2o jun 15#49 from macdonald for me and the 16th travis mcgee story. if you have not read any of the other stories from macdonald, if all you've read is the travis mcgee stories, you're missing out. you owe it to yourself to read at least some of them. they're good stories. macdonald nails it all down, character, story-line, story. last macdonald read was The Scarlet Ruse...and i took a break in between reading a pile of mcgee stories to read The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, another story that you should read, 5-stars, marked it as a favorite. onward and upward. 21 jun 15finished. better than 3-stars, but 3-stars it gets for the manner in which mcgee acts. previous reads, the man made a point of telling his worshipers that he will not have sex with a married woman. his standard, like the standard of our time, changed and is changing. he violated his oath not once, but twice. unfortunately, in our time, anyone with a standard is labeled a "hater"..we've redefined "hate" as well..in our time. what people fail to realize is that any standard that changes to fit our needs of the time can just as swiftly and as easily change to put us in the stew and folk will eat you for lunch. and so it goes. i wondered as the story began if the character list would pan out as the others have done so...and the lists here do indeed pan out like the others. macdonald makes use of a host of characters large and small, real and imagined. his "bad" guy in this instance is a man with no standards. none. none but the whims of his desire. he does, in fact, eat the stew he makes of people and in the end he got his just dessert. three cheers. and for that, at least, i am satisfied. onward, ever onward.story beginsthe place pidge had borrowed was a studio apartment on the eleventh floor of the kaiulani towers on hobron lane, about a hundred yards to the left of ala moana boulevard on the way toward downtown honolulu.riding in from the airport, i found out why taxis cost so much in hawaii. when you want to know something, ask.time place scene setting* hawaii, early december, and time passes. before long it is christmas and time continues to move along* miami international airport* 11th floor studio apartment of pidge, kaiulan towers, hebron lane, honolulu* the trepid, a sailing vessel capable of ocean travel* other ships, vessels: whazzit purchased, changed name to the lumpy by pidge's father. the duchess a larger vessel than the previous, revamped, changed name to the trepid* hawaii yacht club* the international market--the outrigger, the surfrider, the moana princess, kaiulani hotel* the busted flush, slip f-18, bahia mar fort lauderdale, florida* locations of likely sunken treasure, one in particular off baja california...this is the past, past story of professor ted lewellen* a jet from florida to l.a., another, continental, l.a. to hawaii* another jet, national returning to florida* a hospital in florida, the i.c.u., a private room #455* a treatment room where travis meets another married woman for a quickie she was the second heh! well, he did take one in the head this once. brain damage?* the past: club de pescadores, fishing resort and hotel* july 10th, an accident that left ted dead* various locations are mentioned as pidge relates the travels of the trepid with howie and her aboard, the canal, frederiksted on st croix, other places* pitchilingue cove in the bay of la paz in baja california, where a treasure hunt of ted's was launched, travis and meyer assisting* 9th floor of the towers, where travis stays...huh? or was that a continuity error?* the story moves thru time...to christmas, to the last weekend of the year (meanwhile, pidge, howie, and a potential buyer of the intrepid are sailing toward american samoa, while travis is learning more about howie's activity when he was in florida* miss agnes, travis's 30s model rolls royce, converted to a pickup by another...and in this story, there is the first maybe the second time there is a reference to another mcgee story The Long Lavender Look* mansfield hall's office in an older bldg in miami* the miss kitty and then rine houk's place of boat-selling business* brandonton* bayway trailer haven howie spent his teen years living with his grandparents, #108 and t.k lumley's trailer where travis gets informatoin* sarasota-brandonton airport terminal for lunch* brandonton city police station* the hisp house, 10 tangelo way, a house made of seven or eight boxes stacked just so...worked on a number of these while in florida* one of tom collier's places...one on dolphin lane, another the strawberry tort, and another off state road 84, a ranch* with time, we have new year's eve..we have the 5th of january, and travis returning to the islands, this time pago pago, pronounced pahng-o pahng-o, where he awaits the arrival of the intrepid...just howie and pidge aboard a weather-beaten boat* that arrives on or about 12 jan, a couple days shy of the prediction* pago pago international airport tafuna* intercontinental hotel, tutuila* pacific trading company* the cable car from solo hill to the top of mount alava* the communications office travis sends radio messages to the intrepid* the clinic in pago pago or howsomeever it is called tutuila.