Book Description
A former human cannonball...a dead woman in a hedge maze...a huge crowd of questionable characters. When the social event of the season turns into a three-ring circus, Archy McNally must jump through hoops to catch a killer.
Customer Reviews:
Where's the Bluff? In Church on Sunday?.......2007-03-13
An angry face of a gorgeous tiger was featured on the book jacket design on the hardcover of McNally's BLUFF (# 13 in this series). At first the symbolism in that design had me puzzled, as I attempted to connect it to the plot. I had wondered why a maze hadn't been used as the graphic symbol... until I contrasted the appealingly brassy red-and-gold colors, and tiger in the bulls-eye on BLUFF's jacket, to the ritzy but somber black-and-gold book jacket of the hardback of McNally's SECRET (the pilot to the series). That cover design comparison gave me a double-bulls-eye "ah ha!" into the slightly different focus of Sanders and Lardo in their offerings in this series.
With McNally's BLUFF, which appears to be the final book in the series, the McNally family's carnival history "secret" is coming full circle...
I didn't want to see that circus circle closing, or stepping fully out of the closet in all its gore and glory. If I saw that too clearly, I might have to accept an underlying significance that # 13 is truly the end of this series. No!
If that is so, however, McNally's BLUFF accomplished that honor of closing this series with amazing grace and literary panache!
In view of this speculation, I needed to read BLUFF on one of my slowest savor speeds. As I did so, I gradually came to love the perfection of the jacket on the hardcover. Actually, the paperback design is appealingly interesting, too, given the above perspective.
When I was more than half-way through the book, I noticed that the most current paperback design was very different; it applied an ebony background with a maze hedge stylized with a target in its center. Possibly due to the brain's need to "connect dots" that center symbol flashed my focus to the target used for Susan Silverman's practice with a fire arm in CRIMSON ROSE, # 15 in Robert B. Parker's Spenser series, which I reviewed recently. For some reason I continue seeing links between Spenser's world and Archy's, and what a stretch that is! I wrote about that brain spark in my review of McNally's SECRET.
Though this may be my last McNally novel to review, I can offset that loss by looking forward to the several Spenser novels I haven't yet read. That thought takes me to my novels; my first thought (actually it felt like a craving) after having finished writing each of them was, "I wish I could read this novel fresh, without having written it."
Thus, it is with added thanks that I have more Spenser novels to experience from that fresh first time of reading. And, that pleasant awareness brings to focus for me the contrast of the author paths involved in the creation and endurance of Spenser and Archy McNally. I believe both situations have brought "amazing" (a prominent word in BLUFF) cultural insights to the history of literature and the mysteries of life.
Which reminds me that while reading BLUFF I was able to conceptualize another of the core differences I've been sensing (on an edge of unconsciousness) between Sanders and Lardo. Lawrence Sander seemed to naturally view life through a philosophical perspective; Vincent Lardo seems to look at human machinations through a sociological lens. Each seasoned author etched those leanings, consciously or not, into their thematic content, plot structure, and designs of Archy's motivations, curiosities, and basic drives through life. Sanders was automatically focused on the meaning of life itself, and how to get the most out of the experience as an individual. Lardo seems to automatically center on the interconnections among human beings, especially as they're separated socially or politically into clusters, cliques, or classes.
I don't know if these two authors fully realized how they were driven by this type of targeted viewpoint, when they were in process with a plot. Probably few of us do. Yet, I believe we're each driven by unique needs to know, by unique curiosities, which we each possess at core, at the center, the target of our essence-of-being, and of moving forward.
In SECRET, Sanders had Archy state that we're all hedonists at heart, though few of us admit it. In essence, through his McNally series, Sanders uses Archy to dramatize that unique, individual desire to know what gives personal pleasure, what gives a sense of satisfaction, why it does so, and how to enhance that need to "suck the marrow out of life."
In BLUFF, Lardo's Archy seems to imply that we (as human beings) tend to compare ourselves to others at higher levels in social class structure, and that we need to belong, to be accepted within the cream of social strata. Yet, at the same time we've been liberally taught to revile luxury, opulence, privilege and class.
