The Lonely Silver Rain: A Travis McGee Novel

The last, and the best, Travis McGee saga. Did John D. know, I wonder, how very true this character ran in our culture? I have read MacDonald since 1965 andin my opinion he never wrote a bad book. He, of course, would argue that...but as Meyer would say "...Hrmmph!!"

Just when you thought you had read every twist that MacDonald could throw at you....he comes up with stolen billionaire buddy's boats ...drug running gangsters...mexican/peruvian cartels...wandering sexy widows...and then he tops all that with...with...well you just hafta read this one cause I ain't going to spoil it!

Dragging my feet to finish this one `cause I know it is the last. I have come to know Travis McGee well, as all of us have who've read the novels. He and Meyer confide in me. I give him advice which he rarely follows. But that's OK because it seems he always comes out OK.
I have read J.D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books- all of them beginning with "The Deep Blue Good-By" over the past year and am now at the end of the line- "The Lonely Silver Rain." A truly good author sucks you in, makes you feel as though you know the characters and would like to have a Boodles on ice with them (or Plymouth in the earlier books). It's been 21 books in all and I don't know if Travis dies in this one yet (would be truly great writing if he did) but either way he will die for me and for all of us or just fade into the sunset after this final book. John D. died himself barely two years after publishing this one. Who knows if he knew the end was near?
But others have carried on. I only began reading MacDonald because an author I had been introduced to earlier, Randy Wayne White, had been referred to in reviews as "the rightful heir to John D. MacDonald." Having read all the Doc Ford books prior to embarking on Travis McGee's adventures, I can see that Randy borrowed much from Mr. MacDonald. I think he would have been honored rather than perturbed.
I could make you an ordered list of the Travis McGee books, but all you need do is buy the first, "The Deep Blue Good-By" (yes, I always thought it was "Good-Bye" too) and it has the list in the front cover for you. The only one I had difficulty getting was "The Empty Copper Sea." I speculate that this is because that book was made into a TV movie and the producers probably still own the rights. You can get it used on the store, or I will sell you my first edition for a nice price- nice for me, that is. But I'll only accept half of the value if I recover your lost copy for you (if you haven't read at least the first book you probably don't know what I'm talking about).
In honor of the Busted Flush, slip F-18 Bahia Mar I sail the Garden of Idun, rack 65, Home Port Marina whenever I can. She is smaller and runs a bit faster than the Flush, but my wife and I enjoy her no less. Cheers to all of you who love the sea and all she brings to our lives!

Travis McGee is hired by a self-made millionaire to find his boat which was stolen from under him while he was on his honeymoon. The boat is found, with the bodies of the thieves on board and Travis is again plunged into murder, Shortly afterward, the millionaire is killed and attempts are made on Travis' life. One of the victims was the niece of a Peruvian drug kingpin and her uncle wants revenge. Travis puts the word out that he and his late friend weren't involved in the deaths and is assured he's safe but it appears those on his trail prefer to see him as a convenient kill rather than hunt the real killers.

From there the story spins into drug trafficking, drawing in markers from old friends, meeting questionable new ones, until erupting into a wholesale war among the criminals themselves.

Through it all, Travis spins his philosophy of life and the dissolution of his own and others. He's older now, more jaded than ever. Most of the people he knows are either dead or dying or have moved away. Even his best friend Meyer is estranged. The women in his life are still mostly single encounters because he's still withholding himself from that final, intimate commitment which would embrace a life other than his own. He now also has a new mystery to solve while trying to extricate himself from the current one: Someone keeps leaving cats fashioned out of pipe cleaners on the Busted Flush.

There's a long trail to the discovery of the killer, and the usual very violent and vicious fistfight between Travis and the antagonist but the real resolution of the story comes when Travis discovers the creator of the pipe cleaner cats, and a glimpse into his own future.

It's always interesting to find the one sentence in which the author uses the title of the novel but I have to admit I didn't find the phrase for this one.

As an aside, I've often wondered why, when other detective novels have been filmed or made into series, MacDonald's creation has been so ignored.

This is the last in the Travis McGee series and even if I hadn't looked up the story on wikipedia and learned this, it would've been evident from the ending. It's melancholy, as usual, and still bittersweet, but with more of a note of hope than the rest of the novels. Mr. MacDonald died the year after this novel was written but it seemed he'd already decided this was the last story for his hero, even though there were rumors of an unfinished McGee manuscript, which the family continued to deny. I offer this as a spoiler: Travis is literally back where he started, but with someone else on the periphery of his life now.

