Bright Orange for the Shroud

This is one of the best in the McGee series, it's got a little of everything: high crime, sordid negotiations, action in the city and in the swamps, and all of it is wrapped around a really good, solid caper. McGee helps Arthur Wilkinson get back the inheritance he lost in a real estate scam. In the process, he has a cool encounter with the head of a con ring, a washed-up lawyer, various tricky women and a swamp rat named Waxwell.Though Waxwell and the book's climax owe no small debt to MacDonald's own "Cape Fear," this is still top-notch McGee and not a bad place for the uninitiated to start.

All the ingredients of a great McGee tale are present here, including the essential South Florida locale. It's hard to believe these stories were penned almost thirty years ago, and the rare "tells" that crop up are pretty funny. The typical is a wardrobe description replete with dacron sailcloth slacks, white denim jackets with wooden buttons, and the omnipresent pale yellow ascot. Of course, money matters are a giveaway. Like a wealthy murder victims toney "$30,000 home". That said, few authors nail a modern detective yarn quite like John D. Read this book, or any other in the series, and you'll see what I mean.

Classic.Timeless.Perfect. This book probably captures the feel of Lauderdale and the seamy side of South Florida better than any other. The country club scenes are wonderful as Trav moves effortlessly from tennis jock to covering murder tracks. "Ol' Boo" Waxwell is evil incarnate, but nowadays he would be a popular guy on the Jerry Springer show.

I now believe that Travis McGee, like all great detectives, exists outside of time. How can a novel written over 30 years ago speak to us so directly without reference to its era? In BRIGHT ORANGE FOR THE SHROUD, knight errant McGee rights wrongs committed by an impromptu consortium which exists to defraud and destroy its victim utterly. McGee flushes out the book's ultra-villain, Boo Waxwell, and does what he can to rectify the wrongs done to an innocent man. All, I might add, without reference to the Cold War, Carnaby Street, Hippies, or anything else which would have identified the book as a product of the Sizties. MacDonald's villains are the seven deadly sins, with an occasional personification of evil from the swamps like rapist-murderer-extortionist Waxwell thrown in. A wonderful read which I highly recommend.