These contrasts bring to mind the thematic essence of Ayn Rand's novels, FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED. Are we naturally oriented, as a species, to self or to others; and which is the prime/ethical way of being.
In myself, I have felt the natural needs of both Archies. I am very much an individual, and have released some of the culturally induced taint of feeling evil in having chosen to allow myself to center in a personal focus. Yet, I also crave to connect with and relate to others, fairly, sometimes intimately in friendship (to mutual benefit), and rightly. I'm wondering if this might be why, along with many others, I've been so fascinated with this series, especially given the comparisons and contrasts of the dual authorship.
In an overall balance I'm more of a philosopher/psychologist, than a sociologist, and I know that's one of the reasons I enjoy the Spenser series. To me, Parker seems more like Sanders than Lardo, in his art, yet, like Lardo, Parker works with (and entertains through) sociological issues, too.
Seeing this perspective contrast between the Sanders and Lardo Archies, the fact begins to clarify for me, of the two personas' varied needs to control (or not) others and their environments. If a person's focus is based comfortably in oneself, there's less or no need to control others. Whereas, if one is based in needs for social interaction, and for acceptance and approval from outside oneself, the need to control becomes natural, sometimes vital for emotional (and physical) survival. Though Ayn Rand does so, I do not want to conclude yet that one or the other type of personality structure is ethically right or wrong, morally good or evil. Maybe the correct fact is that we're each naturally different in these types of slants, and in different phases of maturity. I will admit, though, that the less I feel a need to control, the better I like life and myself.
I love a good story, a good mystery, from almost any angle of approach.
In conclusion, I'm compelled to mention an ethereal quality I felt, and quite enjoyed, in parts of this # 6 novel in Vincent Lardo's Archy collection (# 13 in the whole). In certain luxuriously drawn scenes, I could almost sense light pouring holes through the pages, similarly to images which have been portrayed in movies like the Harry Potter series, and The Never Ending Story. In BLUFF, Lardo had honed his author skills so well, he seemed to be literally producing magic in how certain scenes lifted off the pages and danced before, around, and within me. One scene in particular, which was infused with this type of "living light," was of the short yacht excursion to which Archy and Georgy were invited by Carolyn Taylor, and which included her boy toy, Billy, and Connie and Alex.
What amazing gifts we have available in all of the above. Maybe that's the "bluff":
That it's all real and it's all a bluff. Long live the spiritual sanctuary of the novel. It almost, sometimes, seems to qualify as a church.
Linda Shelnutt
Good McNally book.......2006-06-06
I like all the McNally books and this one was good too.
Almost got it..........2006-03-26
Vincent Lardo comes close to Lawrence Sanders, but not as good. The thing that i loved about Sanders was his ability to weave a great story and Archy's life together. Lardo doesn't do it quite like Sanders.
All in all a good read, but i'm still mad at Lardo for making Connie and Archy split.
Archy's still tooling around Palm Beach in that Miata.......2005-11-02
After a hiatus of many years, I dipped back into the world of Palm Beach investigator Archy McNally, via "McNally's Bluff", and enjoyed the experience. Now written by Vincent Lardo, this series still feels close enough to the original Lawrence Sanders offerings that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Mr. Lardo was assisting Mr. Sanders from the beginning. In any event, it's all here: the cynical but funny observations about Palm Beach's eccentric denizens, the goofy internal politics at the McNally firm, the on-again/off-again romance (mostly "off" this time) between Archy and Connie, etc., etc. The mystery story is pretty good this time out, too, involving displaced "carny folk" and a big hedge maze. So, in the end, while I'm not usually a fan of the idea of keeping a mystery series going after the original author has departed this mortal coil, why complain in this case? The Archy McNally stories employ a playful, enjoyable, easily produced formula that the right writer or writers can keep delivering as long as people want to see it. And, besides, this one ends with a funny but still kind of serious cliffhanger involving Connie, so there's another reason to pick up the next one!