* various locations on the island...a shop...the pool at the hotel...the bar, various rooms in the hotel.* a tiny island in the banks* corpus christi, texas, via phone, the fahrhowser residence* gabe marchman's ranch west of lauderdale* coop's bd-4, an experimental, kit-built aircraft that flies mcgee to sarasota-brandonton airportcharacters major* travis mcgee, our hero, 1st-person eye-narrator, beach bum, salvage operator, 6'4", and in this one travis, never one to shy away from unmarried sex, goes against the grain he established in previous mcgee stories and commits adultery with a married woman...not just one woman, but at least two. piker! i'm wondering what got into macdonald as i sense a difference in this telling...and i think the character list will ultimately reflect that change.* pidge, linda lewellen brindle, married now to howard brindle, in hawaii, stopping there on their way around the world. pidge...to do with her ability to mimic pigeons as a young girl...initially believes either she is losing her mind, or howie is trying to kill her. travis to the rescue. she is one.* d. howie brindle, husband of a year or so to pidge, also called lou ellen* professor ted lewellen, associate of travis..so travis has known pidge since she was a teenager and she had a crush on him so forth so onminor characters, with name, without a name, setting/scene character* taxi driver, hawaii* a man who had to carry four sets of i.d. papers, advised travis on how to carry money, paper* new people, herd, loners* matty odell, matty odell's widow, who sold the whazzit to ted* best friend of pidge in whose apartment pidge is staying. the best friend is gone to tend to a mother with cancer, alice dorck* a fellow...at the hawaii yacht club...the dockmaster there, another* an old member of club, now dead, travis sniffing information...the 6-member crewed missy iii* big blonde jolly ladies* coaches of howie, who had a brief football career, no drive ambition* meyer, travis's economist friend and neighbor at bahia mar* others from the area: the alabama tiger, johnny dow, chookie & arthur, other bahia mar regulars* five guys on the pitchilingue cover treasure hunt: ted, travis and meyer and:* joe delladio, a mexican electronics engineer, and later, we learn from frank that joe died in a head-on in the mountains of mexico* frank hayes, a construction engineer and scuba expert, and frank appears later in the story, too* minor partners who couldn't overcome their fear of sharks, hence travis and meyer called in* hollanders on the dutchman carrying gold, two made it home* hank...some guy who played with an octopus for film* small herd of sports fishermen...old charlie, pedro (he'p), poor old tom, bunny mills, the boss and an asshat, don benjamin, manuel...was either with the crew of the resort* bartender at the fishing resort* trust officer, mr lawton hisp...who helped with $-issues after the death of ted* two blonde girls, hitchhikers on boats, what a concept...one had an older sister married to a lawyer, joy harris & celia fox. pidge hallucinates that joy is stowed-away by howie, so forth so on.* pilot and panamanian line handles on board the trepid through the canal* a waitress* irregular formations of japanese men* the rapist who attacked pidge's friend alice (past)* man at camera store...pidge took photos of her hallucinations* scott...a young man with whom pidge was okay with before her marriage to howie* a rich lady gave travis a hamilton pulsar watch in lieu of half that didn't seem fair 'cause it was over quick* a national stewardess* and previously, a stewardess on the continental flight* ruthie meehan, a long-time waitress, fort lauderdale, drowned over the christmas time* her sister in new hampshire, who sent for the body* brud silverman borrowed lacey davis's charger and ran it into a tree at 120 mph, same time as ruthie drowned* a fat gentle woman...who helped when meyer toppled over half dead* a tiny blonde nurse* several people* doctor damon kwalty* a gray-headed nurse* an orderly* ella marie morse, rn, private nurse for meyer, she married a wealthy patient who died, left her well off* marian lewandowski, rn, and travis and her diddle in the treatment room, get a life! travis you piker!