Eddie's Fancy

I’ve been a fan of hard-boiled detective novels for years. Unfortunately I started with Chandler and Dashiell Hammett so it’s been downhill since then. I’ve read about John D. MacDonald for years, but just now picked up the first Travis McGee novel.

McGee is a finder of lost things, he enjoys life on his houseboat in Fort Lauderdale until he runs low on cash, then takes on a client to find whatever they need found. In “The Deep Blue Good-by” (reminiscent of “The Long Goodbye” by Raymond Chandler) he is hired by a showgirl who is missing money acquired by her father from India during WW-II.

I liked McGee and the book clipped along at a good pace. MacDonald doesn’t quite turn a phrase like Chandler or Hammett, but he makes up for it with a moving plot.

I’ve put the rest of his books into my checklist, I’ll definitely be on the look-out for them as I browse used bookstores.