THE LONG LAVENDER LOOK (1970) is the twelfth Travis McGee
novel by John D. MacDonald. It's a good one, with McGee
getting in trouble in a small Florida town. It's unusual
because McGee isn't after salvage, but my memory isn't good
enough to be sure it's the first like that.
Chapter 1: McGee and Meyer are taking the scenic route home
from a wedding. It's late at night and the road is dark.
Suddenly, a naked woman runs in front of their truck. McGee
brakes, misses the woman, but the truck fishtails and goes
over the edge into a river. McGee is knocked unconscious, but
Meyer rescues him. They start walking to town. A truck comes
along and they are shot at. The bullets miss, and they hide
until it's safe. Chapter 2: They're arrested for
murder.
It starts off fast, as you can see. Soon they're freed from
jail and Meyer goes home. McGee sticks around, partly to beat
up a policeman who worked Meyer over, but also because people
are dying and there's a lot of money somewhere. The plot gets
a little confused towards the end, when they're figuring out
the details of a robbery and talking about people who are
never seen, but it all comes to a nice conclusion.
It's similar to other McGee books where he's in a small
Florida town, shakes things up, finds out secrets, sleeps
with a local woman or two, gets in trouble with the cops,
etc. (These are the kinds of books that make tourists stay on
the main highway.) A couple of scenes seemed very reminiscent
of earlier McGees. There are only a few pages of
philosophizing, and there's strangely little desciption of
the town. The outlying countryside gets more.
McGee only sleeps with one woman (39-22-32), but a couple of
others would like to. One is a weird one, a super-strong
young sadist who turns McGee on by lifting a car off the
ground. Later, he punches her in the face.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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