* marian's husband is a pipeline worker in iran, norman is his name* marian is living with norman's mother, her mother-in-law, who is keeping an eye on her* together marian & norman brought two babies into the world* nita best friend of marian, on vacation, her and a cardiologist do the hump and bump in the treatment room and marian got the word on its availability for such and such* half a dozen casual availables, later, meyer who isn't taking notes, makes a note of them:* two tourist ladies* the new hostess of the beef'n it* one stewardess* one school teacher* one avon lady* and travis adds, and a nurse* deputy lew arnstead, deputy bill cable, cypress county jail, one of the few stories where another story is referenced, The Long Lavender Look* an old man with a walker going along the corridor* dawson, the name of a man who will buy the intrepid from pidge* norman had gone off with a girl to get beer...at a party* joe delladio died with his wife and 2 of 4 kids on the head-on in the mountains* tom j. collier, ted's lawyer, of fall, collier, haspline and butts...and in the end, tom's demise or fate is given small fare...i s'pose after the end of howie, down to the wire as it was, we can accept that tom is treated to a sentence of completion at the end, we are told more or less...more. not shown. but okay. the story had reached its limit of a set number of pages. the credits were rolling and the crowd had already started for the exits. * mansfield hall, a miami lawyer used by tom collier for the shake and bake* a greek once hit frank hayes as hard as travis hit im* blaney, the boss nurse at the florida hospital where meyer is kept* frank's crew of two...presumably pilot, co-pilot of a small fast jet, ted and harry* three hulking youths in a yellow 'bird...past...story of travis traveling north of gainesville on i-75* mansfield hall's secretary who reminds travis of mrs archie bunker until she speaks* principals and a representative, legalese from mansfield hall for tom collier alone though he don't know what* man of the cloth...a joke mansfield hall tells travis* a girl answered the phone...when travis calls tom collier's office and impersonates mansfield hall* a doctor owned the salamah...and howie worked for the doc and his wife, fred harron, who died diving off his boat, howie working for them at the time* grandparents, who raised howie* lois harron, widow, doc harron's wife* she has a daughter home on christmas break...the daughter is with a bunch of others in the family pool* some young folk in wet suits were trying to find breakers to ride* fat jack hoover...captain of the miss kitty, owned by* a crazy old lady from duluth who comes to florida with* a maid, a cook, 3 poodles, and 3 friends for a slow cruise * rine houk, travis is sent to him by fat jack for info on howie, and he is an old guy, sells boats* jefferson fahrhowser...boat person* susan fahrhowser, daughter of jefferson, knew howie* mark...name of a guy who knows rine houk* mister mertz, guy who shows at rine houk's place of business* bonnie fahrhowser, the griefing widow, big party going on, thank you, howie* jeff junior, son of bonnie and jefferson sr* gabe marchman, combot photographer...and i think he was in other mcgee stories* his chinese-hawaiian wife doris* they have seven kids* pierre jolie couer, rue de la trinite, fort-de-france martinique...guy who developed pidge's film, other film* a whole bright birdlike flock of little marchman girls & friends came whirling & chirping into the garden area* marianne barkley...associate of meyer...had three husbands buried each one, sound of her voice did them in* a psychiatrist friend of fred herron who suggested a cruise, where fred died* herron friends who saw them in spanish wells* coop, a pilot...and i think he was in another story or two, real name pelham whittaker, looks like gary cooper, hence, coop. built an experimental aircraft, a jim bede (real person) aircraft kit, teaches night, flies days* his wife, teaches days so she does not have to fly with coop* an audience of two...for coop, at the airport* a lanky miss behind the hertz counter...who rents travis an auto* two men at the brandonton city police...dave is one...the other is ben durma...they talk football, howie* little brown people up in the chichicatenango clouds* a rookie middle linebacker, dicosola, put an end to travis's glory days of football* ben durma has a wife* dispatcher...calls back stan shay, another cop, who has more info on howie* one guy chashing his old lady naked...what the cops