McNally’s Caper

Berkley, 1995

Suspense/Comedy

 

read: August 2004

With all the reading I do and all the cheap pulp fiction I purchase in used bookstores I cannot believe that I have never read a Lawrence Sanders novel, let alone a story staring McNally.  On the other hand, I did not like this book a whole lot.  The writing is (purposively) flippant and quirky and the antagonists are all essentially superheroes. McNally is annoyingly successful in life (and more so in love) and while I appreciated his moral ambiguity, I could not help but feel it was simply fantasy fulfillment on Lawrence’s part.  In this book McNally, who solves crimes for the successful family law business, must deal with missing objects (like a first edition Poe) from the home of a wealthy client.  The client is then murdered and McNally, of course, must deal with that.  I would not recommend this book but I would be willing to give Mr. Sanders (and possibly McNally) another chance.