Already an established and successful writer, MacDonald was persuaded to create a franchise character, a recurring romantic hero to sell books. What he did was craft a personification for the world-weary angst of post-WWII riding shotgun on the tide of 60s alienation and disillusion. Article from Elle magazine 2017) How Playboy's Unsung Female Photographer Broke into the Boys' Club and Took Them All for a Ride So you can imagine my surprise when much later I discovered that Trav was not real! "What do you mean, he doesn't exist! What are you saying, Cathy…that he's just some character in a book?"

Returning to Candle Key to rape and corrupt the lonely woman who found him distasteful had been foolish. (p. 144)These are the playmate years, and they are demonstrably fraudulent. The scene is reputed to be acrawl with adorably amoral bunnies to whom sex is a pleasant social favor. The new culture. And they are indeed present and available, in exhausting quantity, but there is a curious tastelessness about them. A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else.

Michael Pritchard is the reader & the audio quality was terrible on these old, second hand tapes, but I'm really glad I listened to it. While I've read a few of these books over the years, I've never read this, the first one. Originally, published in the mid 60's, the Travis McGee series was one of the staples of detective fiction for the next 10 or 15 years.

Production: What we know about The Deep Blue Good-by?

A few years ago she would have been breathtakingly ripe, and even now, in night light, with drinks and laughter, there would be all the illusions of freshness and youth and desirability. But in this cruelty of sunlight, in this, her twentieth year, she was a record of everything she had let them do to her. Too many trips to too many storerooms had worn the bloom away. The freshness had been romped out, in sweat and excess. The body reflects the casual abrasions of the spirit, so that now she could slump in her meaty indifference, as immunized to tenderness as a whore at a clinic.” The Deep Blue Good-By (aka "Blue") is the first of 21 novels in the Travis McGee series by American author John D. MacDonald. All McGee novel titles incorporate a colour, and the novels have essentially been written as one long story on the life and times of Travis, or Trav as he likes to be called. The novel is pretty dated with McGee coming across as both a womanizing sexist and a white knight there to defend damsels in distress. As I mentioned earlier this novel was written in the 1960's and it feels it with John D. MacDonald offering sharp writing that works as both crime story and social commentary with McGee rebelling against the consumerist and conformist society that he despises.

Christine stood there inside her smooth skin, warm and indolent, mildly speculative. It is that flavor exuded by women who have fashioned an earthy and simplified sexual adjustment to their environment, borne their young, achieved an unthinking physical confidence. They are often placidly unkempt, even grubby, taking no interest in the niceties of posture. They have a slow relish for the physical spectrum of food, sun, deep sleep, the needs of children, the caresses of affection. There is a tiny magnificence about them, like the sultry dignity of she-lions. The news that Leonardo DiCaprio was going to play Travis McGee in a movie based on The Deep Blue Good-by had me over the moon. While not quite the physical match for John D. MacDonald's iconic detective, or rather self-described 'salvage consultant,' I was still ready to see Leo chillin' on the Busted Flush in the Dennis Lehane-scripted adaptation. But Leo left the building - but would still produce - so the hunt was on for a new leading man to play the Fort Lauderdale beach bum who takes on clients only when the booze runs dry. McGee’s elaborate plan includes trips to Texas and New York, and he doesn’t make very much money in the end, despite being somewhat successful in his salvage attempt. In true noir fashion, the author is not afraid of confronting McGee or readers with harsh realities. MacDonald’s terse, telegraphic prose is equally adept at conveying action sequences and Travis McGee’s offbeat, independent philosophical musings. And the musings are what make the McGee novels unique among hardboiled fiction, though they may prove off-putting to some readers. Kevin Jagernauth (25 April 2011). "Paul Greengrass Eyes 'Travis McGee' For Next Film". The Playlist. Archived from the original on 29 April 2011. The people whom Travis McGee could analyze so well? Well, of course he could, since they were familiar types, cardboard cutouts of people. That's easy to see in retrospect.John D. MacDonald was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King