Plot or Premise

A dancer, Chookie McCall, has a friend, Cathy, whose father might have had some buried World War II loot. A guy named Junior Allen seems to have found it and run off with it, and she has no way to get it back. So, Chookie introduces Cathy to her friend Travis to see if he can help.

What I Liked

The classic series of 21 books starts with this one, with all of the main elements of the series apparent in the first two chapters.

Travis McGee is taking his retirement in fits and starts, not waiting until he’s 60 to take it all at once. He lives aboard a houseboat he won in a card game, and specializes in difficult salvage, retrieving things other people have stolen or conned away from rightful owners who have no legal way to get it back. His usual fee for a successful recovery? 50% of anything recovered.

Junior Allen is a piece of work and delights in destroying women. In addition to stealing from Cathy and her family, he also moved into a house of a rich widow named Lois, and raped, abused and gaslit her into a puddle of a human. Travis manages to help her heal and get back on her feet while he goes after Junior. Some teens get involved as further victims, but in the end, Travis is mostly the smarter man.

What I Didn’t Like

Travis’ relations with women are always half-positive/half-negative. He always treats them relatively with respect, far ahead of his time, but his solution to most of their healing is hanging around his houseboat, enjoying the sun, until they have enough self-respect again to want to bed the knight who saved them. This story is a bit raw in places, more so than some of his later books. But it’s still an amazing story.

The Bottom Line

The legend begins with a busted flush