I first read this novel back in High School and was ill-prepared to appreciate its style. I had read science fiction, fantasy, and books like Doc Savage almost exclusively and I thought it was high time I branched out. In fact, I think this was the first book of the hard boiled crime/noir/PI genre I had ever read. It seemed dull to me at the time but as I grew older (and older) and sampled more and more of the genre and came to love it even, I knew that someday I would get back to Travis McGee and see what it was that I had missed all those years before.
Turned out I was correct. This time around I thoroughly enjoyed it and will now plan to read the rest of the entire series over the next several years. The fascinating thing about this book is not so much the plot (although it’s a good one), or the setting (also good), but rather the character of Travis McGee himself. I really enjoy his approach to life and his ability to thumb his nose at what “traditional” society expects, choosing to live how he wants. Accumulating money is not his end goal. He looks out for those that are getting bullied or become innocent victims of the powerful so we readers want to root for him.
The author’s prose is also great fun to read, something else that I under-appreciated in my youth. He could turn a phrase with the best of them and say so much with a single sentence. Yes, I look forward to my journey with Travis over the entire 21 novel set. Overall I give it 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 because of the sheer joy I experienced at proving my youthful opinion so very wrong.
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