A Good Read!.......2005-09-27
Vincent Lardo continues to write "in the style of" Lawrence Sanders who create the Archy McNally series. Archy McNally is a Palm Beach private investigator who works out of his wealthy father's law offices.
Archy and the Palm Beach A list are invited to the opening of La Maze. Newcomers to the Palm Beach scene, Matthew Hayes, former carnival cannon ball, and his wife Marlena Marvel, are throwing a party to get in with the "right crowd." Hayes has recreated an English maze at his mansion and the party goers pair off to find their way to the center. But the contest begins only after Marlena recreates her famous impression of Venus DeMilo. But alas, most of the contestants grew increasingly frustrated and not only couldn't find the maze center, they couldn't get out.
Following the maze game, fabulous buffet tables awaited the guests. But the hostess couldn't be found. And then the search was on again -- and didn't end until she was found dead, at the center of the maze.
How could she get there past all the contestants? Who killed her? When? Why? Matthew hired Archy on the spot to find answers. But as he digs in, there are only more questions. Then the most promising suspects, those with the best apparent motives, begin to die, and good leads turn to dead ends.
The characters are believable and include those you'll love to love -- and those you'll love to hate. One caution, if you really care, be prepared to take notes and create diagrams to try to keep up with who is sleeping with who -- and who slept with who, but isn't any more.
Armchair Interviews says: Readers who like fast-paced easy reads will enjoy McNally's Bluff. There are plenty of clues, but many of the suspicions the reader will share with Archy will turn out to be unfounded and red herrings.
Book Description
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, Marlena Marvel, in the role of Venus, is discovered at the center of the maze, very dead indeed. Is the gruff but grieving widower somehow involved in his wife's demise? Or are there other forces-and more devious minds-at work? Hayes's carnival background and flair for the dramatic only complicate 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.
Customer Reviews:
Where's the Bluff? In Church on Sunday?.......2007-03-16
An ethereal quality which I quite enjoyed bled through into parts of this # 6 novel in Vincent Lardo's Archy collection (# 13 in the whole series). In certain luxuriously drawn scenes, I could almost sense light pouring holes through the pages, similarly to images which have been portrayed in movies like the Harry Potter series, and The Never Ending Story. In McNally's BLUFF, Lardo had honed his author skills so well, he seemed to be literally producing magic in how certain scenes lifted off the pages and danced before, around, and within me. One scene in particular, which was infused with this type of "living light," was of the short yacht excursion to which Archy and Georgy were invited by Carolyn Taylor, and which included her boy toy, Billy, and Connie and Alex.
While reading BLUFF I was able to conceptualize another of the core differences I've been sensing (on an edge of unconsciousness) between Sanders and Lardo. Lawrence Sander seemed to naturally view life through a philosophical perspective; Vincent Lardo seems to look at human machinations through a sociological lens. Each seasoned author etched those leanings, consciously or not, into their thematic content, plot structure, and designs of Archy's motivations, curiosities, and basic drives through life. Sanders was automatically focused on the meaning of life itself, and how to get the most out of the experience as an individual. Lardo seems to automatically center on the interconnections among human beings, especially as they're separated socially or politically into clusters, cliques, or classes.
I don't know if these two authors fully realized how they were driven by this type of targeted viewpoint, when they were in process with a plot. Probably few of us do. Yet, I believe we're each driven by unique needs to know, by unique curiosities, which we each possess at core, at the center, the target of our essence-of-being, and of moving forward.
In SECRET, Sanders had Archy state that we're all hedonists at heart, though few of us admit it. In essence, through his McNally series, Sanders uses Archy to dramatize that unique, individual desire to know what gives personal pleasure, what gives a sense of satisfaction, why it does so, and how to enhance that need to "suck the marrow out of life."
In BLUFF, Lardo's Archy seems to imply that we (as human beings) tend to compare ourselves to others at higher levels in social class structure, and that we need to belong, to be accepted within the cream of social strata. Yet, at the same time we've been liberally taught to revile luxury, opulence, privilege and class.
These contrasts bring to mind the thematic essence of Ayn Rand's novels, FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED. Are we naturally oriented, as a species, to self or to others; and which is the prime/ethical way of being.
