First published by Simon and Schuster, 1991 

In Elkin’s eighth novel and third book to be a finalist for the National Book Award, the author created a familiar Elkin protagonist—a near-contender consumed by his vocation—but set hi8m in the unfamiliar Elkin world of city politics and murder mystery, albeit both with Elkin’s unique postmodern bent. In fact, The MacGuffin could be considered an anti-political novel in that it has no moral agenda, and an anti-detective novel in that it is one continuous internal narrative with an inconclusive ending. It is more a study of paranoia in a man losing his professional edge, something Elkin admitted he related to himself. His health was steadily declining due to MS and a weak heart.