Travis McGee

John D. MacDonald started in New York (Syracuse U.), but ended in Florida. I loved his novels, reading everyone I could find. Found a couple in a bookstore in Hawaii when the Continental plane landed to refuel. Finished them before we touched down in Saigon.

The LATimes has a piece on the possibilities his Travis McGee character will finally hit the movies. (Though Wikipedia is more comprehensive.) From the piece:

One abiding concern for McGee -- a dropout from society who seems more libertarian than liberal despite the '60s and '70s settings -- was the environment. Years before a full-fledged environmental movement, he was describing Florida's Mangrove Islands as "one of the few strange places left which man has not been able to mess up." In 1973, McGee talked about "instant Florida, tacky and stifling and full of ugly and spurious energies. They had every chain food-service outfit known to man, interspersed with used-car lots and furniture stores."