I’ve read that Leonardo DiCaprio might play Travis McGee in a film of the same title directed by Oliver Stone, based on John D. MacDonald’s The Deep Blue Goodbye. While Stone is a good choice as director, I can’t see Leo playing the most iconic character in mystery fiction. Don’t get me wrong — I think he’s an excellent actor. But McGee? Please, no. He’s too short, not athletic enough, doesn’t look anything like the descriptions of McGee and lacks the charismatic presence necessary to carry the role. Tom Selleck was the best McGee — I can’t decide if his Magnum P.I. character was a ripoff of the MacDonald creation or if he was paying homage. Anyway, if the film gets made, I hope Stone casts an actor more suited to the role…The prolific MacDonald wrote 21 Travis McGee mysteries (and something like 70 novels in all); the first I read was Free Fall in Crimson, which I just re-read. And I remain impressed. MacDonald’s dialogue, settings, characterizations and plot are all first rate, and if you get all that right, you have a helluva fine novel. I found the McGee novels addictive and read all 21 books. Ironically, I thought The Green Ripper, which won the National Book Award, was one of the weakest books in the series; maybe it was a career award, which MacDonald certainly deserved…He was an environmentalist before anyone knew what that was, and wrote so many brilliant passages and insightful lines he belongs in the same league as Mark Twain…Meyer’s monologue on senseless violence in The Dreadful Lemon Sky should be read by every teen in America, and the opening line of Darker than Amber should be studied by every writer looking to compose compelling hooks: “We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge.”