Timothy's Game by Lawrence Sanders
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"Streets of the financial district are crowded; everyone scurries, the pursuit of the Great Simoleon continuing with vigor and determination."

Another purely recreational (a euphemism for 'silly') read. Although I found the previous installment of Lawrence Sanders' Timothy series (The Timothy Files ) disappointing, devoid of the charm of the McNally series, the down-to-earth Timothy will have to do while I am waiting for copies of the last two installments of debonair Archy's adventures.

Timothy's Game (1988) is again a set of three novellas written in the third-person narration about professional adventures of one Timothy Cone, an investigator for the 'financial intelligence' company, Haldering & Co. In my view, the first story is by far the best, mostly because it transcends the clichés of the other two novellas. The main character of Run, Sally, Run! is Sally Steiner, the daughter of the owner of Steiner Waste Control Company. Sally is also the chief accountant, the vice-president, the office manager, and truck dispatcher for the company. When the "bentnoses" who control the entire New York territory increase the "tax" that the Steiners have to pay for the right to collect garbage, Sally decides to take things into her own hands. The plot is interesting, the action is fast, and Sally reads a bit more than a caricature of a character. Nice ending too. The reader will also find occasional glimpses of the McNally Sanders' prose:

"He is clad in a three-piece, dove gray flannel suit of such surpassing softness that it could have been woven from the webs of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant spiders."

The second novella begins with the Chairman and CEO of a large company getting assassinated in his limousine. The acting CEO specifically requests that Mr. Cone conducts the investigation, thanks to his reputation of doggedness and unconventional methods. Alas, the plot is so bland that having read the book just a few days ago I completely forgot what it was about. I just remember the clever word play on the title, A Case of the Shorts.

In the third novella, One from Column A, Timothy Cone is hired by Mr. Lee, the elderly CEO of a corporation that processes and markets a variety of Chinese foods. Mr. Lee wants to find the reasons why the corporation's stock is suddenly trading at higher price and increased volume. Again, I do not remember much of the plot other than a shooting (ugh) and Mr. Cone's cooperation with a cliché of an FBI agent.

The plot is occasionally interrupted by scenes of Timothy Cone's carnal couplings with Samantha Whatley, his supervisor. Alas, the prose is over the top and not in a good way, like in McNally's novels, but overwrought and pretentious:

"Their bodies join in a curve as convoluted as a Möbius strip. [...] Curses are muffled, oaths gritted, and when they finally come to a sweated juncture, each believes it a selfish victory and is beamy and content."

I also take exception to the overabundance of periphrases. It is jarring when one has to repeatedly read about "Wall Street dick" instead of Timothy Cone, "city bull" instead of detective Davenport, and "the oldster" or "the septuagenarian" instead of Mr. Lee. All this does not help allay the suspicion that Lawrence Sanders who writes the good prose of the McNally's series is a different person.

Two-and-a-quarter stars.


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