In myself, I have felt the natural needs of both Archies. I am very much an individual, and have released some of the culturally induced taint of feeling evil in having chosen to allow myself to center in a personal focus. Yet, I also crave to connect with and relate to others, fairly, sometimes intimately in friendship (to mutual benefit), and rightly. I'm wondering if this might be why, along with many others, I've been so fascinated with this series, especially given the comparisons and contrasts of the dual authorship.
In an overall balance I'm more of a philosopher/psychologist, than a sociologist, and I know that's one of the reasons I enjoy the Spenser series. To me, Parker seems more like Sanders than Lardo, in his art, yet, like Lardo, Parker works with (and entertains through) sociological issues, too.
Seeing this perspective contrast between the Sanders and Lardo Archies, the fact begins to clarify for me, of the two personas' varied needs to control (or not) others and their environments. If a person's focus is based comfortably in oneself, there's less or no need to control others. Whereas, if one is based in needs for social interaction, and for acceptance and approval from outside oneself, the need to control becomes natural, sometimes vital for emotional (and physical) survival. Though Ayn Rand does so, I do not want to conclude yet that one or the other type of personality structure is ethically right or wrong, morally good or evil. Maybe the correct fact is that we're each naturally different in these types of slants, and in different phases of maturity. I will admit, though, that the less I feel a need to control, the better I like life and myself.
An angry face of a gorgeous tiger was featured on the book jacket design on the hardcover of McNally's BLUFF (# 13 in this series). At first the symbolism in that design had me puzzled, as I attempted to connect it to the plot. I had wondered why a maze hadn't been used as the graphic symbol... until I contrasted the appealingly brassy red-and-gold colors, and tiger in the bulls-eye on BLUFF's jacket, to the ritzy but somber black-and-gold book jacket on the hardback of McNally's SECRET (the pilot to the series). That cover design comparison gave me a double-bulls-eye "ah ha!" into the slightly different focus of Sanders and Lardo in their offerings in this series.
With McNally's BLUFF, which appears to be the final book in the series, the McNally family's carnival history "secret" is coming full circle...
I didn't want to see that circus circle closing, or stepping fully out of the closet in all its gore and glory. If I saw that too clearly, I might have to accept an underlying significance that # 13 is truly the end of this series. No!
If that is so, however, McNally's BLUFF accomplished that honor of closing this series with amazing grace and literary panache!
In view of this speculation, I needed to read BLUFF on one of my slowest savor speeds. As I did so, I gradually came to love the perfection of that jacket on the hardcover. Actually, the paperback design is appealingly interesting, too, given the above perspective.
When I was more than half-way through the book, I noticed that the most current paperback design was very different; it applied an ebony background with a maze hedge stylized with a target in its center. Possibly due to the brain's need to "connect dots" that center symbol flashed my focus to the target used for Susan Silverman's practice with a fire arm in CRIMSON ROSE, # 15 in Robert B. Parker's Spenser series, which I reviewed recently. For some reason I continue seeing links between Spenser's world and Archy's, and what a stretch that is! I wrote about that brain spark in my review of McNally's SECRET.
McNally's Secret
Crimson Joy
The Godwulf Manuscript
Though this may be my last McNally novel to review, I can offset that loss by looking forward to the several Spenser novels I haven't yet read. That thought takes me to my novels; my first thought (actually it felt like a craving) after having finished writing each of them was, "I wish I could read this novel fresh, without having written it."
Thus, it is with added thanks that I have more Spenser novels to experience from that fresh first time of reading. And, that pleasant awareness brings to focus for me the contrast of the author paths involved in the creation and endurance of Spenser and Archy McNally. I believe both situations have brought "amazing" (a prominent word in BLUFF) cultural insights to the history of literature and the mysteries of life.
I love a good story, a good mystery, from almost any angle of approach.
What amazing gifts we have available in all of the above. Maybe that's the "bluff":
That it's all real and it's all a bluff. Long live the spiritual sanctuary of the novel. It almost, sometimes, seems to qualify as a church.
