"Travis McGee Series" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonald John D)

ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE - 1966

MacDonald's wife was an artist, and this story contains observations and opinions that could only come from an insider.

Nobody in his right mind wants to go to Chicago in December, least of all a Florida beach bum. However, an old girlfriend has a problem - after her wealthy doctor husband died, it was discovered the estate had been drained, and by the good man himself! Travis gets to hang out in the Chicago art scene with hilarious results, and takes on the project of unblocking Heidi, a painter with artistic and sexual hangups. Along the way we learn something about LSD overdoses and auto body repairs. We also have descriptions of the quality of water in Lake Michigan, the air over Chicago, and other observations on how things are going to hell in the Windy City.

It is part of the Travis formula that he damn near gets killed in each book. This time we can see it coming all too clearly. Travis and Heidi heedlessly and needlessly walk right into trouble, and it takes some far-fetched nick-of-time outside intervention to rescue them. (MacDonald usually wraps things up with more finesse.)




PALE GRAY FOR GUILT - 1968

Listen while Meyer explains how to rig stock prices for profit or revenge. Watch local political sleazemeisters in their maneuvers. Follow along as real estate wheeler-dealers go through their manipulations.

Tush and Janine Bannon were being hounded out of the marina business they worked so hard to build. Seems the local powers have their own plans for the property, and when Tush is found dead of what surely must have been a suicide, that seemed to finish the matter. McGee thought it was murder and decided to get involved.

In another story line, Travis has found Puss Killian, his all-time favorite love and soul-mate, only to have her leave him and send a heartbreaking letter explaining why.




THE GIRL IN THE PLAIN BROWN WRAPPER - 1969

One of the pleasures of writing in the far-fetched action genre must be the opportunity to take fictional revenge against whatever and whomever you want. Just as long as you include that little disclaimer "...any resemblance to persons living or dead...". MacDonald had a thing about crooked developers, and in this book he gets to literally stop a project dead.

Helena Pearson Trescott, a fondly remembered lovely lady of great class, died leaving a message and a $25,000 check for Travis. He decides to honor her request and look into the mystery of why one of her daughters was acting demented and suicidal. In the process, he discovers crooked real estate dealings and a strange form of medical malfeasance. There's a very clever ploy involving hiding a victim's body, with the collusion of the police. The purpose is to get the murderer bewildered about the missing corpse enough to make revealing mistakes.




DRESS HER IN INDIGO - 1969

Travis and Meyer go to Mexico to find out what kind of a life the dead daughter of a friend of Meyer's had been having down there with her dropped-out friends. The search takes them to Oaxaca where a hellish version of a hippie underculture has taken root.

The book contains some truly poignant instances of generation-gap family disfunctionality. There's some much-needed levity in the form of a rich dragonlady who keeps trying to drag Travis off to her palacio.




THE LONG LAVENDER LOOK - 1970

In Cypress County, where swampland joins ranchland, Sheriff Hyzer is diligently keeping the backwoods lawless trash under control. (If there were a Redneck Anti-Defamation League, this book would put MacDonald on their enemies list.) When McGee and Meyer run off a lonely road in the middle of the night, they look good to the Sheriff for the murder that took place right about there and right about that time.

After pursuading the Sheriff to let them out, Travis starts investigating and joins up with a perky waitress who uses Doris Day for a role model (not Travis's favorite female style). There are so many corpses and so many villans that it is hard to keep track of it all. At the finale, while mending from his inevitable close-call, he is comforted by Heidi - the artist from Chicago of a few stories back.

We are instructed in the deadly skill of knife throwing, and learn how some lawmen earn extra money by setting up and running prostitution rings.