John D. MacDonald covered several themes in his Travis McGee series, but he most regularly returned to the Drug War. Appropriately, the 21st and final novel (though the author, who died one year later, didn’t intend it), “The Lonely Silver Rain” (1985), is a bloody (good) exploration of that theme.
In an inverse of precursor “Cinnamon Skin,” McGee is not pursuing a villain. Rather, he’s being pursued. After he finds three dead bodies on a boat in a Florida Keys cove, Peruvian drug lords target him because they don’t know whodunit and “someone” needs to pay. His daily life proceeds to be plenty terrifying.
Caught up in a war he never wanted
Maybe Trav should’ve taken up with Annie in Hawaii in the last book. Although he invariably moves on to the next one-off gal, “Silver Rain” nonetheless marks a next step in his life. This plays out in a mysterious side plot about an intruder who leaves pipe-cleaner cats on his boat. It ties into a previous book and has emotional impact for series fans.
“The Lonely Silver Rain” (1985)
Author: John D. MacDonald
Series: Travis McGee No. 21
Genre: Hardboiled mystery
Settings: Florida and Mexico, 1985
MacDonald doesn’t get the Yucatan out of his system, as Travis’ investigations take him there again, for unrelated reasons to “Cinnamon Skin.” The author writes what he knows and researches well, too. “Silver Rain” is a study of the Drug War: the incredible money, the laundering process, the old and new bosses and the frontier justice.
He smartly illustrates that the cocaine business is booming, and kingpins are only mildly irked by governments’ battles against it. It has become big “business” for government, too. Through a guest column in the New York Times by an ex-DEA agent (presumably made up by MacDonald), he encapsulates the bootleggers-and-Baptists alliance in chapter 15.
The debate – and the war – has continued for the next 40 years with no end in sight, as MacDonald foresaw: “The only possible solution to this deadly trade is to ignore it. Legalize it along with marijuana. Then the infrastructure will sag and collapse. …
“But maybe it is too late for legalization. The bureaucracy of detection and control has a huge national payroll. Florida’s economy is as dependent on Lady Caine as it is on cattle or fishing. Legalization will be fought bitterly by politicians who will say that to do so will imperil our children. Are they not now imperiled?”
This time it’s personal
A DEA agent named Browder personalizes the situation. He’s so angry over his personal losses in the war, and so tired of merely taking down low-level dealers who are easily replaced, that he wants to “shake the tree and see what falls out.” He teams with McGee – who aims to clear his name at the highest levels – out of convenience, not out of concern.
MacDonald’s passage on Browder’s reckless driving through the narrow lanes in Mexico is a sequel to his Houston traffic commentary in “Cinnamon.” And a nice metaphor for the agent’s personality.
As with that previous novel, Travis learns things through his carefully planted grapevine more so than by being directly on the scene – although one dark-parking-lot battle against three thugs is quite violent. Despite this one-step-removed nature, the procedure of detection is gripping enough.
Unusually, the plot is wrapped up a couple chapters before the end, as MacDonald crafts a springboard for book 22. It ends up being a hopeful denouement after a novel’s worth of pontifications on loneliness. The author embarks on the great beyond and we’re forever left wondering about the next chapter in McGee’s life.
Unlike with other legends such as Marlowe, no guest author has taken to the keys to write pastiches about McGee in the Keys. Some have offered; MacDonald’s family has declined. It seems fitting. MacDonald, like McGee in his fictional world, was one of a kind.
Sleuthing Sunday reviews the works of Agatha Christie, along with other new and old classics of the mystery genre.