have to deal with* guy name meeker, running guard, drowned, a fisherman wading next to tin can island found his body...meeker crossed howie* some people merely sitting* t.k. lumley...with a wc fields nose, one of the lame, at trailer court, provides travis with information about howie* molly & rick brindle, howie's grandparents, died in trailer explosion, howie was safe, but did get weepy on cue* fitterbee, man who owned trailer before the brindles bought it...he and his wife put in home...she passed, he remarried* married daughter in oregon...of either the brindles or fitterbee i forget* howie was 1 of 3 kids of rick and molly's son and wife...who died, howie got weepy* c. jason barndollar fell off pier and drowned* lucy mcbee...some old tourist* a girl with a scotish accent answered the phone* arn yates red toyota that travis borrows* a round woman in a purple jumpsuit, yellow picture hat & red garden gloves, mrs dockerty neighbor to the hisp place she has a husband* charity hisp, mr hisp's moneyed wife, her maiden name is fall, her grandfather war senior partner in the law firm above* they have four children* jonathan fall is the grandfather of charity* gary lindner a money guy* a floor man* a woman with a booze-blurred voice.part at tom collier's ranch* nancy is tom collier's separated wife, calls tom mr swinger* dockmaster at the atlantic clue, pompano beach* four horses stared over the fence at me this scene is a hoot, a bit of the ole comedic relief* 80-100 guests at tom collier's party* some earnest young men in ranch gear.at party* a six-foot lady.who provides travis with gin* two or three hustlers with the highest going rate* a baroness who sang here and there.still at the party* a couple of girls from the water-ski school* college girls, beach bunnies, store clerks, secretaries.still at the party* men...outnumbered two to one.still at the party* a little blonde gem.on tom collier's arm* eight of us got off (plane that landed at the airport, pago pago)* taxi driver* a man in uniform yawning and scratching his behind* three girls were in busy conversation* samoans selling clothes* a small boy wanted to carry my bundle.another hoot.for 10-cents, comedic relief again* bartender, island hotel bar, henry* wendell revere.travis has a conversation with him in the bar* fishermen from japan, a great horde of squat, dim little subhuman robots* retired admiral and his lady* raoul the cat...that travis worries about...once owned by a lady strangled* samoan fare taker* on the cable car at times: ships' officers, german tourists in hiking boots, some young japanese girls, gigantic indiana schoolteachers, honeymoon couples from nevada, montreal, an italian travel agent, two volcanologists from yugoslavia* proprietor of a store on the island where travis purchased a monocular* japanese couple...attendant* an old man sitting on a key of the floating platform* the inspector...who okays the intrepid for entry* two sturdy young samoans in white...both female, one a doctor* doctor alice alasega* travis's uncle...a story from the past about a bear and cubs* two docs in honolulu...that howie had see pidge* a man* two cabs...2nd driver* nine people...went on cable car* 2 large loud couples got off speaking pure texican* an old tourist hissed at me* the young psychiatrist famous people/characters, fictionally famous, rich, powerful so forth* god* god and an ignorant angel...in the joke mansfield hall tells travis* john wayne* cromwell...who was a pirate at one time* rilke: a quote: love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other* santas* eternal lazy susan...makes you wonder the source of the name* lothario* ann landers* captain kidd* castro* mrs archie bunker* archie bunker, on the title page: revenge is the best way to get even.* colonel sanders* arnold palmer* gian gravina: a bore is a person who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.* gary cooper* elsie the cow...and here macdonald teams up with the elf terrorists and herein lies possibly one of the first suggested methods of local terror advocated by none other than john d macdonald. the shame.* jim bede (aircraft)* hertz...as in the rentals* adam...as in adam's apple* virginia...as in yes virginia there is a button...lower jaw knock a guy out you hit him right. cops know this...others* w.c. fields...as in nose like* julian bream (music)* captain hornblower* harry truman* satchmo...not sure who macdonald means by this...but it is equated with a samoan fare-taker who can't find the right change* spiro agnew (wristwatch)* bausch & lomb (old binoculars)* calvinist (an idea that is repeated in mcgee)
