The 47-story Yanggakdo Hotel is located on Yanggak Island, situated in the Taedong River that bisects Pyongyang. The hotel was built in 1995 by a...
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Wealthy bird-store owner Hiram Gottschalk feels his life is in danger. And he's right--as playboy-turned Palm Beach P.I. Archy McNally realizes when his mutilated body is found. Between Gottschalk's shady employees, his paranoin son and heir, and his twisted twin daughters, there's no shortage of pieces to this scandalous puzzle. But for Archy and his sidekick, Binky, the biggest piece is still missing--the killer with a motive to kill two more birds with one stone.
Usually I know why a book keeps me reading. I know exactly what the capture cons are. In the case of McNALLY?s PUZZLE, I kept reading with my own puzzle to saw with a jig. It had something to do with a jazzy writing rhythm and with the tightly focused, First-person-Narrative pushing Archy?s socially elite slang. I found myself wondering where I?d left my dictionary. I didn?t want to lose the frequent opportunities to learn new words.
McNALLY?S PUZZLE was my first taste of this series. I was initially brought to it by readers? complaints about Archy?s obsession with food, and Lawrence?s including every tasty bite in the plot. In fiction I seek stimulation of the senses, though most often my moods prefer to go beyond and before the abundantly available ploys of the shock syndrome, and gregariously graphic sex. What else is there but solitary, tongue-in-teeth tangos with the manna of the gods?
For me, the statement, ?... bites off a big piece of bread,? might work up a hint of saliva. That?s what I usually get in a work of food fiction, when I?m lucky. But, the descriptive luxury of, ?His teeth sink into the delicate texture of a soft, yeasty, French baguette, edged by the crunch of a crusty cover,? could get a stomach growl out of a full balloon.
It?s the rhythm of the syntax, though. It is. And the tight focus on Archy. That?s what kept me reading long enough to get beyond my minimal irritation at the pondering push of the word dance.
Once the rhythm had me going, and going, and picking up the book each time I had the time to read, I began being led by the nose, as well as the tongue, into the mystery developing with the precise timing of a master at a modern dance studio.
Then the pace picked up slightly, plateau-ed, picked up a little more, and so on, to a perfect conclusion. That?s all I?ll say about that, not wanting to sing the secrets, or sling them around.
Sanders exposed true writer?s confidence in the pacing pauses of Archy?s daily routines in this novel and especially in the succinct, crisp style of the picked up dance of denouement. I laughed out loud in cheering glee a few times during the final ten pages. Archy?s father?s heated question to a brouhaha which brought him out of his night sanctuary was classic, heart-healing humor.
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Product details
352 pages
Berkley Publishing Group -
English9780425157466
Reviews:
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Wealthy bird-store owner Hiram Gottschalk feels his life is in danger. And he's right--as playboy-turned Palm Beach P.I. Archy McNally realizes when his mutilated body is found. Between Gottschalk's shady employees, his paranoin son and heir, and his twisted twin daughters, there's no shortage of pieces to this scandalous puzzle. But for Archy and his sidekick, Binky, the biggest piece is still missing--the killer with a motive to kill two more birds with one stone.
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