Travis McGee, John D. MacDonald's "tattered knight on a spavined steed," first ventured forth to rescue a damsel in distress in 1964. Forty years and 21 books later, all of his exploits remain in print, still extraordinarily popular with readers.
McGee made his debut in the Fawcett paperback original "The Deep Blue Good-by." That same year, three more McGee novels appeared in quick succession: "Nightmare in Pink," "A Purple Place for Dying" and "The Quick Red Fox."
MacDonald, who had been writing for decades — first for pulp magazines, then for paperback originals — had prepared his hero's entrance well.
McGee was quickly recognized as something different in the private-eye genre, though he isn't, strictly speaking, a private eye. He calls himself a salvage consultant; he recovers stolen or otherwise misappropriated property, taking half its value as his fee.
"The Deep Blue Good-by," MacDonald's 44th novel, is a typical outing. McGee helps a young woman, Cathy Kerr — it is usually a woman, usually fetching — recover some gems that her now-deceased father had acquired while in the army during World War II. This involves, among other things, taking them away from a nasty piece of work named Junior Allen, a vicious sociopath who revels in destroying beauty.
Readers were, and are, attracted to several elements in the McGee novels:
— First, of course, there is McGee, a romantic and a cynic (perhaps like the author), who is the narrator of all the novels. McGee describes himself as "that big brown loose-jointed boat bum, that pale-eyed, wire-haired girl-seeker . . . that knuckly, scar-tissued reject from a structured society."
Incredibly athletic and resourceful, he is what today would be called, in a word that MacDonald surely would deplore, a studmuffin.
— Then there is the ambience, provided in large part by the Busted Flush, the 52-foot houseboat McGee lives on that is named for a hand in the card game in which he won it, berthed at Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. McGee's many women seem as charmed with the craft as his many readers .
— Ah, the women! It has been argued that McGee was an early feminist. He genuinely likes and appreciates women, and he treats them better than they were treated in some other crime novels. But it is not the mark of a feminist to believe, as his actions show he does, that you solve women's problems by going to bed with them.
Certainly MacDonald loves to describe women. When he does, the writing, otherwise so praiseworthy, occasionally threatens to shade into mauve, if not purple. Cathy's sister says of her, "She's saddened now, but anybody make her happy, they'd see a different woman. She's a loving one, laughing and singing when she's happy."
Whoo-ee. Too bad ol' Jeeter Lester couldn't never find him a good woman like that 'un down in that 'ere Tobacco Road.
— Most of all, readers are drawn to the attitude. McGee is constantly musing on matters great and small and throwing in little philosophical asides. Though there are odd gaps in his vision, including racism and its victims, MacDonald is a sharp observer of life and expresses vigorous opinions in a prose to match.
He finds much to disapprove of, such as "plastic credit cards, payroll deductions, insurance programs, retirement benefits, savings accounts, Green Stamps, time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants, check lists, time payments, political parties, lending libraries, television, actresses, junior chambers of commerce, pageants, progress, and manifest destiny."
Here again, MacDonald pushes the envelope, to use another phrase he certainly wouldn't. This is not a bad list, in some of its parts, but, to be blunt, overall it rings a bit snotty.
Still, to be fair, right after that, McGee redeems himself: "I am also wary of all earnestness."
"Deep Blue" becomes quite a dark book, particularly regarding Junior Allen. When he appears, we understand what a malevolent person he is, one who does horrible things for pleasure. In these depictions of Allen's erotic intimidation there is a measure of salaciousness.
In the end it all, or most of it, comes right. McGee does the maritime equivalent of the cowboy leaping from horse to stagecoach. He leaps from boat to boat, in a storm, in the dark, fighting the baddie.
He saves the day for the gal. Who then saves the night for him.
Roger K. Miller, a journalist for many years, is a free-lance writer and reviewer for several publications, and a frequent contributor to the Deseret Morning News.