Meyer says that not only are the New People incapable of being alone and idle without cracking; they feel compelled to turn all loners into group animals like themselves. (p. 16)It is so damned trite to say that they don't build them like that any more. They can still build them, if there's anybody left with money like that. The anticipated pleasure slowly faded and died. I did not enjoy looking at the Trepid. Let me explain about a boat person, one like me who is always a step behind or a step and a had behind the normal maintenance chores aboard The Busted Flush. The Trepid was sound and good, and she would have looked just great to a civilian.tHer lines are quite a lot like the forty-six-foot Rhodes Fiberglass Motorsailor, vintage 1972, but the Trepid has ten feet more length, six feet more beam, and in spite of a dead-weight tonnage nearly twice that of the Rhodes, actually draws a little less when that big beefy centerboard is wound all the way up into its slot in the hull. She is a husky boat, built like a workboat, and if you want to use a small jib like a staysail and go on diesels, she can give you almost three thousand miles at eight or nine knots, depending on the condition of her hull at the time.tWhat I saw was dry, corroding running gear and blocks which looked as if they might be frozen by corrosion. I saw pitted metal, flaking paint, smudges and stains, milky cracking varnish, oily spots on the teak deck, and a spicily green on the sail cover which could be the beginning of a fatal case of mildew. Everywhere I looked I saw hundreds of hours of undone labor, and every dull labor it is. The sea has no mercy, and there is no such thing as "maintenance-free." All you get near the water is either more maintenance than you can handle, or so much that you can just about stay ahead of it. The fee I pay for living aboard the Flush is a minimum of two hours a day of exterior housework every day I am aboard. (p. 29-30)tThe sharks were cruising their range, as is their habit. They would come upon us, put on the brakes, turn and make a big circle, watching us all the while, and then take off again. No wild creature, except perhaps the cockroach, is an experimental gourmet. Unless the food supply has disappeared, wild things want to eat what they have always eaten. Something that does not look, sound, or move like anything that has ever been on their menu is not about to be tasted. It might taste incredibly nasty. Why take the risk? (p. 35-36)tI could not understand why I felt so very damned good and said so. It was a different kind of good feeling from that which I get when I am in good shape. I wondered aloud.t"Heart," Professor Ted said, and then explained that a man's heart shares to a certain extent that trait of the whale heart and the porpoise heart of slowing down when they dive deeply, to give a maximum use of the oxygen in the blood, to make it last. "You develop a bigger, slower beat, Travis, so that topside you're getting more nourishment to the cells of muscles and brain and gut." (p. 38)tThere are men whose passports should be stamped NOT VALID OUTSIDE THE CONTINENTAL LIMITS OF THE USA. The further they get from home, the louder, cheaper, and tougher they get. And the more careless. They rove the world in honky style. (p. 41)It is a truly fantastic experience to watch what happens to iron after it has been in the sea for a few hundred years. When the air first hits it, the iron is chunky and solid. As it dries, the rusting process is so weirdly speeded up it is as though some terrible acid were working on the objects. They turned to flakes and powder, the into piles of dark dust in just the gentle motion of the Trepid. (p. 46)t"You can walk down ten thousand crowded streets in ten thousand cities of the world, and nobody will give damn one about whether you cope or can't cope, whether you live or die. The ones who notice you wonder if there's any safe way to use you, or they give you a parrot in the little fantasy theater inside their skulls. There is an estimated price on your clothes, shoes and purse, but the rest of you is just so much live meat. Pretty meat. No bonus for how well you perform the feat of living." (p. 82)I said I would be on tenterhooks until she gave me the word. She had always wondered what was a tenterhook. I told her that a tenter was a frame on which they used to stretch cloth when they made it, so it would dry evenly, and the bent nails around the frame were tenterhooks. (p. 90)tUnreality was compounded this year by a long stretch of unseasonably torrid weather, comingling sweat and jingle bells. And all the merchants and hotel managers and saloonkeepers immediately violated all the rules of business management by