McNally's Trial by Lawrence Sanders
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"I won't label [her] as Rubenesque, but she was abundant and all the more stirring for it. Her body was vital, overwhelming. I hung on for dear life and, in addition to my pleasure, had the added delight of being a survivor."

Having just finished Inside Mr. Enderby a rather dark and serious novel I decided it was time for some mindless entertainment and a pure leisure read. Lawrence Sanders comes to rescue and the always dependable Archy McNally, of McNally & Son, a debonair, gourmet, dapper, and a very manly private investigator responsible for conducting discreet inquiries in his fathers law firm. We are reminded that Archy is not a lawyer himself as he had been expelled from Yale Law for streaking naked across the Philharmonic stage in a Richard Nixon's mask: can one not love such a character?

The firm's client is Ms. Fogarty, a high-level employee of a funeral-home chain (Mr. Sanders allows himself to chide the euphemism 'grief counselor', thank you!), who has noticed an unusual uptick in the company's business in recent months, and wants to make sure nothing illegal is going on. Obviously, Archy is the one to conduct his trademark discreet inquiries, alas this time he is burdened by having an apprentice helper: his acquaintance Binky Watrous needs a job. The case quickly grows to involve some serious crimes and really bad people; even special agents of the FBI make their entrance. Of course, it is Archy who figures everything out but not soon enough: quite serious things happen, serious enough not to fit the light-hearted mood of this story.

Archy in his role as the narrator is again using florid language full of cute periphrases, which to me is perhaps the best feature of McNally's novels. The language is artificial yet somehow, magically, it does not sound artificial. The prose is perfectly suited to depiction of sex scenes. The descriptions do not use physiological terms, do not rely on heavy metaphors, and do not sound awkward and embarrassing as most of such writings do in non-top-shelf literature. They are simply funny:

"Zing! Went the Strings of My Libido."

or further on the same page:

"She owned a body as solid as the figurehead of a Yankee clipper [...] but there was not an ounce of excess avoirdupois on her carcass. Believe me; I searched."

On the negative side, I like this installment the least of the three I have read so far (two others being McNally's Risk and McNally's Luck ) Binky Watrous, a dweeb and an expert in imitating birdcalls, is not an interesting character at all. Not worth all that focus. In fact, most characters are caricatures, including the FBI special agent Kling, except for two strong female characters, Ms. Fogarty, and Mrs. Sarah Whitcomb, the funeral-home owner's wife. I also liked the mention of Boleslaw the Bashful, the king of Poland (1243 - 1279). Overall, not too bad as pure entertainment.

Three stars.


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