|
Editorial Review Product Description
When detective Archy McNally is called to retrieve a set of rare stamps known as "Inverted Jennies" from one of Palm Beach's wealthiest and most curvaceous matrons, he unexpectedly becomes entangled in something far more dangerous. A local collector is slain, and all roads lead Archy back to the original crime scene. But before he can put the pieces together, he faces another murder and all-to-real romance. ... Read more Customer Reviews (8) 
Quite enjoyable
I like Sanders' McNally collection. And this one is definitely good, also the performance is perfect. Possibly, I have expected more, that is why 4. In any case, wonderful pastime.
Meet Mr, McNally!
If you love a rich, colorful character in yourmystery novels, then most certainly pick up McNally's Secret. The lead character is a loveable, albeit naughty boy, named Archie McNally.He is handsome, in his 30's, and still living at home! [Women, beware!] However, McNally does justify his stay at home status with his readers(rent=zip, nado, nothing!]. In McNally's Secret, you meet Archie, a Yale law school drop out [he was caught running across a stage wearing a Richard Nixon mask and nothing else..], who is currently working for his attorney father as head of "Discreet Investigations". Archie handles sensitive cases for his father's richer-than-God clients down in Palm Beach. Archie loves wine, women, and song--not necessarily in that order. In fact, he eats too much, drinks to much, and always seems to get in trouble with the wrong sortof gal, much to the chagrin of his unofficial girlfriend Connie. In this mystery, Archie must call upon Lady Horowitz (which should be spelled Horror-wits), a brash old gal who has married more men that Liz Taylor and has more money than Queen Liz. The mystery begins with the theft of Lady Horowitz's priceless inverted Jenny stamps, but the plot soon turns to murder. And only McNally has the insight to the case's solution.
Am I the only one who is bothered by this?
I've read the first 4 books in the McNally's series in sequence. They're all highly formulaic but still enjoyable.
In the first 3 books the main character is a lovable rogue, mostly amoral but still with certain personal limits, so it is not surprising that he sleeps with various available women in the first 3 books.
But -- SPOILER ALERT -- in the 4th book he sleeps with a woman who is married, living with her husband and planning to continue that way. And -- lest you think that he was momentarily carried away by passion -- he sleeps with her two more times.
Suddenly, to this reviewer at least, McNally becomes a less lovable and much more unattractive figure.
McNally's secret
to me any McNally book is a good one.You should look for the whole series.
Cure Cultural Volcanics with Bubbling Champagne.Design Life To Suit Taste & Times.
This book didn't merely capture my reading interest. It became a book of my heart...
In McNally's SECRET, the pilot to this series, we're informed that the pater McNally is not an "old-money" man.Okay.I get that and I like it.(That's not the secret.)
Having reviewed 4 of the original 7 McNally books by Lawrence Sanders, I had accepted the face value (not realizing the facade) of the Palm Beach mansion and the genteel lifestyle of pater Prescott McNally, Yale graduate, leather-bound-Dickens-reading, attorney-at-law.Upon reading (in McNally's Secret) the illuminating passages of Archy's grandparent's ways into money, I began to wonder what other Secrets this novel might expose.
Usually, if possible, I prefer to read a series in order, pilot first.I can't explain why, but, in this case I'm glad I read 4 of the original 7 McNally's prior to reading SECRET (though I believe this series can be satisfyingly read in any order).
The opening of this novel was classic, and felt to be the initiation of what Sanders was born and itching to write, beyond the sagas of his other fine works.The introductory remarks were exquisite in mapping the reasons for, "Can't you ever be serious, Archy?"I'd love to quote that paragraph, but maybe I should allow you to read it with the book in hand.I will quote a few other passages, however, which might serve as appropriate appetizers to this banquet of a book.
Comparing himself to S. Holmes, Archy says:
"I can't glance at a man and immediately know he's left-handed, constipated, has a red-headed wife, and slices lox for a living.I do investigations a fact at a time.Eventually they add up - I hope.I'm very big on hope."
Archy's description of the start up of the Pelican Club were the best type of soul food.This is how and why such a club should be started (then survive through a near hit of Chapter 7).Of course you really should read the book to get the whole of that brief history, but here's a prime paring:
"We were facing Chapter 7 when we had the great good fortune to hire the Pettibones, an African-American family who had been living in one of the gamier neighborhoods of West Palm Beach and wanted out."
They "wanted out" and they deserved a chance where their skills could and would save not only themselves, but those who hired them.Isn't that the type of win/win the world needs now?
I almost sobbed at the below passage, I felt such a deep surge of "right on" (definitely did a breath-catch hiccup and heart moan):
"... we formed a six-piece jazz combo (I played tenor kazoo), and we were delighted to perform, without fee, at public functions and nursing homes.A Palm Beach critic wrote of one of our recitals, `Words fail me.'You couldn't ask for a better review than that."
Yep.This is a book of my heart.Words don't often fail me in reviews; too much the contrary.But I'm getting better at refraining from using my critic hat with a steel-studded-bat accessory, which is what Archy was getting at.
Some might wonder why a person in my position, with my un-hidden agendas, would take so much time to write raves on a series by a deceased author.Mostly, I love Archy.But, possibly the live spirits of the dead are sometimes more able to be helpful than dead souls of the living?Keeping my tongue in cheek, I might add that freed spirits probably have better connections for helping an author into the right publishing contacts for a character series with ironic assonance with this one.
Moving quickly onward and upward, though not with wings attached yet...
