Travis McGee is a fictional character created by American mystery writer John D. MacDonald. McGee appeared in 21 novels, from The Deep Blue Good-by in 1964 to The Lonely Silver Rain in 1984. The first three books in the series were published simultaneously in March, 1964, a highly unusual publishing strategy. According to MacDonald, he had earlier written an introductory novel about McGee that he burned as being unsatisfactory. Also, according to MacDonald, he was searching for a first name for McGee when a friend suggested that he look at the names of the many Air Force bases in California. MacDonald's attention was caught by Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield and named his character accordingly. John Dann MacDonald (July 24, 1916 – December 28, 1986), writing as John D. MacDonald, was an American writer best known for his series of detective novels featuring protagonist Travis McGee. ... The Deep Blue Good-by was the first of 21 novels in the Travis McGee series by American author John D. MacDonald. ... 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Lonely Silver Rain is a 1985 novel by John D. MacDonald which concluded his 21-novel Travis McGee series. ... 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... March is the third month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... An air force is a military organization that primarily operates in air-based war. ... State nickname: The Golden State Other U.S. States Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Official languages English Area 410,000 km² (3rd)  - Land 404,298 km²  - Water 20,047 km² (4. ... Travis Air Force Base is a United States Air Force air field in the Central Valley of California, near Fairfield, CA. Called the Gateway to the Pacific, Travis handles more cargo and passengers than any other military air terminal in the United States. ... Fairfield is a common place name in several English speaking countries. ...

Although the McGee novels invariably involved a mystery, they were not "detective novels" in the traditional sense of the term. McGee's business card simply said "salvage consultant" and all his business came by word-of-mouth. Someone who had been deprived of something important, typically by unscrupulous or illegal means, and who had no means to regain it would hire McGee to get it back. His fee was half the value of the item, and those who objected to such a seemingly high fee were reminded that getting back half was better than none at all. Although the missing items were often tangible, such as cash or jewels, in at least one case the object to be regained was a reputation. In several books it was a missing person. Mystery fiction is a distinct subgenre of detective fiction that entails the occurrence of an unknown event which requires the protagonist to make known (or solve). ...

McGee was a self-described "beach bum" who took his retirement in phases, as he lived off the proceeds from his recoveries and only took on new jobs when the stack of cash in his hidden safe was getting low. This life was lived on the houseboat Busted Flush (named for the poker hand with which he won it) that was docked at Slip F-18 at Bahia Mar marina in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A Houseboat is a boat which has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. ... The poker room at the Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, NJ. Poker is a card game, the most popular of a class of games called vying games, in which players with fully or partially concealed cards make wagers into a central pot, which is awarded to the remaining player or... Fort Lauderdale, known as the Venice of America, is a city located in Broward County, Florida, United States. ...

Physically, McGee was a big, exceptionally tough man. He had been a professional football player for a year or so in the 1950s with the Detroit Lions before a knee injury forced him into retirement, and for many years afterwards he retained the quickness and agility that had allowed him to play at the professional level. He was 6 feet 4 inches (1.95 m) tall and, although deceptively slim-looking, had extraordinarily thick, very strong wrists that occasionally served as a deterrent to the more perspicacious of his adversaries as they decided whether to tangle with him or not. United States simply as football, is a competitive team sport that is both fast-paced and strategic. ... // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the baby-boom from returning... Conference NFC Division North Year Founded 1930 Home Field Ford Field City Detroit, Michigan Team Colors Honolulu Blue and Silver Head Coach Steve Mariucci League Championships 4: 1935 (NFL), 1952 (NFL), 1953 (NFL), 1957 (NFL) The Detroit Lions are a National Football League team based in Detroit, Michigan. ...

Although a playboy who went through a long string of female companions during the course of the series, McGee had a dispassionate enough view of life to understand what this said about himself. This was part of an introspective nature that frequently appears throughout the series with digressions about American society of the 1960s through 1980s, with particular notice paid to what was happening to the Florida environment. The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... State nickname: Sunshine State Other U.S. States Capital Tallahassee Largest city Jacksonville Governor Jeb Bush (R) Official languages English Area 170,451 km² (22nd)  - Land 137,374 km²  - Water 30,486 km² (17. ...