turning on all the giant compressors and pulling the interior temperatures down into the 65- to 68-degree range, never realizing they are the unknowing victims of a long-term conspiracy.tWhen a new structure is built, the air-conditioning experts are encouraged by the architect and the builder to overspecify the project. If they specify an $80,000 system instead of a $40,000 system, the architect and the contractor each, in most cases, pocket an extra $4000. Trade periodicals harp on how customer traffic flow is increased by keeping the thermostat low. In the densely urban areas, the heat output of all the overspecified systems so raises the ambient temperature that the big compressors have to kick in more often to keep the store at 67 degrees.tThe knowledgeable general practitioner and the specialist in respiratory diseases will both tell you that it is a total idiocy to subject the human animal to abrupt temperature variations of more than 15 degrees. He gets sick. He has more virus infections. He takes more time off from work. He feels rotten. (p. 92-93)And there was a lot of getting in and out of boats, in and out of pools, and in a daze of booze and indifference, getting in and out of beds, even though I had long since discovered that it is a habit which degrades the receptivity to sensation, coarsens selectivity, implies obligation, and turns of most useful introspection. (p. 94)So the hospital was fine. It was a project. Infiltrate. Ingratiate. Learn the kind of protective coloring that gets you past the places where they stop civilians, and learn the kind of behavior which keeps the staff from using their authority to toss you the hell out. (p. 97)I watched her. An alert, heads-up pace, little white cap, teacup size with blue edging, riding squarely atop the clenched blonde curls, white shoes with rubber ripple soles, toeing in, the long stride swinging the hips. It was a difficult, almost impossible feat to relate that brisk professional image to the night creature of the rollaway mattress, so quickly sensitized that she jerked, flexed, gasped at each caress until, in response to the body language of tugging and reaching, I had rolled her under.tAnd now I could not conceive of ever wanting to take her one more time. And suspected that she too would like to avoid a rerun. This is one of the new relationships in a transient society for which there is no word or phrase in common use. Marian and I were not friends, because friendship grows out of mutual concerns and out of being together at many times in many places. We were not lovers, because there was little or no continuity of desire. We were not completely casual libertines, dissolute and uncontrolled. Each of us had fed a great many bits into our personal computers, at breakneck speed. Is he-she physically attractive to me? Is he-she clean and healthy? Will he-she be circumspect and private about it? Is he-she seeking some kind of angle or advantage I don't know about? Is he-she likely to be kinky in some kind of vulgar, unpleasant or even alarming way? Could he-she be hunting some kind of long-range emotional security and personal involvement I can't afford? Are there so many shadow areas in the computer response to the questions that the anticipated pleasure is not worth the unknown risk?tFor each of us the equation worked, but there was the element of risk, the element of the unknown that honed the edge of anticipated pleasure. So it was too tense to be entirely casual.tThe Great Magician had called us up from the audience. He had wanted a man and a woman. Marian and I had come from opposite sides of the packed theater, accepting the risk of volunteering, and had been locked together in the magic box by the Magician, feeling vibrant and short of breath. The trick had worked. We had disappeared completely and had materialized back in the real world, no better and no worse for the experience. We had fattened our memory banks with information which might be of use someday. And in a mortal world, in the midst of all the dying, we had once again proven we were desirable, trustworthy and sexually competent.tAcquaintances perhaps? The encounter, though brief, struck too deep for that shallow word. Conspirators? There is no word for the relationship. It is a small, delicious and important risk which is being taken an uncountable number of times a day -- two-person encounter groups making initial contact in the office, plant, supermarket, waiting room, banquet hall, country club, bus station, cocktail bar. Eye contact, speculation, appraisal. Run all the accessible data through the memory banks of experience and, after an hour, a week, or a month, set up the