Ninety-nine percent of the things that ninety-nine percent of the people do are entirely predictable, when you have a few lead facts. Drunks, maniacs and pregnant women are the customary exceptions.

Synopsis: Unlicensed Florida investigator and houseboat-resident Travis McGee sets out to avenge the death of an old friend, winds up in Mexico and then L.A. and uncovers at least three plots too many, two of which involve Cuba and one of which involves a dead dog.



Travis McGee is watching his best friend assemble a platter of pretty young women aboard McGee's houseboat, The Busted Flush, when he gets one of Those Kind of phone calls: his old friend Sam, who disappeared three years ago, is calling from a payphone in Georgia, on the run and in need of McGee's help. McGee offers it, of course, and when Sam arrives in town, it's quickly clear what the problem is: the solid gold, pre-Columbian statue Sam stole from his last employer. Who, it turns out, was a Cuban ex-nabob in hiding.

Then again, Sam was never reknowned for his decisionmaking skills. He disappeared the night after his then-fiancee Nora caught him in bed with her shop assistant. But this particular lapse in judgment results in Sam being chopped to pieces all over his motel room, just in time for Nora and McGee to find him.

They swear revenge! They trace Sam's movements back to Mexico! They pose as lovers at a resort! They quickly get sucked into intrigue! And of course, McGee comforts the grieving Nora by throwing her feet over her head and having at it. Which totally makes her feel better, until McGee gets drunk and makes the local cantina hooker happy too.

Now, I have to say, I really liked 3/4 of this book, including all the Mexico bits, the comforting and the avenging. However, after Sam is avenged, there's 150 pages of nonsense where McGee decides he'll steal the rest of the statues Sam was in the process of stealing, treks out to L.A., bones two other women (he's a man who knows his strengths) and dedicates himself to taking down a bizarre Hollywood blackmailer and pervert who isn't even introduced until 300 pages into the book.

I stayed up til 3a.m. reading the first 300 pages (all man, all Mexico) and then struggled the next morning to finish the Hollywood-blackmailer plot. I do not understand why it was tacked on to the end there, except it does provide McGee with a nice offering to lay at the feet of the one woman he meets in the story who doesn't sleep with him. So I guess that's something.

And why am I so calm about the dog thing? Here's why:

The dog gets one line of screen time. He's a silent, deadly Doberman rushing at McGee's face, and McGee knows it's him or the dog. Exit the dog. BUT. McGee then spends the rest of the book mourning the dog. Nora mourns the dog. The psychopathic assassin who McGee's chasing mourns the dog. That's one well-mourned dog for one line of screen time. It's done in a very Nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw way, and not at all gratuitously, comically or lingeringly.

So I'll keep working my way through the series.

The quick review is that the book has an interesting plot, but MacDonald takes took long guiding us through it. It's way too long for it's genre. There is a lot of cynical philosophizing about American Life by MacDonald/McGee, more than the previous four books, but that's not entirely the reason for the length. MacDonald just takes took long in developing the plot. McGee heads to Mexico with the widow of a close acquaintance to track down the location of a collection of valuable Aztec statuettes, stolen from McGee's friend, but we quickly learn that his ownership has questionable origins. A relationship ensues with the widow as you might expect, and we begin to see an connection with various Cuban nationals and revolutionaries. This section of the story is tedious, and the Cuban angle a little hard to follow. Things pick up considerably in the last section, when the trail leads to LA and a rather grotesque villain at the center of it all. I'd give it four stars with some editing in the Mexico section, and a little more lucid explanation of the Cuban connection. In the end though, I'm liking McGee more and more, which is something I was not sure of after Book 1 (check my review of The Deep Blue Good-By).

In this Travis McGee installment, a friend comes for help and then gets killed, so Trav and his ex-girlfriend try to track down who did the killing. It takes them to New York, California and then finally Mexico (again).

So this time the Mexico trip sounded a bit more like the "white man's burden", where Trav expressed sympathy for the natives in a far more condescending way than in, say, *[b:Dress Her in Indigo|434228|Dress Her in Indigo (Travis McGee #11)|John D. MacDonald|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1324214080l/434228._SY75_.jpg|3237345]*. And there was a bit more just explaining the plot than actually having action for the plot than normal. But I enjoyed the Norma character and I enjoyed his dark side. So, again, not one of his stronger efforts, but still a great comfort read. Plenty of excellent rants against "modern" society, all of which are eerily prescient. Not much has changed as far as society goes, to be honest.

This McGee novel had a very James Bond feel. Going to Mexico and getting involved in Cuban politics. A lot of help from various ladies who were beautiful and intelligent and necessary to Travis's plans. Even a grappling hook and a teeny pistol! Not my favorite but a great read that definitely contributes to world-weary McGee mystique by the end.

A deft hand at the writing desk, MacDonald pulls you into his creation from the very first line and continues to pull you into his characters every page after. A gruesome murder and a troubling relationship makes Travis a vulnerable protagonist, which is why he is so interesting. The forerunner to Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole, Travis isn't quite so unredeemable, but he's still distinct and the darkness iinherent in the series intrigues us and keeps us coming back. Reading the foreward, you get some understanding of MacDonald, but his background is sure not Travis McGee's world. Confounding.

There are so many Travis McGee stories that it's hard to make a determination about which might be better, but this one is better and I'm not certain why. There are, of course, the women who want McGee and the men who want him (for entirely different reasons) and the noble cause to attend to. Finally, perhaps it's the introspection that looks deeper into Travis' psyche that makes the distinction.
Set mostly in Mexico, we are concerned about some gold statues in the hands of some unsavories.

OMG, the Mexico one. I can't even start with it. But the diatribes are pretty priceless.