Travis McGee Books in Order: How to read John D. MacDonald’s series?

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Created by American mystery writer John D. MacDonald in 1964, the Travis McGee series is a hard-boiled series about the first great modern Florida adventurer. Travis McGee lives on a houseboat dubbed The Busted Flush, docked at slip F-18 at Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is neither a police officer nor a private investigator. In fact, he described himself as a “salvage consultant”. He will recover your property for a fee of 50%. Most of the time, this work leads him into a lot of trouble.

How to read the Travis McGee Series in Order?

Every entry in the Travis McGee book series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

  1. The Deep Blue Good-by – Travis McGee is a self-described beach bum who only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: He’ll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half. McGee isn’t particularly strapped for cash, but how can anyone say no to Cathy, a sweet backwoods girl who’s been tortured repeatedly by her manipulative ex-boyfriend Junior Allen? What Travis isn’t anticipating is just how many women Junior has torn apart and left in his wake.
  2. Nightmare in Pink – Travis McGee gets a call from an old army buddy who needs a favor. If it wasn’t for him, McGee might not be alive. For that kind of friend, he will travel almost anywhere, even in New York City. Especially when there’s a damsel in distress. The damsel in question is his old friend’s kid sister, whose fiancé has just been murdered in what the authorities claim was a standard Manhattan mugging. Travis is determined to get to the bottom of things…
  3. A Purple Place for Dying – Travis McGee is lured out West to a strangely secretive meeting with a woman in trouble, in a place whose beauty hides some ugly, dangerous secrets. Mona is in love with a poor, young college professor and married to a wealthy man whom she is convinced is stealing from her trust fund. So she does what any self-respecting girl would do: She hires someone to steal her money back so she can run away with the love of her life.
  1. The Quick Red Fox – Sultry movie star Lysa Dean has gotten herself into a spot of blackmail, posing for naked photos while participating in a debauched party near Big Sur. If the pictures get out, Lysa’s engagement to her rich, strait-laced fiancé doesn’t stand a chance. Enter Travis McGee, who’s agreed to put a stop to the extortion, working alongside Lysa’s assistant, Dana Holtzer.
  2. A Deadly Shade of Gold – When Travis McGee picks up the phone and hears a voice from his past, he can’t help it: He has to meddle. Especially when he has the chance to reunite Sam Taggart, a reckless, restless man like himself, with the woman who’s still waiting for him. But what begins as a simple matchmaking scheme soon becomes a bloody chase that takes McGee to Mexico, a beautiful country from which he hopes to return alive.
  3. Bright Orange for the Shroud – An old friend, conned out of his life savings by his ex-wife, has tracked Travis McGee down and is desperate for help. To get the money back and earn his usual fee, McGee will have to penetrate the Everglades-and the mind of a violently twisted grifter.
  1. Darker than Amber – As Travis McGee and his friend Meyer settle down to some midnight casting, a woman falls into the water from the bridge above them. Her name is Evangeline, and the hints she gives about the events leading to her near drowning suggest a less than pristine past. But McGee has saved her, and now he wants to see her make a new life-even if it means confronting a gang of murderers that makes his blood run cold.
  2. One Fearful Yellow Eye – It only takes one word to get Travis McGee to leave the sunny deck of his houseboat in Ft. Lauderdale for the gray cold of Chicago. The word is help, and it’s uttered by Glory Geis, an old girlfriend of McGee’s and the pretty young widow of world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Fortner Geis. The trouble is, the good doctor converted his considerable estate into cash before he died. But where he stashed it, no one knows.
  3. Pale Gray for Guilt – Travis McGee’s old football buddy Tush Bannon is resisting pressure to sell off his floundering motel and marina to a group of influential movers and shakers. Then he’s found dead. Even though his death is ruled a suicide, McGee suspects murder…and a vile conspiracy. Tush Bannon was in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
  1. The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper – He had done a big favor for her husband, then for the lady herself. Now she’s dead, and Travis McGee finds that Helena Pearson Trescott had one last request of him: to find out why her beautiful daughter Maureen keeps trying to kill herself. But what can a devil-may-care beach bum do for a young troubled mind?
