“Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn’t blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won’t cheat, then you know he never will. Integrity is not a search for the rewards of integrity. Maybe all you ever get for it is the largest kick in the ass the world can provide. It is not supposed to be a productive asset. Crime pays a lot better. I can bend my own rules way, way over, but there is a place where I finally stop bending them. I can recognize the feeling. I’ve been there a lot of times.
From now on, Lawton Hisp was not going to have a very nice life. They might never come after him, but it just wasn’t going to be very joyous from now on. Happy New Year, Mister Hisp.” – John D. MacDonald, The Turquoise Lament (1973)
The Editors’ Quote of the Day:
Ahhhh, John D McDonald’s “Travis McGee” color series. I read them because my father had them and read them. Good stuff.
Travis McGee, a man who lived by his own rules, and took life easy, worked when he wanted and only when needed.
(trying to remember the name of his RR Bentley, “Miss Agnes”? I think?)
Funny how some things, irrelevant things, stick in the mind, when it’s been years and decades since you last referenced them.
Yes, the Rolls “pickup” was “Miss Agnes.”
There’s a lot to learn in the McGee series. He’s adaptable and observant, but he ages throughout the series and wonders how long he can keep doing what he’s doing. My favorite McGee book is “The Green Ripper,” which has much of its action take place in a remote part of Northern Calif. Amazingly for such a long series of books, they are consistently very good and don’t descend into formula books written for a paycheck. The series ends on a high note with “The Lonely Silver Rain,” another of my favorites.
The movie, “Darker than Amber” (1970), starring Rod Taylor is worth watching if you get a chance. There’s a fight near the end which is famous in Hollywood because Taylor and William Smith went off the choreography and really started hitting each other. The scene is often heavily edited because it is so violent.