This is the 19th entry in the Travis McGee series, and it’s starting to show its age. Free Fall in Crimson takes up after the events of The Green Ripper, in a rare example of series continuity. McGee is reeling from the loss of his partner Gretel and reluctant to take on an investigation into the death of an acquaintance’s father. Ron Esterland, a successful painter, was on the outs with his plastics magnate father and had been cut out of his will. However, there was a complication. Ron’s half-sister was supposed to be the beneficiary, but when Ellis Esterland died, she was already in a coma she would never emerge from, meaning her inheritance soon passed from her to her mother, Ron’s stepmother, when she eventually passed. Which would just be an unfortunate coincidence if Ron’s father wasn’t beaten to death in a seemingly random attack. Ron, and McGee, are pretty convinced the attack was planned to ensure the Esterland fortune passed to the stepmother.
It’s a complicated setup that unfortunately takes Macdonald a long time to unpack, especially as he insists on having McGee meet and seduce the old man’s young secretary/mistress along the way. Eventually, a tip from a local cop leads McGee to suspect that the murder was committed by men who were riding motorcycles. Looking up an old buddy from his time in the service who now runs a biker bar, McGee learns that the word on the street is that the murderers were two insane bikers who’ve gotten famous by being cast to play bikers in a couple of Hollywood movies. When McGee realizes that the director of the movies is dating the Esterland widow, he’s sure he’s onto something.
What follows is the only part of the movie that is actually entertaining. McGee fakes some credentials with the help of yet another old friend and shows up on the set of the director’s newest film. The movie is set in the world of hot air ballooning and being filmed on location in smalltown Iowa, where McGee discovers that the locals are none too pleased with the behavior of these Hollywood folks.
In a far-too-compressed thirty or so pages, McGee uncovers the nefarious activity that has locals so upset, gets more info on the murder he’s investigating, and faces life or death consequences when the situation boils over. This part of the novel could have easily been stretched out to make for a far more compelling book.
Sadly, McGee further saddles Free Fall in Crimson with a totally unnecessary, and unnecessarily brutal denouement, in which a lot of people die in a trail of violence that ultimately concludes with an underwhelming final confrontation. There’s just far too much death in this book, which becomes a problem when it seemingly has such little effect on McGee. Macdonald’s ultimate hero man starts to look like a sociopath when he so easily casts aside his own guilt for the bloodshed. This over-the-top violence is a bridge too far for me, considering the book also contains the casual sexism you have to allow for if you’re going to read the McGee books at all.
I’ve only got two novels left in the series, but sadly it seems like it’s limping to the finish line.
