John D. MacDonald’s The Deep Blue Good-By

The Deep Blue Good-By was the first of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels. It was published in 1964.

John D. MacDonald (1916-1986) had already written several dozen novels but it was the Travis McGee novels that really put him on the map.

Travis McGee is not a private eye. Not exactly. He’s such a maverick and loner and general outsider that even getting a private investigator’s licence and working as a regular PI would threaten his fierce sense of independence. He is a kind of freelance investigator-troubleshooter of a very special sort. If someone has stolen something from you and it’s the kind of case the police either won’t or can’t take on, or if you have a good reason not to want cops involved, and if the case is so risky and so speculative and the chances of failure are so high that no regular PI would take it on then you go to Travis McGee. He will recover your property, and take a fifty percent cut.

That makes McGee sound greedy but he isn’t. If he doesn’t recover the property he gets nothing, not even his expenses. And if you thought you had no chance of ever getting any of your property back then you’re going to be happy to accept his terms. Half is a whole lot better than nothing.

McGee’s lady friend Chookie (yes, Chookie) has advised her friend Cathy to talk to McGee. Cathy’s father came back from the war with a great deal of money. He died in prison, with the money still hidden somewhere. A smooth-talking sleazeball known as Junior Allen seduced Cathy and he now has that money. Losing the money was bad enough but Cathy had her heart dragged through the dirt as well.

Doing a bit of digging on the subject of Junior Allen leads McGee to a woman named Lois. She was another of Allen’s victims. A picture is starting to emerge. Allen is not just a thief. He enjoys psychologically and emotionally (and sometimes physically) brutalising women.

Lois is a mess. So much of a mess that if McGee hadn’t found her she might have succeeded in starving and drinking herself to death. McGee becomes a full-time nurse to her.

Which brings us to Travis McGee’s fascinating attitude towards women. He likes women, but not just as bed partners. He’s no Boy Scout. He likes sex. But he really likes women as people. He doesn’t owe Lois anything but she needs him so he’ll be there for her. He’s just the kind of guy who could never walk away from a woman in need of help.

Slowly McGee puts the pieces of the puzzle together - where that money came from originally, why it was hidden, how Allen got his hands on it. And he finds out that Allen has further plans. Nasty plans. It’s none of McGee’s business but he intends to wreck those plans.

There’s plenty of action, and some moderately graphic violence. Much of the action happens at sea. Allen is a tough guy and he’s plenty mean. But Travis McGee is a tough guy as well and he’s willing to play dirty when necessary.

The plotting is clever. McDonald’s writes very entertaining prose with some cynicism and quite a bit of passion - Travis McGee is a man of very strong views. McGee does not really approve of the modern world. He doesn’t approve of rules and regulations. He also doesn’t approve of progress. He loves south Florida. He likes it just the way it is. He doesn’t think it needs more resort hotels and shopping malls and condos and highways.

There’s some sex but there’s also an atmosphere of twisted cruel perverted sexuality. Junior Allen has some major issues with women.

McGee is far from being a perfect hero. He can be extraordinarily ruthless and he has only a limited respect for the law. He doesn’t have too much in the way of ethical standards. What he does have is a certain basic decency. And an old-fashioned attitude towards women. Old-fashioned in a good way.

This book is huge amounts of fun, with a hardboiled feel and some noir fiction touches. It’s just different enough from standard PI stories, and Travis McGee is just different enough from standard PI heroes, to give it a flavour of its own. Highly recommended.