The Deep Blue Good-by

The first Travis McGee novel. Travis McGee, a self-described "salvage consultant" living aboard his houseboat the Busted Flush in Fort Lauderdale, takes on a case for a young woman whose father hid a fortune smuggled home from World War II — only for it to be stolen from her by a violent con man. McGee sets out to recover it, and to make the man who took it pay.