Arch McNally Series by Lawrence Sanders
Arch McNally #5
McNally's Trial
Lawrence Sanders
Teaming up with a new sidekick, Binky, for an investigation into the affluent Palm Beach circuit, playboy-turned-sleuth Archy McNally checks out a suspicious rise in business at the posh Whitcomb funeral homes. Reprint.From Publishers WeeklySuggesting a morally bankrupt, sun-tanned Bertie Wooster, Archy McNally sleuths among Florida's well-heeled Palm Beach set in this lightweight crime series from the author of the Deadly Sins and Commandments thrillers. Archy, an occasional investigator for his stuffy lawyer father, here agrees to look into the sudden "uptick" in business that is worrying a pretty exec at the exclusive Whitcomb Funeral Homes. Too many people are dying, observes the woman, and being shipped up north in coffins. In between boozing, lying to his girlfriend and delivering sub-Wodehouse patter that lacks both wit and an anchoring value system, Archy and his gormless pal Binky Watrous investigate the likable old couple who own the funeral homes and their son and his wife, whose swinging lifestyle makes Archy's look tame. The trick of insinuating character eludes Sanders, who, if a woman dissembles or a doctor is stoned to the gills, hits us over the head with the facts. While an occasional few of Archy's quips are funny, Sanders's dialogue is mostly as stiff as the story's corpses. Literary Guild selection. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalAffluent private investigator Archie McNally cracks yet another case in this newest addition to the author's best-selling series.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Arch McNally #7
McNally's Gamble
Lawrence Sanders
When wealthy widow Edythe Westmore plans to buy a Faberge+a7 egg, playboy detective Archy McNally is asked by her children to investigate and finds himself caught in a whirlpool of family intrigue, greed, passion, and murder. Read by Boyd Gaines. Amazon.com ReviewArchy McNally, the hero of Lawrence Sander's latest whodunit McNally's Gamble is a throwback to an earlier, more gracious age. He lives well, dresses well, and keeps hours that Dashiell Hammet's "Thin Man," Nick Charles, would approve of. When not wining, dining, or driving his fire-engine red Miata around Palm Beach, Archy keeps discreet tabs on the wealthy clients of his father's law firm. Then one day, Edythe Westmore, a well-to-do widow, considers buying a Fabergé Imperial Egg and all hell breaks loose. Her children are displeased, her lawyer (Archy's father) is concerned, and Archy is up to his neck in intrigue. Sanders writes a serviceable mystery, but the real pleasure in McNally's Gamble is Archy. Imagine Bertie Wooster as a detective, or Lord Peter Wimsey a Floridian, and you'll have some idea of Archy. Though he describes himself as "a frivolous scatterbrain," he has enough discipline to solve the case and, by the end, land the girl, as well. From Library JournalSanders's venerable creation, playboy sleuth Archy McNally, finds yet more greed, envy, and murder among Florida's rich and famous-and all because of the Faberge Imperial egg that, much to her children's consternation, the widowed Edythe Westmore would like to buy.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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