Okay, so I finished reading the book, just in case Trav learned a lesson or something (ha, no! He's infallible!) but mostly because I wanted to see if there was anything that could top "moisturous gasping". Not a real word, by the way. Moist already means moist. It's already an adjective. There's no reason to add a 'urous' to the end. It's really dumburous.
But no, nothing could top that. Vangie goes to get some money to stash away and our heroes don't think maybe they could go with her, just in case she runs into the guys who have already thrown her off a bridge, so she gets killed. Trav pays a visit to the coroner's office, where more charming behavior ensues.
I looked at the young man. He was standing there, staring at her breasts which he had so unnecessarily uncovered, his underlip hanging away from his teeth. […] As we headed back out I said, "Why don't you go get yourself a live one?"
"Huh?" He turned the room light out, pulled the door shut. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. "Sure, buddy, if I could find one of those. Even that messed up you can tell it was built like it wouldn't never quit. About the only thing didn't get mashed up was the tits, but you can tell it had everything to go with them. A stack, buddy." He sat down, winked, picked up his Playboy and said, "See you around."Hey now! It would've been one thing if you were fetishizing her legs while she was traumatized, wounded, and going into shock, but boobies on a dead woman? That's just wrong!
Also, I would've figured a necrophiliac for more of a Penthouse guy.
So here we go again, noble brave name Key-Hoe-Tee? Hasn't the white man done enough to Native Americans without bringing them into these books?
Wasn't the world maybe just a little bit better off minus one slut? Did it grab you that much, boy, to have that seasoned meat offered to you on a platter? Did it squinch your sentimental Irish heart to see the lassie roll her lonely hips in the solitary dance? How can you know the whole thing wasn't all lies, that she didn't try to cross up her fellow assassins and grab all the loot for herself and that's why she got dropped off a bridge?
I'm going to run out of gifs before this is over, aren't I? So Trav meets up with a black maid, who at first talks with a "sho nuff mastah!" accent and then reveals she's a black militant who speaks the Queen's English perfectly fine. MacDonald, I think the time to subvert phonetic accents was back with the lazy, animalistic Mexican hooker.
Trav gets the 411 on the murder ring she was involved in, and after some debate (!) decides to put a stop to it. And he does. And I am done with this racist, sexist, homophobic, masculine poser trash forever.
By the way, here's the Library Journal's entry on the book.
MacDonald, whose 21 Travis McGee novels represent arguably the best U.S. mystery series of the past 50 years, died in 1986, leaving behind a legion of fans. Sadly, Travis McGee seems lost amid today's hip, violent, and politically correct private eyes and series detectives, so much so that most of today's younger mystery readers may never experience this National Book Award-winning series.I'm taking "politically correct" to mean "doesn't hate women and Mexicans."
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