Linda Shelnutt
The normal spark wasn't there this time..........2004-10-22
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...
Very weak outing -- has Archy run his course ??.......2004-10-20
We've enjoyed the entire Archy McNally series, including the seven by Sanders and the now six by Vincent Pardo writing for the estate. However, we have to agree with those feeling this is the lightest of the light. Most of these books have us hobnobbing with the rich (if not famous) in Palm Beach and the various happenings, sometimes including murder, that cause them to seek McNally's "discrete" private eye services. While solving a mystery that is usually not too violent and not too enigmatic, we get steady doses of Archy's love life, his lavish wardrobe, his gossip sessions at the family manse, his sparring with his father's secretary and the mailroom attendant (Binky) at work, and his sumptuous meals at the Pelican Club and other hangouts.
All of these elements resurface in "Bluff"; but the underlying mystery is so light, and its conclusion so direct, that the book seems little more than an assembly of past storylines and character interactions. While using now rich ex-carny entertainers as the principals wasn't a bad idea, the plot, centering on the murdered "Venus", Marlena Marvel, found in a literal maze of bushes, otherwise just generated little or no suspense to carry off the 300-page hunt for a close-at-hand killer.
Sometimes these continuing series novels run out of steam, especially after a dozen or so entries. We'd hope for a much better effort next outing, or else we'd recommend early retirement for our pal Archy.
Archy Is Conned!.......2004-10-13
Another nouveau riche has arrived in Palm Beach and wants to make a social splash. The only thing that's different is that this nouveau riche has a more scandalous background than usual. Archy finds himself invited to the opening of an amazing maze in the back yard of an Ocean Boulevard mansion. It's quite a show . . . which ends in the mysterious death of the host's wife. Before the police can even begin their investigation, the host has hired Archy to help him find the murderer. Archy dislikes his host, but agrees to take on the task in order to be sure that something bad happens to the host.
The story is notable for Binky developing some backbone . . . much to Archy's annoyance.
The mystery's solution is a clever variation on the old locked room problem. I enjoyed the twist at the end, which I did not expect. I had come up with another solution that was dismissed by the author. That's all right. I liked Mr. Lardo's solution better.
I would have graded the book a little higher but the dialogue and action were a little more vapid than is my taste. This book could have been edited down into a much stronger book. Have publishers started paying by the word again? I wonder.
If you have liked the other Vincent Lardo books based on Lawrence Sanders's character, Archy McNally, you will probably find this to be an average or slightly below average offering.
Lardo is faltering.......2004-09-27
I enjoyed the original McNally books by Lawrence Sanders and have generally enjoyed the follow-up books by Vince Lardo. From the beginning, this series has been lightweight stuff, suitable for a pleasant quick read and easy to forget. I found "McNally's Bluff" the lightest of the series so far. Archie McNally is back as Palm Beach PI to the rich and famous. Still ensconced in a tiny office in his father's law firm, Archie is the man about town always surrounded by some beautiful woman or two. His long-time squeeze, Consuela, has taken up with a dashing Cuban expatriate. Archie's newest love, Georgie, is a Florida state trooper who played a more prominent role in the previous novel.
The plot this time revolves around Matthew Hayes, a former carnival operator and his sidekick and wife, Marlena Marvel. Ms Marvel is quickly disposed of at the opening gala to celebrate the new arrivals to Palm Beach and their amazing maze. How her body came to be in the center of the maze moments after the guests have been taipsing through it, and who killed her, is the puzzle Archie is hired to solve by Matthew Hayes. Although suspicion is cast on several characters, the villain is fairly clear from the start.
The McNally novels have been fluffy from the start. This one is the fluffiest of the lot.
Customer Reviews:
Where's the Bluff? In Church on Sunday?.......2007-03-17
An ethereal quality which I quite enjoyed bled through into parts of this # 6 novel in Vincent Lardo's Archy collection (# 13 in the whole series). In certain luxuriously drawn scenes, I could almost sense light pouring holes through the pages, similarly to images which have been portrayed in movies like the Harry Potter series, and The Never Ending Story. In McNally's BLUFF, Lardo had honed his author skills so well, he seemed to be literally producing magic in how certain scenes lifted off the pages and danced before, around, and within me. One scene in particular, which was infused with this type of "living light," was of the short yacht excursion to which Archy and Georgy were invited by Carolyn Taylor, and which included her boy toy, Billy, and Connie and Alex.
