Already an established and successful writer, MacDonald was persuaded to create a franchise c This book was published in 1964. Clues in the text place the action in 1962. So it was a time of transition--not yet the "'60s," which began in 1967, but the sexual revolution has begun and the times they are achangin'. It was a pretty confusing time to come of age. I was there. Lois Atkinson is at the end of her rope until Trav steps in and becomes even more determined to stop Junior Allen. Frail and broken, Lois can barely get out of bed when Travis finds her, let alone keep herself alive. But Travis turns into Mother McGee, giving Lois new life as he looks for the ruthless man who steals women’s spirits and livelihoods. But he can’t guess how violent his quest is soon to become. He’ll learn the hard way that there must be casualties in this game of cat and mouse. But McGee sees his real job as being a sort of hardboiled ‘knight-errant’, usually aiding a nubile post-WWII damsel-in-distress. The pattern for the series is set in The Deep Blue Good-by when Cathy asks Travis McGee for help recovering a dubiously-earned fortune that her dead father left hidden. McGee takes the case, and it leads to a smarmy but persuasive lowlife named Junior Allen. And in his effort to learn more about Allen, McGee meets his latest victim, Lois Atkinson. Junior Allen had wormed his way into controlling Lois’ life and money, and she was reduced to a nearly catatonic state by the time McGee came along. In addition to being a brute and a treasure-hunting rival for Travis, Lois reveals that Allen is also a serial rapist. Travis proceeds with his plan to recover Cathy’s fortune and ensure that Junior Allen meets justice.

John D.MacDonald writer of over 75 novels and 500 short stories has been widely viewed as having influenced numerous writers living today: Hiaasen, Vonnegut, White, Hall, Koontz (who considered MacDonald his "literary Guru"), and Stephen King, a very good friend of McDonald and to whom the MacDonald estate gave its only serious consideration to allowing another author to create a McGee sequel (for good reasons both financial and ethical, this did not happen). Many other authors have considered MacDonald to be influential in their own work.This is the first John D. MacDonald book I've read and probably won't be the last. MacDonald really knows how to build the suspense. Junior Allen is a first degree douche bag and a good villain. You can't help but read faster and faster, eager to see him get what's coming to him. The writing is really good and the characters of Travis and Junior are well done. shai6935 (28 September 1970). "Darker Than Amber (1970)". IMDb. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list ( link) Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Callowell was a pilot who served with Berry for a time. George Brell was one of Berry's partners. Angie is Brell's miserable little girl; Gerry is his trophy wife. Lew Dagg is the jerk of a football player who thought he could take Travis on.

Christine stood there inside her smooth skin, warm and indolent, mildly speculative. It is that flavor exuded by women who have fashioned an earthy and simplified sexual adjustment to their environment, borne their young, achieved an unthinking physical confidence. They are often placidly unkempt, even grubby, taking no interest in the niceties of posture. They have a slow relish for the physical spectrum of food, sun, deep sleep, the needs of children, the caresses of affection. There is a tiny magnificence about them, like the sultry dignity of she-lions. For now we’ll have to content ourselves with the McGees we do have on film, and the books, always the books. In the past McGee has been played by Rod Taylor, in the 1970 film version of Darker than Amber , while Sam Elliot wore the flip flops in a 1983 TV movie titled simply Travis McGee , although it was based on The Empty Copper Sky . Moored in Lauderdale aboard the 52-foot houseboat Busted Flush (won where else but in a private poker session), Travis McGee is introduced idling the afternoon away with Chookie McCall, a dancer and choreographer who hasn't known Travis long enough to figure out whether he really does find things for people, keeping half of its value. Chookie just so happens to know someone looking for something and has invited her over. McGee hears the woman out. Cathy Kerr is a dancer whose father served in the Air Transport Command in India and Burma during the war and brought home an item of awesome value. Cathy just doesn't know what it was. I think the McGee books are probably unfilmable because so much depends on McGee’s narrative voice; take that away and what’s left isn’t that great. Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.The Deep Blue Good-By was author MacDonald's first Travis McGee novel and was published in 1964 beginning twenty years of Travis McGee stories that would finally total twenty-one novels. The Florida based main character could be described as a kind of private detective who rescues lost valuables for a fee. He resides on a house boat he calls The Busted Flush and drives a vintage Rolls Royce named Miss Agnes. He is quite opinionated, which I am sure mirrors the opinions of Mr. McDonald, and considers himself to be a veritable lady's man. I am not sure I agree with McGee's lifestyle, but I suppose, as they said about the lifetime resident at San Quentin, he has a good heart. I would like to start off by saying that 2 stars means I felt this novel was okay. It was also the first Travis McGee novel that I have read. The Deep Blue Good-By was published in 1964 and reading it I felt it. McGee is a self-described "beach bum" who prefers to take on new cases only when the spare cash runs low. Unlike most novels in this genre he is neither a police officer nor a private investigator; instead, he is a self-described "salvage consultant" who recovers others' property for a fee of 50%. He lives on a 52-foot houseboat he won in a poker game and named "The Busted Flush". It was to have been a quiet evening at home. Home is the Busted Flush, 52-foot barge-type houseboat, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale. These are the playmate years, and they are demonstrably fraudulent. The scene is reputed to be acrawl with adorably amoral bunnies to whom sex is a pleasant social favor. The new culture. And they are indeed present and available, in exhausting quantity, but there is a curious tastelessness about them. A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convenience, like a guest towel.... Only a woman of pride, complexity, and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love," (p. 20) She had high small breasts, and she was very long-waisted. The long limber torso widened into chunky hips and meaty thighs.” (Every woman in this story gets a similar deconstruction.)

