I set a goal for myself to finish the 21-book Travis McGee series this year, and I only recently realized I had somehow passed over this book, the 8th one sequentially. This probably happened because I had gotten confused about which of the series’ yellow shades I had read. (Every title has a color in it, and there are “gold” and “lemon” novels as well as this one.)
In any case, One Fearful Yellow Eye sees Travis McGee travelling to Chicago to help out his old friend Glory Geis. Glory’s husband, a famous surgeon, should have left behind a sizable fortune for both her and his two children from his first marriage, but instead the money is almost entirely gone. The children are certain she’s squirreled it away somewhere to deny them their inheritances, and the IRS is thinking along the same lines. In desperation, she calls McGee to see if he can find out why a respectable doctor would’ve cleaned out his accounts. What kind of dirt could anyone have had on him to get him to cough up his life’s savings?
McGee’s investigation involves looking into the doctor’s past, including a sordid affair he had with his housekeeper’s daughter while his first wife was dying. He also meets Dr. Geis’s daughter, Heidi, an emotionally closed-off modern artist and gallery owner who sees through McGee’s he-man act immediately, and Dr. Geis’s nurse, who he relied on both in the operating room and in the bedroom.
The McGee series can be quite strange, and even in that context, this one stands out. McGee’s habit of launching off into his opinions on politics and society leads to a harangue about homosexuality that could send a Gen-Z liberal arts major into convulsive fits. And if that doesn’t, his “solution” to Heidi’s emotional frigidity certainly will.
The actual solution to what happened to the doctor’s money is absolutely nuts, but that’s perfectly normal for the McGee series.
