Travis McGee was surprised to find his old football teammate stressed and gloomy on his first visit in many years. McGee suspects unhappiness in marriage, but really the cause of the problem is financial in origin. Business at Bannon’s marina hotel has been in steep decline since the county shut down the nearest highway. Bannon’s wife, Janine, suggest cutting their losses and selling, but the only offer is suspiciously low and just happens to be coming from a relative of one of the county commissioners. Seems like the powers that be have decided Tush is in the way of progress, and they’ll stoop pretty low to get him out of their way.
So when Tush is found dead, supposedly of a particularly gruesome suicide, McGee smells a rat. With the help of his stalwart friend Meyer, a genius economist, and his latest romantic partner Puss Killian, McGee sets to work uncovering Tush’s killers. Not trusting that they can be reached through the law, he sets his sights instead on hitting them where it’ll really hurt: their wallets.
What follows is a bit lackluster compared to most of the Travis McGee novels. McGee use his intellect and his fast-talking charm to ingratiate himself with some powerful local businessmen. They wanted Tush’s land to package it with other nearby tracts and sell it to a major corporation location to build a new plant in the area. McGee, who purchased Tush’s land from his widow, uses it to leverage the business interests against each other, while laying a clever trap with some forged credentials and a phony stock tip from his buddy Meyer.
As revenge goes, it’s effective, but it’s hardly the stuff of thrilling fiction. By the time McGee and the widow wind up in peril at the hands of the killer, the reader has sat through over 100 pages of the financial con, and it’s too late to generate much heat.
Macdonald’s usual magic is just missing from this entry in the McGee series. Unfortunately, his period-appropriate but still problematic aspects remain in full force. There are a few random potshots taken at hippies and Latinos, and a very unfortunate word choice or two besides. And, of course, McGee is, as always, a wish-fulfillment Lothario, able to attract and bed any woman he wants to, despite some very unappealing beliefs about women.
Normally, these bothersome elements are crowded out by crackling prose and a ripping yarn, but when those are absent, it stings.