This was my first journey into the world of Travis McGee. Boy, howdy, what a fun and fine trip! John D MacDonald’s writing is right up there with the best. Not only is this a great story, but MacDonald’s use of the English language is something akin to Chet Baker’s work with a trumpet. Pure magic.Travis McGee is 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. Travis McGee sees through the people he meets psychiatrist-like, for instance this stewardess who has just unsuccessfully come on to him: And finally, two great blogs about John D. MacDonald, McGee and the rumoured-never-written novel where McGee dies"... What’s it about? McGee helps recover a lost fortune in stolen goods to help a friend and Allen is the gold hoarding dragon who must first be bested. This comparison to knights errant and romanticism is intentional, MacDonald has drawn McGee to be the last of the free romantics in a world growing increasingly more mechanized and impersonal. And he wrote it in 1964!

I'm spending a lot of time on Travis before talking about plot and style, because I have a feeling I'm hooked on the series, in for the long run, and the narrator is the most important ingredient in such cases. You either relate to him, or you give up after the first couple of issues. With my usual penchant for making inappropriate associations, I drew some parallels between Travis McGee and Walden: a love for the natural world, a self imposed exile from the artificial society, a plea for cleaner living and peace of mind. Here's a sample of his rants: His main character, Travis McGee, is a romantic hero, loner, in fact "he who is alone," one man against the world, trying to stem or at least contain and limit its corrupting influence. I didn’t even feel revulsion towards him. Our think of him as a person. He was a force I had to accept […] It was easier to stay a little bit drunk.’ And you women out there, I met him first. You guys, well, hummm. Face it you love him too, especially his sensitive side, eh? A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.I guess Chook is about twenty-three or -four. Her face is a little older than that. It has that stern look you see in old pictures of the Plains Indians. At her best, it is a forceful and striking face, redolent of strength and dignity. At worst it sometimes would seem to be the face of a Dartmouth boy dressed for the farcical chorus line. But that body, seen more intimately than ever before, was incomparably, mercilessly female, deep and glossy, rounded under the tidy little fatty layer of girl pneumatics with useful muscle. If you asked Trav what his occupation was, he'd hand you a business card that reads "Salvage Consultant". In reality, he could be described loosely as a private investigator, with most of his business coming by word of mouth. His clients are usually people who have been deprived of something important and/or valuable (typically by unscrupulous or illegal means) and have no way to regain it lawfully. Trav's usual fee is half the value of the item (if recovered) with McGee risking expenses, and those who object to such a seemingly high fee are reminded that "Half is a lot better than nothing at all."The pattern for the series is set in The Deep Blue Good-by when a woman by the name of Cathy Kerr asks Trav for help recovering a dubiously-earned fortune that her dead father left hidden. Trav takes the case, and it leads to a smarmy but persuasive lowlife named Junior Allen. And in his effort to learn more about Allen, Trav meets Allen's latest victim, Lois Atkinson. Allen had wormed his way into controlling Lois’ life and money, and she was reduced to a nearly catatonic state by the time Trav came along. In addition to being a brute and a treasure-hunting rival for Trav, Lois reveals that Allen is also a serial rapist. Trav proceeds with his plan to recover Cathy’s fortune and ensure that Junior Allen meets justice. Heavily influenced by Hemingway, MacDonald began his career as a pulp writer. In creating his memorable Travis McGee series the author - using a mastery of words and economy - fashioned colorful and evil villains, a flawed hero Travis McGee, numerous salvage exploits, plenty of gorgeous girlfriends, well crafted plots, as well as beautiful philosophical musings that describe the overall changes to Florida spanning the years 1964 - 1985. In this he appears to have created the fundamental root of a lot that has followed in this genre. If titles alone were enough, The Deep Blue Good-by would be one of my favorite all-time novels. MacDonald does a intoxicating job evoking a hard-boiled and sun-drenched nihilism here, establishing a resourceful entrepreneur in Travis McGee who seems more content to keep his own company than run one, scraping his boat and scraping by in a world he barely notes worth saving. John F. Kennedy isn't mentioned specifically, but the year of publication hints that the president's assassination and direction the country was headed in had a lot to do with McGee's skepticism of America, traveling as far south as he could without needing to speak Spanish. True, it was a splendid specimen, good bones, a true heart, and a marvelous pelt. It could cook and adore and it had a talent for making love. Sew it into burlap and roll it in the mud and it would still be, unmistakably, a lady. (p. 132)