At 06:14 PM 2/16/2002 -0500, George wrote:
>There was a longtime rumor that John D. MacDonald had
written the final
>Travis McGee novel (with Black as its title color)
before his death, then
>locked it in a safe, with instruction that the book
be published
>posthumously. The other part of the rumor was that
MacDonald would take
>McGee with him to the grave (McGee dies at the end of
the book.) Has
>anybody heard any more about this?
Yes, I remember this rumor going around in South Florida in
the early 80s. McGee and MacDonald were understandably
popular there. :-)
The title of the book was supposedly, "Edged in Black," and
McGee dies at the end. This was to prevent other authors from
continuing the series. As I recall, at the time I heard the
story a new pastiche Nero Wolfe story was being published, to
the dismay of many Wolfe fans. This may have been the reason
for the start of the rumor. Of course, his estate may have
supressed this book so that they can continue, but I suspect
it was just the result of some offhand remark about or by
MacDonald, who was quoted quite often in newspaper columns
and Sunday supplements in Florida.
After JDM died, we all waited for this last story--I was
living in San Diego by then, but it never came out. I
wondered how McGee was going to write about his death in the
first person :-).
As far as I know, the last McGee piece written by JDM is the
BOMC story I mentioned in an earlier email.
Ray
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