In the beginning, there was John D. MacDonald. And lo, it was good.
Then John D's protagonist — handsome, hairy-chested hero Travis McGee — begat other knights errant, including a loveable serial killer, an amateur-sleuth photographer, a renegade roadkill-eating former governor and a crime-fighting marine biologist.
(Pause: Inkwood Books hosts a booktalk and signing with Randy Wayne White Thursday, March 7, at 7 p.m. at the Tampa Tribune Auditorium, 202 S. Parker St.)
And lo, it was really good.
John D. MacDonald nearly created the whole Florida crime genre with his McGee novels, which he sprinkled over the couple decades before his death in 1986.
But he lives on in the influence he brought to the works of Carl Hiaasen, Tom Corcoran, Tim Dorsey, Randy Wayne White and a score of others.
This article appears in Mar 7-13, 2013.