The Dreadful Lemon Sky

⚖The case for it

Travis McGee, beach bum, freelance salvage consultant, philosopher of American excess, retrieves stolen drug money in Florida. MacDonald's McGee series (21 novels) is the great American series of its generation: social satire, ecological anger, genuine suspense, a protagonist of moral seriousness who lives outside conventional life. Stephen King's favorite crime writer.

— the canon

✕The case against

McGee's habit of healing damaged women in the bunks of the Busted Flush reads worse with every passing decade, and the sermons about what money has done to Florida arrive twice a chapter, right on time. This entry runs the series at cruising speed: a dead woman, a small town's dirty cash, no turn a series reader will not see coming.

— the honest librarian