All in all, it's a fitting way to end Travis McGee's story, with that little bit of sunshine breaking through the lonely silver rain.

This novel is owned by the author and no remuneration was involved in the writing of this review.

The Lonely Silver Rain is the final volume in the 21-book Travis McGee series and it matches the extremely high quality level of the rest of the series. Absolutely terrific read.

This volume is not all about McGee riding off into the sunset. It, however, has a slightly different flavor than other McGee books. Here, McGee is not the hunter so much as the hunted and he doesn't exactly find it to be the most comfortable feeling. Someone wants him dead for slightly off kilter reasons having to do with misplaced dreams of vengeance. And it's going to take all his resources to fend off South American narco hit squads.

MacDonald packed a lot into this book including a stolen yacht, a gold digging blonde, a drug war, an eyepatch, a trip to the Yucatan, comforting a widow, angry family members, mysterious gifts, explosions, stabbings, bodies strewn about, a nurse being traded like a baseball card, and all sorts of random violence and suspicions.

This is one of the quickest reads of the whole series and this tale has a furious and relentless pace.

If you've never had the good fortune to read about Travis McGee, you are in for quite a treat. If you've read this series before, you kind of know what to expect.

One of the most convoluted, boring books I've ever read. So difficult to get through I laid it down numerous times with the intention of never picking it up again but I promised myself years ago I would finish what I started.....took me forever....I have not and will not read another one by this author.

First the reality of JD MacDonald the the Travis McGee series:

1. I think John D. MacDonald is one of the great writers of the 20th century for a number of reasons. First, the genius of MacDonald is the readability of his work. The detail he uses to craft his characters, locales and situations is so brilliantly interwoven that his style becomes seamless and creates a story that transcends the experience of reading. I've read all 21 of the McGee books more than once, many of them more than 5 times, and have listened to over half of them many times on audio cassette (with the Darin McGavin read titles outstanding in the genre of audiobooks). Yet with all this exposure they remain fascinating and alive with suspense, color and imagery as though one is watching a great action/suspense movie instead of reading. Yet they are far more personal and compelling than any movie can achieve due to the first person dialogue McGee holds with the reader throughout the story. MacDonald's "ease of read" (as contrasted with with a supposed great "literature" writer like Pat Conroy) is his gift and he uses it superbly in the McGee series. Name another writer who can craft a great, unique tale with so much in the way of action and mystery, a wide range of fully-dimensional, alive and vivid characters and at the same time cause readers to actually bond with the heroes, mourn the victims, fear the villians and inject a sense of insight into the psyches of all the players, even minor ones, in the story. Read the forward of the newer series of McGee paperbacks and listen to the more articulate (than me) but equally enamored praises of MacDonald by many of the prolific writers of our time: Carl Hiassen, Stephen King, Robert Parker, Mary Higgins Clark and many others. They all want to write like MacDonald; I've read their stuff and most of them fall way short. To summarize, I believe MacDonald is as brilliant and accomplished a fiction novel writer (including what highbrows call "literature") as has taken typewriter to paper in the last half of the 20th century. It's not pulp and it's so much more than a great beach read (which it is). The McGee series is great literature that will stand the test of time. 100 years from now people will still be reading about Trav and his salvage business, marveling all the while at the excentricities of the age in which he lived.

