Monday, March 12, 2018

I Only Have Lies For You - Robert J. Randisi


Bob Randisi’s Rat Pack books are some of the most entertaining mystery novels currently being published. The latest one, I ONLY HAVE LIES FOR YOU, is out from Pro Se Productions, and it continues the excellence of this very strong series.

The narrator/protagonist of these books is Eddie Gianelli, better known as Eddie G., a former pit boss at the Sands casino in Las Vegas who has evolved into kind of a fixer and troubleshooter for the celebrities and high rollers who frequent the casino. In this novel, Eddie travels to Miami Beach with Frank Sinatra to meet Jackie Gleason. At first this seems like an innocent trip, little more than a vacation, but then June Taylor (of the June Taylor Dancers, featured on Gleason’s TV show) asks Eddie to look into the problem of someone who’s stalking her sister Marilyn, also a dancer on the show and maybe not so coincidentally, Jackie Gleason’s long-time mistress.

Eddie has barely gotten started on this favor when a dead body shows up, and there’ll be more murders later on, including that of a police detective, as the action bounces back and forth between Las Vegas, Miami Beach, and other locations in Florida. Eddie gets help from Jerry Epstein, a very likable character despite his connections to the Mob, and Vegas PI Danny Bardini. Randisi confronts them with plot twist after plot twist, but in the end the complicated affair all makes sense . . . but not until Eddie has risked his life to expose a killer.

As always with a Randisi book, I ONLY HAVE LIES FOR YOU is fast-paced and driven by fine dialogue. An added element in the Rat Pack series is his excellent depiction of the era, which I also remember quite well. (Bob and I are about the same age.) I recall watching and enjoying Jackie Gleason’s variety show on Saturday night. My dad always enjoyed the bits featuring Gleason as Joe the Bartender and Frank Fontaine as Crazy Guggenheim, and I did, too. In a period mystery, getting the details right is a tricky business, and so is not overdoing such details. Randisi nails both of those things in this series. I really enjoyed I ONLY HAVE LIES FOR YOU. If you’ve never read any of the Rat Pack books, it would work fine as an introduction, and if you have, you’ll definitely want to read this one, too.


5 comments:

jhegenbe said...

Here, here. This series always pays off with secret insights and memorable details.

RJR said...

Many thanks, james, As always, your opinion means a lot.

Rick Ollerman said...

We do have an RJR Rat Pack/Danny Bardini coming out in the next issue of DOWN & OUT: The Magazine. Issue 3, should be out in a few weeks, called "Hey, Hockey Puck." Bet you can't guess who else is in that one....

James Reasoner said...

Rick, that sounds great. I'm a long-time Don Rickles fan.

Tommy Hancock said...

Thank you, James. This book means a lot to me as a Publisher and as a long time Fan of the series. It means a lot to get to be part of the series and thank you for the great review.