Mc Nally's Puzzle by Lawrence Sanders
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"We all have our wonts, do we not, and one of mine is to dither when faced with a difficult decision. I was tempted to delay a confrontation with Peter Gottschalk to another day. [...] But that I realized was an ignoble snivel and so, as the Reverend Spooner might say, I lirded my groins and phoned the Gottschalk residence."

I love reading this kind of prose, ornate, flowery, full of circumlocutions, puns, and even clever spoonerisms. But boohoo! McNally's Puzzle (1996) is the last Archy McNally novel written by the original author, signed as Mr. Lawrence Sanders. (One cannot be sure about the authorship: the seven McNally novels are so much better than most other works by the author who used Lawrence Sanders' name that it is hard to imagine they were all written by the same person.) Mr. Vincent Lardo continued the series after Mr. Sanders' death, and one day I will find courage to try one of the "posthumous" novels.

In this installment we meet the intrepid and suave Archy as he retrieves - 'steals back' would be a more proper term - a valuable baseball card from an ex-wife of McNally law firm's client. I need to add that - true to Archy's common modus operandi - the retrieval is achieved after seducing the thief and consummating a short affair with her. Yet this is only a teaser and Archy's distinguished father, the head of the firm, gives Archy - who's in charge of 'discreet inquiries' - a new job. Another client of the firm, Mr. Gottschalk, requests precisely such a discreet inquiry as he fears someone has been trying to kill him.

The beginning pages are wonderful to read:

"I occasionally suffer an attack of the guilts and have found the best cure is a good night's sleep, when a mambo with Morpheus dilutes crass behavior to impish mischief."

Alas, quite early in the story "the King of Duncedom", Binky Watrous, makes his entrance into the plot, which made me groan 'Ugh.' To me, Binky's presence in a story significantly reduces its readability. Oh well... The cliché persona of Binky is almost balanced by the presence of parrots and by the author's attention to all "matters psittacine," (check it out in a dictionary!)

Ornate prose rules until the end of the story - who cares about the plot and denouement when one can read:

"I donned a new pongee robe embroidered with Chinese characters. I had been told by the merchant the calligraphy could be translated as: 'May you have a happy life.' But I suspected it meant, 'Suffer, you miserable schlub,' or some other invidious imprecation."

Marginal recommendation, only for the prose.

Two-and-a-half stars.

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