Pale Gray for Guilt (Travis McGee Mysteries)

“As a young writer, all I ever wanted was to touch readers as powerfully as John D. MacDonald touched me.” — Dean Koontz Travis McGee’s old football buddy Tush Bannon is resisting pressure to sell off his floundering motel and marina to a group of influential movers and shakers. Then he’s found dead. For a big man, Tush was a pussycat: devoted to his wife and three kids and always optimistic about his business — even when things were at their worst. So although his death is ruled a suicide, McGee suspects murder . . . and a vile conspiracy. “Travis McGee is the last of the great knights-errant: honorable, sensual, skillful, and tough.” — Donald Westlake Tush Bannon was in the wrong spot at the wrong time. His measly plot of land just so happened to sit right in the middle of a rich parcel of five hundred riverfront acres that big-money real estate interests decided they simply must have. It didn’t matter that Tush was a nice guy with a family, or that he never knew he was dealing with a criminal element. They squashed him like a bug and walked away, counting their change. But one thing they never counted on: The gentle giant had a not-so-gentle friend in Travis McGee. And now he’s going to make them pay. “John D. MacDonald was a writer way ahead of his time, and his Travis McGee books are as entertaining, insightful, and suspenseful today as the moment I first read them.” — John Saul