(Type over? Comb over?)īless both you guys! May your $$$ roll over well. I feel I owe both Sanders and Lardo an amount of thanks which may not be possible to give, but this pair of authors has as much of my respect and appreciation as I'm able to hand over. I can't recall if Vince gave that line (it was used early in the plot) to Connie in DILEMMA or in FOLLY, but it struck me as how Lardo might have felt at times, regarding the takeover of this series.
It wasn't easy to set down the book and the comfort which came with it, especially after reading the last page. The obvious amount of attentiveness Lardo has put into this task was beyond impressive it was touching.
#Books like archy mcnally series
It's evident to me that Vincent Lardo did not take over this series with plans to go his own way with it as soon as possible, merely doing surface justice to it at the outset of his first plot. It was clear from continued (though not overdone) references to the original 7 novels that Lardo had extended his study of those, which speaks well for Lardo's character and dedication to Sanders and his fan base. Not in spite of, but DUE TO all the above, I enjoyed not only the interesting second plot and characterization by Lardo in FOLLY I enjoyed wondering how Vincent was able to get so close this time to the original Archy mystique.
I don't know if that was because Lardo hadn't picked up yet on the precise way Sanders toyed with the English language, or if Lardo's Archy and plot were developed with such intense intrigue and macho charisma that I wouldn't have been able to pause the reading pace long enough to notice words pointing to Webster. While reading DILEMMA, I rarely gave thought to Webser. The FOLLY Archy had lost the DILEMMA Archy's macho reek which seethed a palpable attraction to women, an attraction which, for Sanders' Archy, seemed slightly staged, though delightfully so.Īs noted, a collection of "A" words were used well in this plot, words you may be compelled to look up in the dictionary, as I did. He had lost the late-morning beard-shadow of the Archy in DILEMMA, and regained the lithe ballerina inside. He had the right colors, the daily routines, the manner of speaking (with a collection of dictionary-pick-up words beginning with the letter "A"), the style, the attitudes, dialogue, and relationships. Did Lardo somehow establish a clearer "channel" to Sanders? Did Vincent find a real-life seance psychic (who may or may not have been authentic)?Įven with this return of the old Archy, I noticed a very, very tiny "something" missing in FOLLY, but it wasn't anything I could identify. The Archy in FOLLY was precisely the same laid-back character as the Archy in the Sanders offerings (1-7). In my review of DILEMMA I discussed the maleness factor of that Archy as opposed to Sanders' more sensitive, artistic, leisurely guy. It was interesting to me that this # 9 focused on seances, and determining the validity of a psychic, Serge Ouspenskaya, communicating with spirits of the deceased.Īs noted, a fascination I felt reading FOLLY was that this version of Archy was different from the character Lardo presented in DILEMMA. McNally's FOLLY was # 9 in this series conceived by Lawrence Sanders, the second one in Vincent Lardo's continuation (McNally's DILEMMA was Lardo's opening salvo on Archy). (That is an overall observation the scent of Archy-2 did attempt to whiff out in a few places, but Lardo reigned it in quickly.) Ironically, in FOLLY, Archy was "playing" Director of a stage play of "Arsenic and Old Lace" (of course), by Palm Beach's Community Players, but he had returned to his natural way of "flowing with" rather than controlling. One of the contrasts I noticed in DILEMMA between Archy-by-Sanders-Vs.-Archy-by-Lardo was that Lardo's Archy-2 (not in character with Archy-1's finesse) seemed to direct and control the plot and everyone in it. Maybe that "easing" was caused by Archy's return I don't know what happened to the Archy-2, beard-shadow-guy described in my recent review of DILEMMA. The story, setting, and characters enveloped the reader, soothing away toil and trauma. The best word I can come up with for this novel is not cozy but comfortable, like the softest easy chair conjure-able.
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