While reading BLUFF I was able to conceptualize another of the core differences I've been sensing (on an edge of unconsciousness) between Sanders and Lardo. Lawrence Sander seemed to naturally view life through a philosophical perspective; Vincent Lardo seems to look at human machinations through a sociological lens. Each seasoned author etched those leanings, consciously or not, into their thematic content, plot structure, and designs of Archy's motivations, curiosities, and basic drives through life. Sanders was automatically focused on the meaning of life itself, and how to get the most out of the experience as an individual. Lardo seems to automatically center on the interconnections among human beings, especially as they're separated socially or politically into clusters, cliques, or classes.
I don't know if these two authors fully realized how they were driven by this type of targeted viewpoint, when they were in process with a plot. Probably few of us do. Yet, I believe we're each driven by unique needs to know, by unique curiosities, which we each possess at core, at the center, the target of our essence-of-being, and of moving forward.
In SECRET, Sanders had Archy state that we're all hedonists at heart, though few of us admit it. In essence, through his McNally series, Sanders uses Archy to dramatize that unique, individual desire to know what gives personal pleasure, what gives a sense of satisfaction, why it does so, and how to enhance that need to "suck the marrow out of life."
In BLUFF, Lardo's Archy seems to imply that we (as human beings) tend to compare ourselves to others at higher levels in social class structure, and that we need to belong, to be accepted within the cream of social strata. Yet, at the same time we've been liberally taught to revile luxury, opulence, privilege and class.
These contrasts bring to mind the thematic essence of Ayn Rand's novels, FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED. Are we naturally oriented, as a species, to self or to others; and which is the prime/ethical way of being.
In myself, I have felt the natural needs of both Archies. I am very much an individual, and have released some of the culturally induced taint of feeling evil in having chosen to allow myself to center in a personal focus. Yet, I also crave to connect with and relate to others, fairly, sometimes intimately in friendship (to mutual benefit), and rightly. I'm wondering if this might be why, along with many others, I've been so fascinated with this series, especially given the comparisons and contrasts of the dual authorship.
In an overall balance I'm more of a philosopher/psychologist, than a sociologist, and I know that's one of the reasons I enjoy the Spenser series. To me, Parker seems more like Sanders than Lardo, in his art, yet, like Lardo, Parker works with (and entertains through) sociological issues, too.
Seeing this perspective contrast between the Sanders and Lardo Archies, the fact begins to clarify for me, of the two personas' varied needs to control (or not) others and their environments. If a person's focus is based comfortably in oneself, there's less or no need to control others. Whereas, if one is based in needs for social interaction, and for acceptance and approval from outside oneself, the need to control becomes natural, sometimes vital for emotional (and physical) survival. Though Ayn Rand does so, I do not want to conclude yet that one or the other type of personality structure is ethically right or wrong, morally good or evil. Maybe the correct fact is that we're each naturally different in these types of slants, and in different phases of maturity. I will admit, though, that the less I feel a need to control, the better I like life and myself.
An angry face of a gorgeous tiger was featured on the book jacket design on the hardcover of McNally's BLUFF (# 13 in this series). At first the symbolism in that design had me puzzled, as I attempted to connect it to the plot. I had wondered why a maze hadn't been used as the graphic symbol... until I contrasted the appealingly brassy red-and-gold colors, and tiger in the bulls-eye on BLUFF's jacket, to the ritzy but somber black-and-gold book jacket on the hardback of McNally's SECRET (the pilot to the series). That cover design comparison gave me a double-bulls-eye "ah ha!" into the slightly different focus of Sanders and Lardo in their offerings in this series.
With McNally's BLUFF, which appears to be the final book in the series, the McNally family's carnival history "secret" is coming full circle...