assignation. The more discriminating and fastidious the risk-taker, the rarer will be the taking of risk….tIf it is a bad risk and there is just a small loss, it becomes a dreary episode, with petulance, regret and ugly words. The risk seems to turn bad when one of the players finds the partner is a compulsive player, a prowler, a collector of souvenirs of the hunt, a scorekeeper.tOurs had been an unexceptional event. Quite pleasant, leaving a residue of a mild and patronizing fondness. Good girl, there. Jolly good show, and all that. Nobody was a hunter. The contact had been accidental, the vibrations acceptable, the conclusion foregone. (p. 110-112)"Illness is an ego trip, especially after you begin to feel better. You turn inward. How do I feel right now compared to five minutes ago, an hour ago, yesterday? Is this pain in my hip connected with the infection? Is it something new? Why can't they come when I ring? All intensely personal. Petulant. To each of us, the self is the most enchanting object in all creation. Sickness intensifies the preoccupation with self. And, of course, the true bore, the classic bore, is the person who is as totally preoccupied with himself all the time as the rest of us are when we are unwell." (p. 179, Meyer)"There is something childlike about him. A kind of placidity, a willingness to be moved about by events. You sense that he does not want to be an aggressor, to take anything you have from you by force. He is cheerful, without being at all witty. He loves to play games. He likes to be helpful. He watches a lot of daytime television. He has a short attention span. He won't dream up chores, but he'll do faithfully what you tell him to do, if you're explicit. His serious conversation, a rare phenomenon, seems to come from daytime television drama. He loves chocolate bars and beer. He doesn't want trouble of any kind, and he'll lie beautifully to get out of any kind of trouble. He has absolutely no interest in the world at large. Retarded? Hardly. I think he may have ha better intelligence than he is willing to display. But something is wrong with him. For lack of a better word, call him a sociopath. They are very likable, plausible people. They make superb imposters, until they lose interest in the game of the moment. They form few lasting attachments. As a rule, they are liars, petty thieves, sometimes brawlers, but seldom are killers. I can explain why they are so dangerous, the ones willing to kill. Because they are absolutely immune to polygraph tests. The polygraph measures fear, guilt, shame, anxiety. They don't experience these emotions. They can fake them by imitating the way the rest of us act under stress. But it's only an imitation. When the only thing in the world that concerns you is not getting caught, you would kill for very small reasons. In fact, murder that is the result of irritation plus casual impulse plus an elementary slyness is the most difficult to solve." (p. 183-184, Meyer on Howard Brindle)t"Remember, there is a very cold and strange entity that hides inside Howie Brindle. It is the imposter. He is the stage effect. It has refined the role until good ol' Howie knows all the tricks of quick acceptance, of generating fondness, of making people glad to help him out. The thing inside pulls the strings and pushes the little levers, and Howie does all your chores for you. Cheerfully." (p. 185)Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. Integrity is not a search for the rewards for integrity. Maybe all you ever get for it is the largest kick in the ass the world can provide. It is not supposed to be a productive asset. Crime pays a lot better. I can bend my own rules way, way over, but there is a place where I finally stop bending them. I can recognize the feeling. I've been there a lot of times. (p. 218)All creatures seem to seek comfort in routine. The cows bawl at first light for the milker…. The cat comes to the kitchen at five, sits to wash, knowing it is time for supper….tWe put on the same shoe first every time and take of the same one first every time, and feeling obscurely uneasy when we vary our dumb little pattern. We start the shave at the same place every time, put on a hat at the angle that feels right because it feels like all the other times.tPatterns hold us in place, give us identity. And patterns are a kind of freedom, because if all the little motions of life vary each time, they require thought. When the memories are imprinted in the fibers of the nerves and muscles, the shoes are on, the face shaved, the belt latched, with no conscious awareness of how it happened. (p. 255)
What do You think about The Turquoise Lament (1996)?