In contrast to the other 4 I've read, I noticed that this Archy is less bubbly-buffoonish (though the buffoon is always endearing) and slightly more serious, sensitive, and quietly contemplative.I like both versions of Archy, though I prefer the slight edge of peaceful acquiescence in the pilot, and I can't help but wonder, as I do with all series, how much reader feedback, and editor/agents' interpretation of it, directed the progression of balance of certain appealing or potentially irritating qualities.I wonder how each series would have progressed if the feedback had been balanced and pure (as a species, we're not there yet,but forward motion is perceptible), rather than inevitably polluted by the "life happens" part of the sometimes perverted, capricious tastes of us squeaky wheels, and the healthy ego needs of professionals in positions of swallow and sway.
I'm still trying to understand why honesty is the most appealing human quality to me, yet honest criticism does not speak to my heart, nor to my soul, not even to my head.Often, though, it does speak in perfect pitch to my funny bone.And, of course true Honesty (with the capital "H") leaps beyond speaking the "truth" as one happens to "see" it on a good or bad day.Cultural honesty, of the type dramatized by Stephen King, Lawrence Sanders, Tamar Myers, Barbara Workinger, Joanne Pence, Sue Grafton, (and others) is what most often pushes me to stand up and cheer.
Somewhere.
One of the best spots I've found is on the edge of the clear cliff of ozone found in Amazon's sacred forum of Customer Reviewers.
Of course the first lines in SECRET, the sipping of champagne from a belly button would snag the attention of even the most sexually skittish reader of the nose-raised, neck-cricked, personality persuasion.But, truly and honestly, what sunk me with every hook were the few lines exposing why Archy could never be serious.I know I said I wouldn't, but I have to quote this passage, beginning on page 1 chapter 1.For me, it's one of the main selling points of the series:
"I had lived through dire warnings of nuclear catastrophe, global warming, ozone depletion, universal extinction via cholesterol, and the invasion of killer bees.After a while my juices stopped their panicky surge and I realized I was bored with all these screeched predictions of Armageddon due next Tuesday. It hadn't happened yet, had it?The old world tottered along, and I was content to totter along with it."
I'd bet my fortune (which is based on a skill of "make do"; there are no bananas in it) that the above passage is what captured a collection of readers so absolutely in a "right on" agreement that this series spanned the grave of the author and is still spewing pages and stretching shelves.And, of course, this attitude of "if you can't lick `em; flick `em" which Archy aimed toward "kvetch-ers" as he terms them, continues from the above, with relish accumulating, throughout the book.
Archy is a rare sane person swimming along nicely within the insanity of a last-gasp-culture (which is "drowning in The Be Careful Sea" as I described and termed that syndrome in one of my sci fi manuscripts titled MORNING COMES).
To Jennifer, of the champagne sea in her belly button, Archy answered why he wasn't an attorney:
"Because I was expelled from Yale Law for not being serious enough.During a concert by the New York Philharmonic I streaked across the stage, naked except for a Richard M. Nixon mask."
That answer brought to mind the bright side of Howard Roark (from Ayn Rand's FOUNTAINHEAD, see my review posted 10/14/05) who was arrogantly unconcerned about his and the Dean's reasons for Roark's being expelled from architectural school.You'd be right to wonder where I got that comparison, since Roark could never be accused of being anything but serious.Syncopated irony?Assonance?
You be the judge.Get the SECRET of the McNally collection.
As I relished the final chapters and pages of SECRET, I had a thought about the beauty, warmth, lovely literary melancholy, and subtly complex richness radiating from those concluding textual treasures:
In retrospect, this novel doesn't feel like a planned pilot to a mystery series.It feels to be a singular novel, like but not like, the ones Sanders had written prior to it.What it feels like to me is that Lawrence hit upon a "soul speak" story which couldn't halt the cultural conversation it had initiated, however serendipitous that initiation may have been.
Yes, I do recall that in some of my other reviews ("reveries" according to my Amazon Friend, L.E. Cantrell) I speculated on something which could seem contradictory to the above mentioned "thought."I had wondered if Parker's Senser series might have been somehow a spark for this McNally series.I continued to see references to Boston in this book (as in other McNally's I've reviewed), which, of course, is the city for which Spenser did the Walkabout.So possibly SECRET was somewhat an antithetical homage to Spenser, possibly even a hat "doff" with a friendly, competitive "one-better" attempt, meant only to be a single novel rather than a never-die series.
Based on Agatha Christie's official web site, Miss Marple was not originally intended to be another Poirot, and look what happened there (see my Listmania of the Miss Marple series).
To me, Archy appears to be a gatekeeper for pure and primal, hidden wishes and dreams.Living home comfortably, guiltlessly at 37, on the top floor of his parent's mansion in Palm Beach; eating drool-food from a house chef; having established a club like The Pelican as a side atmosphere to partake in daily; working at a cushy, just challenging enough, engaging career for discreet inquiries ... If an author's (or reader's) going to retire that would be da place (or at least an entertaining option).
It'll be interesting to see if/how I'm able to bridge the gap from Lawrence Sanders's Archy to Vincent Lardo's.I'd love to know how that bridge was built and continues to be maintained.
Though a perfectly acceptable, gorgeous reprint in a mass market paperback was (probably still is) available on Amazon's Super Saver Special, I felt lucky to find a vender on Amazon (a-bookworm2) holding a used G. P. Putnam's Sons hardcover of this novel, a first printing of the 1992 copyright.What an honor it will be to have this version of the pilot of such an auspicious series from such a life-perceptive author, Lawrence Sanders.The glossy-black jacket provides a luscious background for the name and title printed in thick, gleaming, copper ink, with the artwork of an antique magnifying glass and fancy-brass scissors weighing down the million-dollar-valued, 1918 US Stamp of the Inverted Jenny.
This pilot is a rare find in a rare series.
Linda G. Shelnutt
... Read more |