I didn't want to see that circus circle closing, or stepping fully out of the closet in all its gore and glory. If I saw that too clearly, I might have to accept an underlying significance that # 13 is truly the end of this series. No!
If that is so, however, McNally's BLUFF accomplished that honor of closing this series with amazing grace and literary panache!
In view of this speculation, I needed to read BLUFF on one of my slowest savor speeds. As I did so, I gradually came to love the perfection of that jacket on the hardcover. Actually, the paperback design is appealingly interesting, too, given the above perspective.
When I was more than half-way through the book, I noticed that the most current paperback design was very different; it applied an ebony background with a maze hedge stylized with a target in its center. Possibly due to the brain's need to "connect dots" that center symbol flashed my focus to the target used for Susan Silverman's practice with a fire arm in CRIMSON ROSE, # 15 in Robert B. Parker's Spenser series, which I reviewed recently. For some reason I continue seeing links between Spenser's world and Archy's, and what a stretch that is! I wrote about that brain spark in my review of McNally's SECRET.
Though this may be my last McNally novel to review, I can offset that loss by looking forward to the several Spenser novels I haven't yet read. That thought takes me to my novels; my first thought (actually it felt like a craving) after having finished writing each of them was, "I wish I could read this novel fresh, without having written it."
Thus, it is with added thanks that I have more Spenser novels to experience from that fresh first time of reading. And, that pleasant awareness brings to focus for me the contrast of the author paths involved in the creation and endurance of Spenser and Archy McNally. I believe both situations have brought "amazing" (a prominent word in BLUFF) cultural insights to the history of literature and the mysteries of life.
I love a good story, a good mystery, from almost any angle of approach.
What amazing gifts we have available in all of the above. Maybe that's the "bluff":
That it's all real and it's all a bluff. Long live the spiritual sanctuary of the novel. It almost, sometimes, seems to qualify as a church.
Linda Shelnutt
Average customer rating:
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Archy McNally Series: McNally's Secret, Luck, Risk, Caper, Trial, Puzzle, Gamble, Dilemma, Folly, Chance, Alibi, Dare, Bluff (Set of 13)
Lawrence Sanders , and
Vincent Lardo
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000MSXOJE |
Average customer rating:
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Lawrence Sanders McNally's Bluff: An Archy Mcnally Novel
Vincent Lardo
Manufacturer: Wheeler Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1587247224 |
Book Description
A New York Times Bestselling Author
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 for a hedge maze modeled after the one at Hampton Court, the smart set can't wait for the gala opening. But when the big night arrives, Hayes's ladylove, in the role of Venus, is discovered at the center of the maze - very dead indeed.
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Rand Mcnally Omaha/Council Bluffs, Nebraska/Iowa
Manufacturer: Rand McNally & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Map
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ASIN: 0528868845 |
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Good map.......2002-07-01
It shows all of the major highways and interstates and is very easy to read.
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Redding/Red Bluff/Shasta & Tehama Counties, California
Rand McNally
Manufacturer: Rand McNally & Company
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ASIN: 0528956051 |
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Archy McNally Series: McNally's Secret, Luck, Risk, Caper, Trial, Puzzle, Gamble, Dilemma, Folly, Chance, Alibi, Dare, Bluff (Set of 13)
Lawrence Sanders
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000MT1IN2 |
Books:
- Lost and Found
- Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy
- McNally's Secret (Archy McNally Novels)
- Murder at Monticello (Mrs. Murphy Mysteries)
- Portrait Of A Killer: Jack The Ripper -- Case Closed (Berkley True Crime)
- Prisoner's Base
- Psychotherapy & Spirituality: Crossing the Line between Therapy and Religion (Perspectives on Psychotherapy series)
- Rise and Walk
- Roadwork
- Serpent Mage (The Death Gate Cycle, Vol 4)
Books Index
Books Home
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- The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
- The Omelette Book
- Old World Kitchens and Bathrooms: A Design Guide
- Light, Wind and Structure: The Mystery of the Master Builders
- Pitcher Plants: The Elegant Insect Traps
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McNally's Dilemma: (Archy McNally Novels)
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