Although not one of the best efforts in the series, No.15 gives author John D. MacDonald plenty of opportunity to extend his anti-development, pro-environment rants outside of Florida--to endangered Hawaii and American Samoa. In both idyllic tropical paradises, greedy commercial interests are busy turning pristine beaches into sewers and dumping “unfolding clouds of glop staining the harbor, browning the blue” (p244). I particularly liked this line: “The parking meters at the beach area stood like a small lonely forest of Martian flowers” (p144).THE TURQUOISE LAMENT is one of the few examples of Travis McGee actually living up to his euphemistic job title as a “marine salvage consultant.” Along with Meyer, he gets involved in an undersea treasure-hunting expedition and, later, in a determined effort to recover Professor Ted Lewellen’s cache of treasure maps and research materials (potentially worth tens of millions). Mostly, McGee gets his arms full of the late Professor Ted’s disturbingly young daughter and heir, the unfortunately nicknamed “Pidge.” The novel involves a great deal of fretting, rumination and knuckle-chewing by the action-oriented McGee as he waits for Meyer to get over an unexpected illness and for Pidge to show up in Pago Pago after a 3,000-mile sailing voyage alone with her chubby hubby, Howie Brindle--who just might be a murderous sociopath eager to become a rich widower. By my count, poor McGee is on the losing end of three different hand-to-hand rumbles. He makes some bad romantic/sexual decisions worthy of a college freshman, and he spends a lot of time feeling like “sitting down on the floor and crying a little” (p90). Although not at 100 percent in THE TURQUOISE LAMENT (he blames it on jet lag), our boat-bum Quixote still has a special gift for knowing “how to open people up as wide as a Baptist Bible” (p211).It was good to see the reappearance of an interesting character from way back in book No.4 and some concern expressed for a very special house cat from No.10. Another minor biographical tidbit for fans: THE TURQUOISE LAMENT reveals how far tight end Travis McGee got as a football player (p178)!
—DR
This novel was not the usual "Travis McGee" adventure. It started very slow where I get to the point of boredness, and just continued hoping the story will alter in a past-paced direction, which it did. The thrill start building up when Travis start looking for Linda's (Pidge)husband Howie Brindle's past.A sociopath who's planning his wife's demise just to get a bequest left by her father before he met an accident. A coexecutor defrauding his client in connivance with a hostile husband. But Travis McGee was always ahead of the game, and adept at solving the mystery where Pidge needed his help the most.
—Jenna
Another very solid entry in the Travis McGee series. There's not really any "recovery" in this story--MacDonald has clearly moved beyond the transactionality of the traditional PI novel. TURQUOISE is also light on the fisticuffs, and instead offers insights into relationships and psychology, including of the sociopathic kind. We get a good dollop of melancholy about getting older and youthful opportunities unrealized, thanks to the return of a young woman's from Trav's past. Of course women rarely enter a Travis McGee novel without having trouble in tow, and Pidge Llewellyn's troubles pull McGee to Hawaii and Pago Pago, while along the way MacDonald gets to share information on recondite areas of interest, including estate law and the onerousness of maintaining a private yacht. Some readers lament all the "digressions," but to my mind MacDonald is a storyteller almost without peer in the crime section of the bookshop--only Westlake, and Block and Leonard when they're really on top of their game, are playing in the same league.Plus, you get prose like this:"He is a very careful, fussy pilot. They are the best kind. It was such a nice morning he took it right across the peninsula and emerged a little north of Fort Myers. Once over the Gulf, he took it down to a thousand feet and stayed a half mile off the beaches as we went up the coast. Even looking toward the morning brightness, I had a good view of the coast. I hadn’t seen it from that altitude for several years. Boca Grande looked much the same. And so did Manasota Key. But the small city of Venice, and Siesta Key, two keys north of Venice, were shocking. Pale and remarkably ugly high-rises were jammed against the small strip of sand beach, shoulder to shoulder. Blooms of effluent were murking the blue waters. Tiny churchgoing automobiles were stacked up at the lift bridges, winking in the sun, and making a whiskey haze that spoiled the quality of the light."SPOLIER ALERT:Clearly I have read too many Fleming 007 novels: when MacDonald described a gondola tram in great detail about 2/3rds of the way through the novel, I new exactly where the story's climax would take place.
—Mark
