He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.

Travis McGee and his pal Meyer rescue a woman who has been thrown off of a bridge. When they haul her out she's not only still alive but ready to entangle them in a murder racket of spectacular viciousness and ingenuity.

"It only takes one word to get Travis McGee to leave the sunny deck of his houseboat in Ft. Lauderdale for the gray cold of Chicago. The word is help, and it's uttered by Glory Geis, an old girlfriend of McGee's and the pretty young widow of world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Fortner Geis. The trouble is, the good doctor converted his considerable estate into cash before he died. But where he stashed it, no one knows. Although everyone from the IRS to...