McNally's Risk by Lawrence Sanders
This book was mind-numbing. My mother gave me the first 5 of them and I have yet to figure out why. Maybe she just didn't want them anymore. I am not a hundred-percent sure my mother has ever read them, actually. She would have hated them too.
I don't care much for books that feature a wealthy playboy as the main character. Archy McNally is in his thirties. He still lives at home with his mommy and daddy in the sunny state of Florida on their palatial estate. He drives a red Mazda Miata, when it was still a new, hot car and talks about his clothes like he's auditioning to the on the new Real World. I don't care that he's wearing a white Izod shirt with tan Ralph Lauren khakis and Cole Haan leather loafers spit-shined by small Mexican children for a quarter at the private yacht club he often frequents for lunches with his many beautiful lady friends.
But I guess they qualify as a mystery novel. There's some mystery in it, yes, but there is also a lot of self-congratulation. "I am awesome. I wear Izod and drive a convertible and live in Florida and often eat lobster for lunch. How was your day?" type stuff. I flew through this book, honestly. The story didn't engage me. I didn't want to hear about Archy's many indiscretions with women who WEREN'T his girlfriend and the flimsy plot-line that tried to hold everything together was overshadowed by the unnecessarily pithy narrations by the protagonist. It felt like being stuck in front of a bad two-way mirror into a frat-house that I never wanted to be in on.
I did not enjoy this book. There are two more sitting on my bookshelf that I will probably force my way through within the next month or two, just so I can get rid of them, but I do not recommend them. Unless you like misogyny, or gratuitous descriptions of clothing and daily routines, in which case, read American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. It is much much better.
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