2. The Travis McGee series is one long story about Travis' life and times, not 21 isolated stories. I first began reading the series in the early 80's after Jimmy Buffett mentioned Travis and MacDonald in his song "Incommunicado" on the Coconut Telegraph album; I bought The Deep Blue Goodbye at the original Buffett store on a dock in Key West. On the back of the paperback was a review by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. proclaiming MacDonald as a 20th century Charles Dickens; a chronicler of the culture and mores of his time. MacDonald does it with panache and color as he takes Travis from his late twenties (in The Deep Blue Goodbye)through his late forties to maybe 50 in The Lonely Silver Rain. MacD wrote the series beginning in '63 and ending in '85 at his death. It is fascinating to watch Travis grow from the loner Korean war vet (the time-line doesn't match up with the ages I've guestimated for Trav, but that was one of MacDonald's many licenses) in the swinging but relatively straight-laced early 60's through the rebellion and cultural upheaval of the late 60's and 70's and on through the more laid back, settled and mature 80's. The well-dressed and heeled ladies in those early stories wore hats, gloves and tweedy suits to the dark mahogany and leather lounges in the cities Travis found them, drank Manhattans and brandy and called their friends "darling" and "dear". By the mid-80's it was "baby" and "sweetie", the girl drinks were rum punches and the ladies clothing and morality had become decidedly less formal. Consistent throughout the series is the on-going theme of the short life-expectancy for most of Travis' true loves. The other interesting theme that develops through the years is his friendship with Meyer. Mentioned briefly in the earlier books (I should go back and find when Meyer first appears) he becomes a major force in the great books penned in the late 70's through the last ones. Meyer's friendship with Travis enhanced Travis' personal growth as an adult, which inevitably left his status as a beach bum in jeopordy as he aged. Alternately I'm sure Meyer would agree that Travis kept him from becoming too old too fast (I understand MacDonald considered both characters his alter-egos). Much more can be said about the McGee series; the incredible believability of many of the situations Travis is involved in, yet they are all fiction, right? Read The Green Ripper for a picture of the terrorist movement that is a reality today. MacD didn't portray them as fanatical Muslims but instead more of the oddball California militant cult-religionists of the 70s. But the story still describes the jihad-like asperations of the terrorists in ways we see on the news every day in the 21st century. How did he know? But regardless of the bad guys, Travis moves through his beach bum life ever the early 60's existential man, fighting tradition and "normalcy" while proclaiming his uncertain agnosticisms he never quite believes. Then as Rain concludes he finds a startling reality that opens a new perspective about life that Travis had rejected for so long. Few novels of any stripe or literary renown end so powerfully or poignantly.

3. Which leads us to The Lonely Silver Rain. Although The Green Ripper and A Deadly Shade of Gold happen to be my two all time favorite stories with fantastic characters, exotic locales and fearsome bad guys, The Lonely Silver Rain is a different kind of story. It brings Travis' life as an independent, womanizing knight-errant beach bum to an end. Just in the knick of time incidently (as usual), since MacD departed this life leaving us McGee freaks a substantial body of work to enjoy and ending at a good place yet still leaving a vaccuum that no other fiction writer or character can fill. I concur with the Englishman editorialist who commented on being brought to tears reading the concluding chapter of Rain. Another part of MacD's genius was his ability to let us watch Travis as his relationship with another individual develops through the varying layers of intimacy. The shocking conclusion of this book is probably the best example of that writing skill, something screen play writes, TV script writers and lesser novelists only hope to approximate. Travis had experienced difficult times in his previous few adventures facing his own mortality and being possibly a step slower than he once was. Meyer continually reminded him of this fact. Travis of course continued to lose more than his share of true loves in those last half-dozen or so stories as well as just managing to stay ahead of the bad guys . So after the salvage job of the story is done, the ending hits hard bringing a conclusion from a story from the early 70's that is the incredible end to the series. MacD must have known it was over. Any story after this one would have certainly taken Travis on another track. And I just don't see Travis and Jean working as a team like Sky King and Penny.

So the end came; Travis took up yacht brokerage full-time, got on the insurance plan with the firm, and bought a half-interest in a sport-fishing charter boat with Meyer which never made the money they hoped for but kept Trav busy selling more pleasure boats to the south Florida fat cats so he could pay for Jean's tuition and upkeep at Florida State. He did keep the Busted Flush but moved it down to Islamorada due to the overcrowding and craziness in Ft. Lauderdale; I'm told it's docked at a small marina on the gulf side just south of the Chica Lodge. I understand he bought a condo up around Jupiter and uses the Flush as his week-end getaway. I expect he will ultimately marry but not one of the rich widows of English nobility; he could never be a kept man. I hear on good authority that he started attending a non-denominational church in the area after he met a nice lady about his age who owns a dance studio for school girls, one of Chookie and Arthur's friends. Word is she lead him to Jesus, believe it or not; the existential man no more. But once in a while I understand he'll do a relatively safe salvage job if the prospects for a quick and easy recovery are good. You can't keep a good man down.

The Travis McGee series represents one of the greatest accomplishments of American fiction -- ever. Never mind the rumors of MacDonald working on another story (before he died) with the color "Black" in the title, this is the way a series should end. Travis has taken countless blows, physical and emotional, throughout his career. In this novel, however, we see Travis's rusty armour nearly falling off, his horse nearly crippled, and his enemies closing in on all sides for the kill. As he triumphs one last time over the insurmountable odds, he gains a new reason to continue being the white knight. While this book is superb, I wouldn't recommend reading it until you've read at least a few others in the series (especially "Pale Gray for Guilt"). Not only will you understand more about the plot and characters, you will have more invested in seeing Travis's ultimate redemption.

