McNally's Bluff [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Vincent Lardo (Author), Boyd Gaines (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 26, 2004

Secrets, surprises, and at least one dead body come out of the closet in the Palm Beach P.I.'s most twisted case yet.

When self-styled impresario and former human cannonball Matthew Hayes rents a luxury villa on Palm Beach's famed South Ocean Boulevard, the locals roll their eyes. But when he scuttles the traditional backyard accoutrements of swimming pool and tennis court in favor of a grand garden hedge maze modeled after the one at Hampton Court, the South Florida smart set can't wait for their invitations -- to the gala opening of the Amazin' Maze of Matthew Hayes.

The big night arrives and gasps of wonder and delight are replaced by those of horror, as Hayes's ladylove is discovered at the center of the maze, very dead indeed. The authorities are stumped, as Hayes's carnival background gives rise to a number of possible suspects. Or are there other forces -- and more devious minds -- at work? Hayes's flair for the dramatic only complicates a mystery that has more false leads than his Amazin' Maze. It's up to Archy McNally to see through the scam and catch a killer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This wacky, waggish whodunit is the sixth McNally title under the able authorship of novelist Lardo (The Hampton Affair), who took up the reins from the late Lawrence Sanders with 1999's McNally's Dilemma. When Archy is invited to attend the gala unveiling of an English hedge maze at the Palm Beach home of Amazin' Matthew Hayes—an ex-human cannonball turned carnival impresario (5'4" in heels) married to Marvelous Marlena Marvel, a bosomy sideshow hootchy-cootchy (6'2" in socks)—our hero is flabbergasted to find Marlena dead at the center of the maze. The boorish Hayes hires Archy to investigate his wife's bizarre murder; Archy is also employed by his attorney father, who has recently been consulted by one of the guests at the unveiling about the matter of a contested will. Black-sheep Laddy Taylor is hoping to relieve Carolyn, his 40-something, widowed stepmother, of his father's loot. With a gay gossip columnist, a young bisexual fortune-hunter, a fast-food heiress and her philandering hubby, an ex-caddy turned TV reporter, a husband/wife TV talk show team, and the sexy housemaid heading a list of suspects as colorful as the boutiques along Worth Avenue, snide, irrepressible Archy sets to work unraveling this baffling case. Red herrings proliferate, and legions of adoring McNally faithful will be left shouting, "Bravo! Encore!"
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Sanders originated the Archy McNally novels, and Sanders' publisher and estate have allowed Lardo to continue the series. This new one involves the death of a woman in a garden-hedge maze in a Palm Beach villa. The dead woman's husband, a self-styled impresario and former human cannonball, hires McNally to find his wife's killer. Lardo populates the novel with colorful characters, including Georgia O'Hara, a green-eyed, blond state trooper who is short on the domestic arts and long on sex appeal; her landlady, "an ancient recluse who came of age during the last big conflict and saw a German spy behind every palm tree"; and McNally's father, whose martinis "are as dry as a rain forest in August." What will keep readers engrossed are Lardo's descriptive passages. For example, when McNally enters a bar, "the pianist, in black tie, was tinkling out a Cole Porter melody that, like all Porter tunes, was conducive to ordering an old fashioned while gazing into the eyes of a beautiful woman." As far as the plot is concerned, the question is, Has Archy McNally ever failed to catch the killer? Even if readers know the answer, they will follow the book through to the end. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Abridged edition (July 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743536614
• ISBN-13: 978-0743536615
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 3.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,138,503 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very cute light mystery, August 19, 2004

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: McNally's Bluff (Hardcover)

All of Palm Beach society is gathered at the home of a new arrival--former carnival owner Matthew Hayes. The party, a first look at a huge maze the carney built on his expensive property. But the prize turns out to be something none of the party-goers expected--a dead body at the center of the maze. Private Investigator (and man about town) Archy McNally was at the party and now Matt is asking for Archy's help in finding his wife's killer. Archy resists at first--but the case just might tie into another one that his father has been asked to provide legal services to.

As always, Archy finds himself swimming through a sea of beautiful women. There's his longtime-but-no-longer lover, Consuela. There's new love interest, Georgie. But there's also the beautiful and rich widow of a Florida billionaire--who just might have killed that very billionaire. And Archy can't help being attracted to the T.V. star--despite her being quite married. With his erstwhile sidekick, Binky, off providing services to a muckraking reporter, Archy is on his own in trying to find a killer.

The Vincent Lardo/Lawrence Sanders stories attempt and sometimes achieve a modern remake of the suave private eyes of the 1930s. Archy is always well (if sometimes ostentatiously) dressed, likes his alcohol, treats women like cute puppies, and is fastidious with his grammar. In several earlier stories, I objected to a streak of cruelty in Archy's treatment of Binky and others. Here, Archy seems not less full of himself but at least less cruel to others. His run-in with a several-year-old suit even exposed a bit of well-hidden self-doubt.

Lardo keeps a quick light tone, maintains a steady diet of beautiful women, corpses, high society, and murder, and delivers a page-turning mystery read. It's fluff, of course, but it's enjoyable fluff.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The normal spark wasn't there this time..., October 21, 2004

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: McNally's Bluff (Hardcover)

I finally finished McNally's Bluff by Laurence Sanders and Vincent Lardo. I say *finally* as this one took me about a week when generally it'd be a two day book...

Archy McNally is called to investigate a murder when a party he's attending turns into a crime scene. A carnival owner who has moved into town has a maze built on the property, and during a grand opening party his wife is murdered and found dead in the goal of the maze. It's nearly impossible that she was able to appear earlier as a performer at the party and then be found dead, but that's apparently what happened. There are a number of people who might be connected to the death in some way, but none appear to have a clear-cut motive. When one of these people shows up dead, the plot gets even more complicated. Archy is trying to solve the murder and unravel the mystery before anyone else dies in the process...

Normally I'm a big fan of the McNally series written by Lardo since Sanders passed away. And on the surface, this latest installment has the same witty writing and word play. But something just seems to be missing. Archie and Connie are no longer together, and the relationship between him and Georgia doesn't seem to advance anywhere here. His normal frustration with Binky is not there, as Binky seems to have a mind and life of his own in this book. Even Archie's dad, the head of the law firm, plays an extremely minor role here. The spark that normally propels me along with these books just wasn't there.

Everyone's entitled to an off-day. I just hope this isn't a precursor to the end of an excellent series...

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lardo needs a little more gin and less vermouth, August 30, 2004

By 

Louis E. Bridges "lbridges12" (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: McNally's Bluff (Hardcover)

I have read all of the McNally Novels and believe that Lardo has done an admirable and almost seamless job taking over the series for the late Lawrence Sanders. These books have always been lightweight, but the series appears to be moving from the Sean Connery to Roger Moore phase and becoming entirely self-parody in style. The characters are all there but the dialogue and plot are slighter than ever. From the outset of the crime, the murderer might as well carry a sign saying I did it.