The Deep Blue Good-By

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by John D. Macdonald

The Deep Blue Good-by is one of several famous novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled investigator who lives on a houseboat, from a revered master of crime fiction.

Travis McGee describes himself as a "beach bum" who won his houseboat in a poker game. He's also a rogue knight who avoids credit cards, pensions, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works until his money runs out, and his rule is simple: if you give him half of what was taken from you, he'll help you find it.

McGee isn't exactly flush with cash, but how can anybody say no to Cathy, a nice rural girl who's been tormented by her deceitful ex-boyfriend Junior Allen on several occasions? Travis doesn't realize how many women Junior has ripped apart and left in his wake. Lois Atkinson is Junior's most recent victim.

When Travis meets Lois, she is frail and shattered, hardly able to get out of bed, let alone keep herself alive. But, as he searches for the merciless guy who takes women's spirits and livelihoods, Travis transforms into Mother McGee, giving Lois new life. But he has no idea how brutal his search will turn out to be. He'll learn the hard way that in a game of cat and mouse, there must be fatalities.

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I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess that we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.

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I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess that we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.

— John D. Macdonald, The Deep Blue Good-By