Travis McGee's 21st and final adventure does not disappoint. Although John D. MacDonald's death the year after this novel was published was unexpected, and he probably figured to write at least one or two additional Travis McGee novels, he really couldn't have a written a more appropriate last chapter for McGee than "The Lonely Silver Rain."

There were signs, in the last four books, that McGee was not being fulfilled by his beach bum/playboy lifestyle, but in this one, it is clear that a change is coming. The "Alabama Tiger," (presumably an Auburn grad?) who has been hosting a permanent on-board party for the last 20 years, has passed away, and his heirs have sailed his yacht back to Alabama. We also find McGee saying this:

"Miss Agnes was too conspicuous and too well known. I wondered if I should get rid of her. And also unload the Busted Flush and the Munequita. They were signs and symbols of my lingering adolescence."

Earlier in the series, those would have been almost fighting words, if spoken by a man, and cause for immediate breakup, if spoken by a girlfriend, but now even McGee is saying them. Even he sees that his lifestyle is emotionally stunted and has become a bit of an age-inappropriate joke.

***SPOILER ALERT***

And then there's the fact that Travis discovers that he has fathered a child, now almost 17 year old, with the red haired beauty, "Puss Killian," who was a character in "Pale Grey for Guilt," the 9th McGee Adventure. Suddenly, McGee has a reason to start making money, to start working like a regular stiff. In this episode, his "salvage job" yields far more money than in any other Travis McGee book--approaching a quarter of a million dollars--but at the end we learn that he's put it all, except for $400.00, in a trust for his newly discovered daughter. "I've got to scramble around and find some salvage work real soon," he tells Meyer, who smiles at him and says, "Welcome to the world."

Welcome to the world, indeed. The playboy days, the fun-loving, sun-seeking, sybaritic days on the Busted Flush are coming to an end. McGee now has something, someone, to work for.

***End Spoiler Alert***

The Travis McGee series is a great series of crime/suspense/mystery novels; McGee is one of the truly remarkable characters in 20th Century American popular fiction. Start with the "Deep Blue Good-by" and read them all. Maybe don't do it in less than a year, as I just did, but do it.

1. The Deep Blue Good-by: A twisted-tale of hidden WWII loot set in south Florida, with an extensive side-trip to Texas' Rio Grande Valley, with a typical JDM, "Max Cady"-type villain named "Junior Allen."

2. Nightmare in Pink: Travis's army buddy's sister's fiance is murdered in New York City, Travis is asked to find out why, in this NYC-based pharmacological adventure.

3. A Purple Place for Dying: Travis's client is dead before he can even get started, in this mystery set in a nameless western state resembling New Mexico.

4. The Quick Red Fox: Travis hunts down a blackmailing photographer for Hollywood sex-symbol Lysa Dean.

5. A Deadly Shade of Gold: The longest and most complex Travis McGee novel, a tale of stolen antiquities and political intrigue set primarily on the west coast of Mexico.

6. Bright Orange for the Shroud: Travis helps friend Arthur Wilkinson, the victim of a long con in southwest Florida. "Boone Waxwell" emerges as a classic JDM villain.

7. Darker than Amber: Travis and Meyer bust up a honey-pot con that uses hookers and Miami-based cruise ships.

8. One Fearful Yellow Eye: a classic tale of wrong sex, blackmail, and murder set in Chicago.

9. Pale Gray for Guilt: Land speculators crush McGee's football buddy Tush Bannon, McGee gets revenge.

10. The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper: A former McGee lady-friend asks him to look in on her daughter in a central Florida county, where ambition and greed have run amok.

11. Dress her in Indigo: a dying friend asks McGee and Meyer to find his daughter, last seen in Oaxaca, Mexico. MacDonald considered this a failure but it's one of my favorites.

12. The Long Lavender Look: a fight over stolen money draws McGee and Meyer into a south Florida county with a seemingly very corrupt sheriff's office.

13. A Tan and Sandy Silence: The worst McGee novel. Travis goes down to Grenada to catch a deadly predator.

14. The Scarlet Ruse: a story of stolen stamps set in the sunshine state.

15. The Turquoise Lament: a classic McGee tale of following the "back trail" of a seemingly normal man who in fact is a dangerous predator, set in Florida, Hawaii, and Pago Pago, American Samoa.

