EMPTY COPPER SEA

Travis McGee #17—and everything's ship-shape down Florida way. Well, maybe the case itself is just fair-to-middling: what happened to on-the-skids tycoon Hub Lawless of Timber Bay when he fell (or jumped) off his yacht? Did he drown—or run off to Guadalajara with his assets and his secretary? Less than earth-shaking, but it's a pleasure to watch McGee and sidekick Meyer go into action, posing as corporate real-estate aides ("Tools of the power structure"). Along the way, McGee makes two women happy: a face-lifted saloon piano player (she turns ugly when Tray fails to appreciate her rendition of "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy") and 6'1" Gretel—can this be at long last love? Little action, mostly talk, but good talk, and MacDonald's see-it/smell-it sense of place and people is intact; who else bothers to give you a precise sense of a town's geography—and can do it in one effortless paragraph? Reliable plus.