The Empty Copper Sea (John D. MacDonald, 1979)

In all due respect to Mr MacDonald, this is hardly his best work. To be perfectly honest and blunt, it's pretty fucking bad.

McGee and his sidekick Meyer are working on restoring (in their words, it is "salvaging") the reputation of their friend, sailor Van Harder, who has been framed by some sneaky asshole millionaire during the staging of his death. On their arrival in a small coastal town in Florida, they soon run into a usual bunch of protagonists: a wife (widow?), a beautiful Scandinavian missing secretary (mistress?), a local policeman, a night club piano player, a loser addicted to crystal meth, a bit mental millionaire's assistant and his beautiful sister, etc, etc. All entangled in a dark and sinister mystery which will be revealed within a closed family circle. Not really a whodunnit type of revelation, more like a moral and (way too!) melodramatic type of crap.

Not too original, but then again, it doesn't really need to be. Many great books follow this formulaic template, and many of them manage to craft a good story and provide a satisfying reading. Not this one, more things are misfiring here than actually functioning.

There's no suspense built up, almost no corpses right until the end. Which is understandable since our two amateurish detectives don't really stir things up when they arrive. They just wander around and keep interviewing locals without much solid progress. McGee does manage to score with a piano player, and they all get drunk on occasion, and there's this pathetic meth addict who gets killed in a car accident, but none of these episodes have any real impact on the main story.

Pretty dull stuff, but still bearable. Looks like MacDonald realised that sad fact himself, so at the beginning of the 10th chapter, everything changes. But, unfortunately, for the worse. Instead of concentrating on the plot twists and shifting up the pace/suspense gear, our hero falls in love!?!? So, fast forward a few chapters, and his case is still stuck, but his chosen one is already "one of the truly great, all-time, record-breaking, incomparable girls," and they spend quality time dreaming on the sand dunes, swimming, lighting fires, talking, and kissing...

I also had a problem with the narration. Language is good and fluent, and it's well written and all, but everything just takes so fucking loooong. There are pages and chapters without action or dialogue. Way too many tedious descriptions and unnecessary subplots, especially those related to (doctor of economy!) Meyer are hard to digest. Not to mention and bitch again about the "romantic" crap.

Not sure how to feel about this one. I was looking forward to reading McGee book again, and this may be a reason why I felt so disappointed and even cheated. I need to remind myself that this was the 17th of the series and that MacDonald was more than sixty years old when he wrote it. So let's not hold it against him too much. Maybe he simply got a bit bored with his hero and/or allowed his senile romantic fantasies about beautiful and perfect beach girls to creep into the story more than they should.

2/5

Facts:

Hero:
Travis McGee

"You're not private detective, then?"
"Me? No. Those people have to have licences and be bonded and carry insurance and report to the law people whenever they go. They charge fees and have office phones and all that. I just do favors for friends. Sort of salvage work."

Location:
Timber Bay, Florida

Body count: 
4, at some point, even 5, but McGee and Meyer successfully manage to revive an old man from the dead after a car accident.

Dames:
Julia Lawless (wife), Kristen Peterson (mistress), Billy Jean Bailey (piano lady) and of course, beautiful and perfect Gretel Howard.

Blackouts: 
One. And pretty pathetic one since McGee passes out while drinking.

Title: 
It does appear word by word in the book, but like everything else, it takes a few paragraphs to actually describe its meaning. In short, McGee is so saddened by his beloved's death that it causes him to see the sea in a coppery colour. There also appears to be a biblical explanation for this, but I'll leave it to Wikipedia to elaborate.

Cover:
One of those incredibly dull ones where the names of the author and main protagonist are printed using a larger font than the title itself. I can see no connection between the photograph and the story, so my guess would be that the publisher was willing to spend as little as possible on the artwork and simply purchased the rights to a random stock photo. At least they were decent enough to state an author. He is Langdon Clay, and this is his website, where I was actually able to find this photograph - it's the first one of the gallery titled "Cars, New York City area, 1974 - 1975". You see, it truly has nothing to do with Florida or this book.

Cool lines: 
None really. Unless you are into romantic novels...