  2. Dress Her in Indigo – Travis McGee could never deny his old friend anything. So before Meyer even says please, McGee agrees to accompany him to Mexico to reconstruct the last mysterious months of a young woman’s life. They think she’s fallen in with the usual post-teenage misfits and rebels. What they find is stranger, kinkier, and far more deadly.
  3. The Long Lavender Look – McGee and his old friend Meyer are cruising along on their way back from a wedding when a girl darts in front of their car. They manage to emerge from the wreckage and are limping along the deserted Florida road when someone comes by in an old truck and takes a couple of shots at them. So much for Southern hospitality. McGee and Meyer head to a service station to regroup but are there arrested and charged with murder…
  1. A Tan and Sandy Silence – Travis McGee is unnerved when he receives an unexpected guest-real estate developer Harry Broll, who is convinced that McGee is hiding his missing wife. The thing is, McGee hasn’t seen or heard from Mary Broll in three years, and it isn’t like her to keep troubles to herself-if she’s alive to tell them. McGee’s search for Mary takes him to Grenada, where he’s soon tangling with con artists and terrifying French killers, not to mention a slew of mixed motives.
  2. The Scarlet Ruse – Hirsh Fedderman has misplaced an extremely valuable commodity: the stamp collection of mobster Frank Sprenger. Assessed at around four hundred thousand dollars, these are no ordinary stamps, and Sprenger’s no ordinary collector: He’s liable to break some fingers if he doesn’t get what he’s owed. Lucky for Hirsh, he’s got a friend in Travis McGee. Soon McGee is hot on the trail of the missing collection.
  3. The Turquoise Lament – Funny thing about favors. Sometimes they come back to haunt you. And Travis McGee owes his friend a big one for saving his life once upon a time. Now the friend’s daughter, Linda “Pidge” Lewellen, needs help five time zones away in Hawaii before she sails off into the deep blue with a cold-blooded killer: her husband.
  1. The Dreadful Lemon Sky – Carolyn Milligan was only aboard McGee’s boat for one night. She came to drop off a hundred grand for safekeeping. What Carrie really needed was someone to keep her safe. She said she’d be back in a month. Instead, Carrie is killed in a dubious roadside accident. Now McGee is left with a fortune-and a nagging conscience.
  2. The Empty Copper Sea – Van Harder, once a hard drinker, has found religion. But that doesn’t keep folks from saying he murdered his employer, Hub Lawless, whose body hasn’t been found. To clear his name, and clear up the mystery, Van asks friend-in-need Travis McGee to find out what really happened. What McGee finds is that Timber Bay is a tough town to get a break in when you’re a stranger asking questions.
  3. The Green Ripper – Travis McGee has known his share of beautiful girls, but true love always passed him by-until Gretel. Life aboard the Busted Flush has never been so sweet. But suddenly, Gretel dies of an unidentified illness-or so he’s told. Convinced that the woman who stole his heart has been murdered, McGee finds himself pursuing a less-than-noble cause: revenge.
  1. Free Fall in Crimson – He was rich, mean, and slowly succumbing to cancer-until someone hastened the inevitable by beating him to death at a Florida truck stop. Now Ellis Esterland’s son wants Travis McGee to find out who killed his estranged father. In the haze of violence surrounding him, McGee starts to lose sight of who he really is. But one thing remains crystal clear: McGee is on the trail of a killer conjured from his worst nightmares.
  2. Cinnamon Skin – In the Florida Keys, a houseboat explodes in a giant white flash, instantly killing the honeymooners onboard. Travis McGee’s best friend, Meyer, loses not only his home and every single thing in it but his last living relative. Now he wants answers. And he and McGee plan to get them-or die trying.
  3. The Lonely Silver Rain – Travis McGee has the luck to thank for his reputation as a first-rate salvager of stolen boats. Now Billy Ingraham, a self-made tycoon, is betting that McGee can locate his $700,000 custom cruiser. McGee isn’t so sure. He knows all too well the dangerous link between Florida boatjackings and the drug trade, and he’s vowed never to swim with the sharks-but if he wants to keep his finances above water, swim he will.

If you like our article about the Travis McGee series in order, don’t forget to bookmark it! You may also be interested in Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series, the Lew Archer series by Ross McDonald, the Elvis Cole books by Robert Crais Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.

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