But unlike previous cynical fictional detectives such as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, McGee was not yet world-weary. He still had his sense of outrage. In a classic commentary in Bright Orange for the Shroud, McGee mused, "Now, of course, having failed in every attempt to subdue the Glades by frontal attack, we are slowly killing it off by tapping the River of Grass. In the questionable name of progress, the state in its vast wisdom lets every two-bit developer divert the flow into drag-lined canals that give him 'waterfront' lots to sell. As far north as Corkscrew Swamp, virgin stands of ancient bald cypress are dying. All the area north Copeland had been logged out, and will never come back. As the glades dry, the big fires come with increasing frequency. The ecology is changing with egret colonies dwindling, mullet getting scarce, mangrove dying of new diseases born of dryness." This was from a paperback original published in 1965 when environmentalism was barely heard of. Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American author of crime stories and novels. ... Philip Marlowe is a fictional private eye created by Raymond Chandler in a series of detective novels including The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. ... An Anhinga perched on the boardwalk railing The Florida Everglades is a subtropical marshland located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, specifically in parts of Monroe, Collier, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Broward counties. ... Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a National Audubon Society sanctuary located in southwest Florida, north of Naples, Florida and east of Bonita Springs. ... Binomial name Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich. ... A large bonfire Fire is a form of combustion. ... Genera Egretta Ardea An egret is any of several herons, most of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes during the breeding season. ... Genera Agonostomus Aldrichetta Cestraeus Cahaenomugil Chelon Crenimugil Joturus Liza Moolgarda Mugil Myxus Neomyxus Oedalechilus Rhinomugil Sicamugil Valaomugil Xenomugil The mullets are a family (Mugilidae) of ray-finned fish found worldwide in coastal temperate and tropical waters, and in some species in fresh water also. ... Above and below water view at the edge of the mangal Mangrove are woody trees or shrubs that grow in coastal habitats or mangal (Hogarth, 1999), for which the term mangrove swamp also would apply. ... 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... Environmentalism is the support or involvement with the environmental movement by environmentalists. ...

The "detective" McGee did eventually gain a sidekick, but in MacDonald fashion he was not a simple "go-fer" who would provide a sounding board for the hero's thoughts. The sidekick, known only as Meyer, was a respected economist, living on a nearby houseboat at Bahia Mar, first on the John Maynard Keynes and later the Thorstein Veblen. Both were jammed full of books and treatises. Meyer would correct McGee whenever he was wrong about something. One instance was when McGee proposed wiping out the international drug trade by exchanging all existing American currency for new bills. Meyer called the idea idiotic. John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton (pronounced kānz / kAnze), ) (June 5, 1883 – April 21, 1946) was an English economist, whose ideas had a major impact on modern economic and political theory as well as on Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal. ... American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen Thorstein Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 - August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist. ...

Some world-weariness did eventually creep into McGee, perhaps because the 1960s Florida in which he originated no longer existed. The only direct indication of his age ever given were comments that he had served in the Korean War, and until the 1980s he seemed ageless. But minor recurring characters began to drop away and it became apparent that McGee himself was getting older along with his creator. In later novels such as The Green Ripper and Free Fall in Crimson, there was a sense of desperation that the violence in the world was too senseless to be explained and would never end. Much of that was dissipated with the ending of The Lonely Silver Rain, which while probably not intended as the final volume of the series was able to fittingly serve as such when MacDonald died in 1986. (Rumors of another final McGee novel, possibly narrated by Meyer, entitled A Black Border for McGee and to be published posthumously, have never been confirmed.) The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁/韓國戰爭), from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. ... 1986 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

McGee has been called the first great modern Florida adventurer, preceding characters and situations that appeared in novels by authors such as Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, James W. Hall and Les Standiford. Hiaasen specifically acknowledged his debt in an introduction he wrote for a new edition of The Deep Blue Good-By in 1994, commenting that even though MacDonald was now eight years gone, he believed McGee was still around, probably sipping gin on the deck of the Busted Flush and pondering whatever it was that Florida had become or was becoming. Elmore John Leonard (born October 11, 1925 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is a popular American novelist. ... Photo of Carl Hiaasen by Robert Birnbaum Carl Hiaasen [pronounced hiya-sun] (born March 12, 1953) is an American journalist and novelist. ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... Gin and tonic This article concerns the beverage. ...

Two attempts to translate Travis McGee to the movies or television were unsuccessful. Rod Taylor played McGee in Darker Than Amber, released in 1970, while Sam Elliot played him in the television movie of The Empty Copper Sea, which aired in 1983. Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ... Rod Taylor (born January 11, 1930) is an actor. ... 1970 was a common year starting on Thursday. ... A television movie (also known as a TV movie, TV-movie, feature-length drama, made-for-TV movie, single drama, telemovie, telefilm, or two-hour-long drama) is a film that is produced for and originally distributed by a television network. ... 1983 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Novels

• The Deep Blue Good-by (1964)
• Nightmare in Pink (1964)
• A Purple Place for Dying (1964)
• The Quick Red Fox (1964)
• A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965)
• Bright Orange for the Shroud (1965)
• Darker than Amber (1966)
• One Fearful Yellow Eye (1968)
• Pale Gray for Guilt (1968)
• The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper (1968)
• The Long Lavender Look (1970)
• A Tan and Sandy Silence (1971)
• Dress Her in Indigo (1971)
• The Scarlet Ruse (1973)
• The Turquoise Lament (1973)
• The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1974)
• The Empty Copper Sea (1978)
• The Green Ripper (1979)
• Free Fall in Crimson (1981)
• Cinnamon Skin (1982)
• The Lonely Silver Rain (1984)