No End in Sight

So, is there or is there not a missing 22nd Travis McGee novel just waiting to be published? Rumors have circulated for years that John D. MacDonald, who died in 1986, left behind a book entitled A Black Border for McGee, possibly narrated by his economist neighbor, Meyer, in which salvage expert and ladies’ man McGee dies. But novelist, editor, and author Ed Gorman features a note in his blog from a friend of one of MacDonald’s closest friends who says that “As far as anyone I know has been able to determine, there is no manuscript.” Will this finally put to rest talk of Black Border? Unlikely, as long as the McGee series (which concluded with The Lonely Silver Rain in 1985) continues to be read and relished. Which, let’s hope, will be a very long time, indeed.