16. The Dreadful Lemon Sky: A former girlfriend leaves money with Travis for safekeeping, then is "accidentally" killed. Travis and Meyer investigate another Florida murder mystery.

17. The Empty Copper Sea: The second-worst McGee tale. A wrongly-blamed charter captain and friend of McGee wants his reputation back; the man who hired him has obviously faked his own death, in this mystery set in a fictional locale in northwest Florida.

18. The Green Ripper: McGee's girlfriend is mysteriously dead; is a religious cult to blame? McGee will have vengeance, in this very atypical adventure set in Florida and northern California.

19. Free Fall in Crimson: Travis is asked to find out why a wealthy man, dying of cancer, was beaten to death before he could die of natural causes. He finds out, with Lysa Dean's help.

20. Cinnamon Skin: Meyer's niece is killed on her honeymoon when a bomb destroys Meyer's cabin cruiser, the John Maynard Keynes. McGee and Meyer follow her husband's "back trail" through Houston, Dallas, the Rio Grande Valley, Eagle Pass, and finally to Cancun, Mexico.

21. The Lonely Silver Rain: Billy Ingraham hires McGee to get his 54 foot yacht back, but the kids who stole it have already met a gruesome fate. Travis will avenge them all.

UPDATE 7/11/13

I think Travis McGee is having a Renaissance. When I first posted this review, it was the 12th one on the site, spaced over fourteen years from 1998 to 2012. But in just a single years since I posted this review, 10 more reviews have been posted. Old John D. and Travis McGee have found yet another generation of readers. Which is as it should be.

This was, sadly, the last Travis McGee novel. The author, John D. MacDonald, died shortly after "Silver" was published. But the American hero goes out in a fine adventure, one of the best of the series. MacDonald's writing remained crisp and effective in his last novel and his plot is also first rate and fast paced. One other reviewer noted that, before reading this novel, a reader should pick up "Pale Gray for Guilt." That's true. There is a tie to "Brown" in this novel, a very poignant one.
McGee might have been the greatest American private investigator of all time. "Silver" was a very good novel to exit on. Highly recommended.

John D. MacDonald's TRAVIS McGEE series doesn't just offer good reading but great reading in the thriller/mystery genre. When modern day writers disappoint I like to return to the series to once again shake my head in amazement at how MacDonald's writing transcends time with keen insight to humanity, its virtues and, of course, its darker side.
McGee is everybody's favorite friend and MacDonald made him available to all of us. While THE LONELY SILVER RAIN is good book start at the beginning of the series and work your way through the title colors. If you can't find them on-line then used bookstores usually have a few at ridiculously low prices. Enjoy!

My mother collects the paperbacks, and I bought her a bunch for Christmas this year, and, on a sick day when I had nothing else to read that felt right for a sick day, I picked up the Lonely Silver Rain and read it straight through. I wish I hadn't started with the last book in the series, but I was still quite glad to have read it. The writing in this book is several cuts above that of the average mystery; in fact, the mystery or adventure or whatever you want to call it is only about 1/3 of the book. The 2/3 that is the incredible, thoughtful voice of MacDonald as Travis McGee is what has me determined to dig up copies of the whole series and read it straight through.

Highly recommended.

There are thousands of reviews of this man's Travis McGee series. He is the undisputed king of American detective/mystery writing and if someone else makes this claim (publishers of so many iconic crime writers have done just this) THEY SHOULD BE ASHAMED.

If you are a serious literature reader and tend not to delve into mysteries and detective procedurals then this is the author to read should you be seeking a change. It is hard to imagine anyone not having read MacDonald; I cut my adolescent teeth on him.

No matter what you like to read, be it vampire serials or non-fiction, there is absolutely a place in your mind where this book and the other 20 in the series will slot in providing you moving, marvelous moments of polished writerly adventure. If you loved Treasure Island for example this man will not disappoint. Few giants deserve six stars but MacDonald does.

Noted authors such as Donald Westlake and Robert B Parker doff their cap to him, and you should too.

Welcome back John D. MacDonald. I have read all his Travis McGee novels years ago as so in reading this it was a reread. I have enjoyed all the McGee series and find it a quick easy "summer beach" type of reading. While reading this I e-mailed a friend and told them about the "Travis McGee Series". Read and ENJOY!