Making someone dead is a game for the unimaginative, for someone who cannot ever really believe they, too, can die. The curse of empathy is to see yourself in every death, and to see the child hidden in the body of every corpse.
It was around 45 years ago, in Missouri, that I picked up my first Travis McGee novel, The Long Lavender Look, from a rack in a grocery store or a drug store or something. The story proved to be quite a sordid tale of theft and prostitution and murder in a small town. It was the way it was told that grabbed me.
Travis McGee, freelance “salvage specialist,” is barreling south one night on a rural Florida road in Miss Agnes, his blue Rolls Royce pickup conversion, his friend, the economist Meyer, beside him. They’re headed home from a wedding celebration. Suddenly a near-naked girl runs across the road in front of them, close enough to make McGee hit the brakes, putting Miss Agnes in a skid that lands them in a canal. Meyer pulls Travis from the water, saving his life, but a few minutes later Travis returns the favor when a passing motorist stops and shoots at them, shouting a message that makes no sense to them.
Finally they reach a small town by foot, but they’re soon arrested by sheriff’s deputies. Apparently the guy who shot at them was tortured to death that same night, and Travis and Meyer look like the most likely suspects. Under questioning, one of the deputies brutalizes Meyer, giving him injuries requiring hospitalization. Travis contacts a lawyer who gets them released, but not before warning the sheriff that he’s going to ruin him.
But that’s just the beginning. It gets a lot more complicated than that. As it turns out, the sheriff is a decent cop – though not without blind spots. Travis will stay around to get his own questions answered, and the death count will not be small.
The Long Lavender Look is a tough story, with a lot of collateral damage involved. But the author’s humane and poignant narration makes it all touching and memorable in the end. This is one of my favorite McGee books, and not just because it was my first.
Not politically correct (though there’s plenty of environmental concern), but that’s all to the good as far as I’m concerned.