham bomb attack. Acress beats narcotics rap. Seven dead in Freeway collision. Parklands sold to compaign contributor. Truck strike in eighth week. Thirty-nine dead in jet crash. Model claims fractured jaw in divorce action. Disarmament talks stalled. Teacher accused in teen slayings. Earthquake in Peru. Tax cut stymied....
I was back in the sane, reasonable, plausible world.
Another recurring theme of JDM's is his contempt for big business with all its antisocial attributes, greed, ruthlessness, and the near slavery of employees. Corporate America has not changed much since 1964, except for the sheer size of its depradations (viz. Enron). The villain is especially nasty and immoral, but ends up getting away with a three-year sentence for tax evasion rather than all the other worse crimes he committed or had paid for to be done.
Bright Orange for the Shroud (1965) -- This adventure shows up TM's abilities as a con-man in a Simon-Templarish manner; how does he go about his 'salvaging'? -- very ingeniously and painstakingly (and somewhat ruthlessly). He's up against real-estate scammers who totally (and semi-legally) wiped out everything owned by an acquaintance of TM's, leaving him a basket case. These scammers include a slick professional, high-level con man and his classy moll, a pathetic shyster lawyer out of his depth and his much put-upon wife, a nasty conniving gold-brick woman, and a truly horrendous red-neck who displays the characteristics of a predatory cat in full glory (with no redeeming features whatsoever). Travis, again, comes to near grief by underestimating the worst of the villains. Here's a nice bit of self-awareness on McGee's part when it comes to having sex with an old friend who is not a 'wounded duckling': "But a sound and solid one can only make you aware of how frequently perilous your acquired controls can become. It could be that this wariness of the sound ones and the true ones was one of the hidden reasons why I had to be a roamer, a salvage expert, a gregarious loner, a seeker of a thousand tarnished grails, finding too many excuses for all the dragons along the way."
One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966) -- The title is very appropriate, as one will see on reading the book. This has some of JDM's most repulsive villains -- one expected, one out of the blue, and one totally surprising. Most of the characters have German names, so of course there is a Nazi sub-plot; otherwise, it is a case of the nasty blackmailing of a dying man. Starts slowly, and McGee's sexual psychiatry is pervasive throughout (can all 'wounded birds' lose their neuroses simply from having good sex?). The last several chapters are excellent, including a very gruesome killing sandwiched between two very funny episodes involving TM and a farmer's wife. At the end is a real surprise and a deus ex machina that was only hinted at.
The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1974) -- Wow, what an ending this book has! Its plot core involves drug dealing (marijuana)* -- and here JDM shows his libertarian attitude: if it doesn't hurt anybody, then do it, but make sure it doesn't screw you up. When greed takes over, and it is not just a lark any more, then the murders come fast and furious. Everybody involved, even sympathetic characters, is corrupted in some way. Sexual jealousy, hypocritical political shenanigans, excessive desire for wealth and status run under the story; but many of these corrupted people are really good in some way or another, marking out the author's usual theme about human complexity -- these victims are all flawed but basically decent. Except, of course, for the main villain (actually there are several in this book, 'breaking' one of the rules of classic detective stories). who is as nasty as they come under his charming surface.
TM's friend Meyer is in this story as a full partner, and he plays a good role, not so irritatingly pontifical as usual; it is amusing to have Travis snap at his efforts to play detective. McGee makes mistakes and misjudgments, as usual, and almost dies (twice) because of it, and his beloved houseboat, the Busted Flush, comes to near grief. One will never laugh at the idea of being attacked by fire ants after finishing this book!
* McGee speaking of pot:
[Meyer] "Do you disapprove of a person using the weed?"
[Travis] "Me? I think people should do whatever they want to do, provided they go to the trouble of informing themselves first of any possible problems. Once they know, then they can solve their own risk-reward ratios. Suppose somebody proved it does some kind of permanent damage. Okay. So the user has to figure out if there is any point in his remaining in optimum condition for a minimum kind of existence. For me, it was relaxing, in a way, the couple of times I've had enough to feel it. But it gave me the giggles, warped my time sense, and made things too bright and hard-edged. Also it bent dimensions somehow. Buildings leaned just a little bit the wrong way. Rooms were not perfectly oblong any more. It's a kind of sensual relaxation, but it gave me the uneasy feeling somebody could come up behind me and kill me and I would die distantly amused instead of scared witless."
[Meyer] "I am trying to imagine you giggling."
1. THE DEEP BLUE GOOD-BY (1964) + ** [see above]
2. THE QUICK RED FOX (1964) + [Travis and the bitchy movie star he spurns; meet her again in #19]
3. NIGHTMARE IN PINK (1964) + * [see above]
4. A PURPLE PLACE FOR DYING (1964)
5. A DEADLY SHADE OF GOLD (1965)
6. BRIGHT ORANGE FOR THE SHROUD (1965) + ** [see above]
7. DARKER THAN AMBER (1966)
8. ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE (1966) + * [see above]
9. PALE GREY 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 (1972) + [A nasty and complex business involving real-estate developers]
14. THE SCARLET RUSE (1973) + [Travis picks the wrong girl for a change; all about stamps, too]
15. THE TURQUOISE LAMENT (1973)
16. THE DREADFUL LEMON SKY (1974) + ** [see above]
17. THE EMPTY COPPER SEA (1978)
18. THE GREEN RIPPER (1979) + [Wacko religious terrorists kill 'Rambo' McGee's lover; he gets his revenge]
19. FREE FALL IN CRIMSON (1981) + [The aging Travis meets some old friends and has some 'fun' adventures; many deaths]
20. CINNAMON SKIN (1982)
21. THE LONELY SILVER RAIN (1984)
[+ recently re-read; * very good; ** excellent]
A McGee-ism from The Quick Brown Fox: I get this crazy feeling. Every once in a while I get it. I get the feeling that this is the last time in history when the offbeats like me will have a chance to live free in the nooks and crannies of the huge and rigid structure of an increasingly codified society. Fifty years from now I would be hunted down in the street. They would drill little holes in my skull and make me sensible and reliable and adjusted.
The formula wears thin, as Meyer says in The Green Ripper: A person can get killed doing what you do, and I think it is a worthwhile way for you to live. In these past few years it has made you a bit morose, but that is only because any kind of repetition leads to a certain staleness of the soul. Too many beds, and too much dying. Greed and love begin to wear the same masks.
Busted Flush, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale