Steven Brust recently posted on his LJ that he's been enjoying re-reading the Travis McGee books of John D. MacDonald after a long hiatus. In one of his responses to comments, he wrote
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You're pulling my leg, right? You've really never read any of color-coded mystery novels by John D. MacDonald, featuring boat bum Travis McGee, owner of "The Busted Flush", who makes his living as a "salvage consultant"?
It would never have occurred to me that this was possible.
FWIW, McGee was a cultural icon during the '70s, and nearly every ficitonal competent loner detective/fixer I've ever run across draws heavily on the McGee mystique. If you've lost something, and have no real legal (or other) recourse for getting it back, McGee may take the job of getting it back for you. He keeps half of whatever he recovers, as his fee. He takes his retirement in installments, every time he's got enough cash to carry him for a while, so that he'll enjoy it while he's still young enough.
McGee lives aboard a huge houseboat that he won in a poker game (thus the name, the "Busted Flush"), at slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale. His best friend is an economist named Meyer, a furry bear of a man who lives on his own boat, the "John Maynard Keynes", a few slips down. He drinks Plymouth gin on the rocks. He is very attractive to the ladies. He has Don Quixote tendencies.
I read nearly all of these in my teens; my parents owned most of them in paperback, and I devoured them and then hit the libraries for the rest.
Where would be a good place to start? I'd say skip the first few books, and start with one from the established series before it got too formulaic. Any of Darker than Amber One Fearful Yellow Eye Pale Gray for Guilt The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper The Long Lavender Look would be fine.
Concur on not reading The Green Ripper, or for that matter The Lonely Silver Rain, until their proper places in the series. The rest is much less order-dependent, although occasionally you get a reappearance by an earlier character.
It would never have occurred to me that this was possible.
Here's the Wikipedia article.
FWIW, McGee was a cultural icon during the '70s, and nearly every ficitonal competent loner detective/fixer I've ever run across draws heavily on the McGee mystique. If you've lost something, and have no real legal (or other) recourse for getting it back, McGee may take the job of getting it back for you. He keeps half of whatever he recovers, as his fee. He takes his retirement in installments, every time he's got enough cash to carry him for a while, so that he'll enjoy it while he's still young enough.
McGee lives aboard a huge houseboat that he won in a poker game (thus the name, the "Busted Flush"), at slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale. His best friend is an economist named Meyer, a furry bear of a man who lives on his own boat, the "John Maynard Keynes", a few slips down. He drinks Plymouth gin on the rocks. He is very attractive to the ladies. He has Don Quixote tendencies.
I read nearly all of these in my teens; my parents owned most of them in paperback, and I devoured them and then hit the libraries for the rest.
Where would be a good place to start? I'd say skip the first few books, and start with one from the established series before it got too formulaic. Any of
Darker than Amber
One Fearful Yellow Eye
Pale Gray for Guilt
The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper
The Long Lavender Look
would be fine.
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Don't read The Green Ripper early on. The Quick Red Fox is very good but ooof; I think it's around sixth in publication order.
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