Rating: 
Summary: The Perfect Ending
Review: 'The Lonely Silver Rain' is an excellent Travis McGee novel in all respects. It's also the perfect ending to the best run of detective novels ever written. Part of me sad that there the knight in tarnished armor will never sally forth on another adventure. Another part of me is glad that his story ended well, and with class. Besides, I can always go back and read the Travis McGee books again. And again. And again.
Rating:
Summary: MacDonald's swan song for Trav
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: This One Should Have Been The Deep Blue Goodbye
Review: I read all of the Travis McGee books in the '60s and '70s. While they were all satisfying at the time, thoroughly enjoyed, I never remembered the story lines of any. Though a top-drawer suspense-story-weaving novelist, a Chandler, Hammett, or Ross MacDonald he was not. This is primarily why, I guess, I could never recall any of his meticuously constructed stories--except this one, which turned out to be his last. What always had jumped out at me more than anything else about McDonald's books were the titles. They attracted me to them, big time--books with such lyrical pronouncements shouting out: The Long Lavender Look, The Quick Red Fox, The Deep Blue Good-By, Nightmare in Pink, The Dreadful Lemon Sky. As each came out I eagerly gathered them up. ##### But this last, The Lonely Silver Rain, must have carried forth a premonition of his own death. In crafting the Travis McGee finale, I think John D. McDonald was predicting his own demise in an accutely Karmic way. ##### This one WAS memorable.
Rating:
Summary: The bittersweet final Travis McGee novel
Review: I would strongly encourage anyone who is intersted in "The Lonely Silver Rain" to read (or listen to the audio book) of John D. McDonald's "Pale Gray For Guilt" first, as there are essential references in the earlier book. Of course, if you are really interested, start with the first Travis McGee book, "The Deep Blue Goodbye" and work your way through the series sequentially.I could not think of a more perfect way to end the Travis McGee series than "The Lonely Silver Rain". A simple salvage job to find his friend's stolen boat turns sour as McGee becomes an unwitting target in a drug war between rival crime organizations. Despite the violence that follows him, McGee seems tired of life, as many of his friends are gone or dying, save his trusty pal Meyer. Yet the book climaxes with an unexpected part of his past coming back into his life, offering renewal, and bringing the series to a fitting close. This book remains one of my favorites of the Travis McGee series. I would also recommend the audio books of the McGee series, as Darren McGavin does a masterful job of performing the stories.
Rating:
Summary: Audio Books a must for Travis McGee Seriers
Review: McDonald's Travis McGee series were excellent. I've listen to many of the audio books and I would have to say that Darin McGavin is an masterful storyteller. He delivers McGee like no one else can. Check out his emphasis or how he's passe' about McGee's one liners i.e. "She was as subtle as being hit across the face with a mackrel."
Rating:
Summary: I had no idea MacDonald was so good
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Fun in the sun
Review: Over the years I've read hundreds of novels in a variety of genres, but for pure fun and enjoyment it's hard to beat Travis McGee. Some of the books are better than others, but they're nearly all worth a couple of lazy summer days. They are the ultimate summer time (or any other season for that matter), quick-read books. At their core, they're good mysteries. But Travis McGee is such a great character, with such a wry outlook on life, that often the mystery seems secondary to McGee's views on whatever topic author John D. McDonald has selected for his soap box. Most of them take place in Florida, (a Florida no one will ever see again given they were written mostly in the 60s and 70s) and all have a color in the title. Don't take them too seriously, just have fun in the sun.
Rating:
Summary: This Rain Ain't Just Silver, It's LONELY
Review: Some years after his death, John D Macdonald remains much under-valued. The Travis McGee "colour" series parallels Macdonald's career and on re-reading can be seen to develop along with the maturity of the author. Travis observes things as John did. This blurring of the line between author and character is assisted by the use of the first person, and is fascinating in itself. However, it also reaches a new plane in 'Rain'. For twenty-odd years Travis represented the man who lived our dreams: unattached, entirely self-sufficient, a wolf among the sheep. In 'Rain', Macdonald courageously forces his hero to pay the price of those choices. I've read this book many times. The last chapter makes me cry every time (which is tough for a 41 year old Englishman). I don't weep for Travis, but for the end of all our dreams and the persistent treasure of family.
Rating:
Summary: This Rain Ain't Just Silver, It's LONELY
Review: Some years after his death, John D Macdonald remains much under-valued. The Travis McGee "colour" series parallels Macdonald's career and on re-reading can be seen to develop along with the maturity of the author. Travis observes things as John did. This blurring of the line between author and character is assisted by the use of the first person, and is fascinating in itself. However, it also reaches a new plane in 'Rain'. For twenty-odd years Travis represented the man who lived our dreams: unattached, entirely self-sufficient, a wolf among the sheep. In 'Rain', Macdonald courageously forces his hero to pay the price of those choices. I've read this book many times. The last chapter makes me cry every time (which is tough for a 41 year old Englishman). I don't weep for Travis, but for the end of all our dreams and the persistent treasure of family.
Rating:
Summary: This Rain Ain't Just Silver, It's LONELY
Review: Some years after his death, John D Macdonald remains much under-valued. The Travis McGee "colour" series parallels Macdonald's career and on re-reading can be seen to develop along with the maturity of the author. Travis observes things as John did. This blurring of the line between author and character is assisted by the use of the first person, and is fascinating in itself. However, it also reaches a new plane in 'Rain'. For twenty-odd years Travis represented the man who lived our dreams: unattached, entirely self-sufficient, a wolf among the sheep. In 'Rain', Macdonald courageously forces his hero to pay the price of those choices. I've read this book many times. The last chapter makes me cry every time (which is tough for a 41 year old Englishman). I don't weep for Travis, but for the end of all our dreams and the persistent treasure of family.
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