Parnell Hall (1944–2020)

Liked this a lot in spite of it being pretty far from my usual sci-fi sweet spot. I picked it up off the new mystery shelf at the library (next to the new sci-fi) because it had “puzzles” in the title. Then got sucked in with sudoku in the first chapter and the overall premise of an old lady with a puzzle column in the newspaper who also happens to be the first person the police chief calls when he doesn’t know where to start with a murder mystery. I told myself I was reading to the show more end mostly to see if the puzzles themselves actually tied into the murder (only a bit, really, and not in a clever way), but if I’m honest I definitely was mostly reading because the old “puzzle lady” is written with a lot of wit and charm. (And it was a very fast read.)

Anyway, I enjoyed this, probably not enough to go find any of the other 13 novels in the series, but if I get a craving, it’s nice to know they exist. show less

Cheap ebooks on Amazon area always a gamble, and I'm afraid I lost on this one. Despite the seeming imprimatur of a "real" publisher, Stakeout is a mess, and I couldn't finish it.

Stanley Hastings is a wisecracking PI who gets arrested on suspicion of murder when the eponymous stakeout goes horribly wrong and he compounds the error several different ways. Now Stanley has to prove his innocence before what looks like an open-and-shut case is shut on him.

Oh man, the writing in this book is show more terrible. Hall is clearly striving for a kind of screwball, ricocheting dialogue feel, but the "who's on first?" style gets old really fast, and actively gets in the way of both the narrative, and a clear understanding of what's going on.

This is compounded by the fact that dialogue makes up over 85% of the prose. There's almost no description, or action - and what little there is comes from Hastings (you guessed it) screwball narration.

The book is stuffed with implausibly, and I can see the author was going for a wacky, helter-skelter feel, but the result is more like aimless careening, with Hastings bouncing from one ridiculous scenario to the next.

All of this inanity crowds out the central mystery, renders a sense of danger or peril impossible, and leaves the characters flat and completely unbelievable. This one was a dud. show less

Poor Stanley Hastings. While attempting to do a favor for his old antagonist/friend Sgt. MacAuliffe who is worried about his daughter, Hastings gets himself charged with two murders and grand larceny. Needless to say he has a way of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Stanley’s main job is working for an ambulance-chasing attorney by signing up clients in wrongful injury suits. I’ve read several of the Hastings series as well as Hall’s Puzzle Lady books, and they never fail to show more entertain. Each has a comic flair in the dialogue and endearing characters. Leave your literary criticism at home as well as the rational part of your brain and just enjoy them for what they are: just good light, entertainments. show less

Another delightful entry into the Stanley Hastings series. In this one Hall aims at the publishing industry with agents scamming writers and writers scamming readers. Great fun. He’s pulled from his usual interviewing of prospective lawsuit clients in order to help the wife of an author. She is receiving threatening phone calls. Constant funny references to the publishing industry.

Here is our star ambulance-chasing-wannabe-actor/writer P.I. Hastings talking to his friend in the police show more department Sergeant MacAuliff about a potential suspect, Linda Toole, author of a mystery novel about cats.

MacAuliff made a face. “Then I hope she did it.”
“What?”
“They’re the worst, these cat women. They’re the ones give people the ideas cops are stupid jerks couldn’t solve a crime if it weren’t for some fucking cat.”
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as that.”
“Well, it isn’t good. You got a whole generation of people raised on a steady diet of “Murder She Wrote” who think crime isn’t solved by cops. . . the only crimes mystery writers can solve are the ones they write themselves.”

Some delicious ironies as characters talk about what a weak plot the mystery “real life”? mystery is compared to their novelistic attempts. At one point the author whose wife is being threatened flatly states that no suspense novel could ever be written in the first person since the reader knows no harm will come to the narrator. Hall then proceeds to prove the opposite.

There’s a great scene where ADA Frost has the principals together in his office - or at least their lawyers and they spend an hour just deciding on the ground rules. One says, “I'm not even willing to concede that I’m actually here.” He then launches into hypotheticals within hypotheticals.

Hall is a master of the comic mystery/suspense novel. Puns galore. Worth your time. show less