We all have a piece of writing that speaks to us. Not something that shouted once, but something that continues to whisper to you, to engage you. To connect with some essential part of you - as reader, as writer, and as a person.

For me that has always been the Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald. All 21 of them. I first heard of them while vacationing in Fort Lauderdale way back in 1978, just as the 17th book in the series, The Empty Copper Sea, was debuting. I'd never heard of MacDonald or McGee before, but a local bookseller told me the character "lived" there in Lauderdale. I bought the book on a whim and settled onto a beach chair to see if it was any good.

Next morning I was back to buy two more McGee novels. Then I went back and bought the whole series. I devoured those books. But it wasn't simply that they were excellent reads - some of the content was dated even by the "modern" standards of 1978 - there was something else about the stories.

There was Travis McGee.

He was unlike any character I'd yet encountered in fiction. He was tough and a bit of a smartass, but that was pretty common in the private eye fiction I'd been reading. He was smart, but there are a lot of smart detectives. He was romantic and sexual, but that was also common in books, movies and TV.

No, the qualities that set Travis McGee apart went deeper than that. He was the first truly intellectual character I'd read. Not merely an intellect, but someone whose understanding of things outweighed the sum total of what he'd learned. And he'd learned a lot. He was a thinker, a reasoned, a self-effacing but often dead-on philosopher. He was an idealist and iconoclast.

And...he could be hurt. Despite his obvious toughness, his many scars, his fighting skills, and his bravado, this was a character who risked his heart, his soul, and his ideals in every case. A thinking hero for thinking readers.

When I created Joe Ledger, the battered and psychologically damaged hero of my thriller series, I was aware that Joe had a role model. Or, maybe an uncle.

A week ago I got a notice from Audible that the entire library of Travis McGee novels are being released unabridged on audio. I snapped up the first seven and am already deep into the third. Sure, some elements in the stories are dated (Deep Blue Good-by was published in 1964!), but the insights into politics, society, people, relationships, our self-image, roles that we all play, and the evil that men do...yeah, those are still dead on. My old friend McGee has returned to whisper these timeless truths in my ear.