A Purple Place for Dying (1964) is the third novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald.

McGee is drawn away from his usual haunt of Florida by a job offer from Mona Yeoman, who suspects that her estranged husband has stolen from her considerable trust fund.

She made a man want to shake her up, to mat that twenty-five dollar hairdo and knock that lady-of-the-manor style of hers on its can.

In it he tells a story of finding a copy of A Purple Place for Dying at a flea market in Huahine in French Polynesia.

Jimmy Buffett writes, "Six thousand miles away from slip F-18 at the Bahia Mar yacht basin in Ft. Lauderdale, I read the opening lines.

That afternoon, leaning against a palm tree, I finished the book, and as beautiful as paradise was, Travis McGee had rekindled my love for the quirky and insane things that were Florida to me, and I missed them."