87th Precinct Series by Ed McBain
87th Precinct #3
The pusher
Ed McBain
The rope, knotted around the boy's neck, spelled suicide. But the fingerprints on the hypodermic syringe at his feet were not his.
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87th Precinct #7
KILLER'S WEDGE
Ed McBain
SUMMARY:
Her name is death - and her name is Virginia Dodge. Virginia Dodge is determined to put a bullet through Steve Carella's brain, and she doesn't care if she has to kill all the boys in the 87th Precinct in the process. Armed with a gun and a bottle of nitro-glycerine she spends an afternoon terrorising Lieutenant Byrnes and his men with her clever little home-made bomb. Is there anything the boys at the 87th can do to save Carella or will this crazy broad achieve her goal ¿? In one of the most dazzling novellas of the Precinct, Ed McBain exposes the dangerous loyalties that keep the boys of the 87th together, and threaten to tear them apart at the same time.
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87th Precinct #15
The Empty Hours
Ed McBain
In The Empty Hours, Claudia Davis was young and rich. And dead. Detective Steve Carella had nothing to go on except a book of cancelled cheques. In 'J', when a Rabbi is stabbed in a dark alley, a calling card is left splattered in blood. And in Storm, a dead girl is found in the snow, skewered with a ski pole.
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87th Precinct #32
Long Time No See
Ed McBain
It’s a cold November when James Harris takes his dog, Stanley, for their usual rounds of panhandling. Blind since Vietnam and married to a blind woman as well, James realizes his disability pension and her part-time job go only so far. The money he makes on the streets is desperately needed—yet it’s still not enough. But after today it won’t matter…When Detective Steve Carella finds James’ wife murdered as well, her throat slit like her husband’s, it is no longer a random crime. And when another blind woman turns up dead, all Carella has to go on is the nightmare James told a psychiatrist after coming home from the war ten years ago. What he finds is a labyrinthine trail of betrayal, sex, and a secret worth killing to keep buried. An intricately woven and flawlessly layered thriller, Long Time No See is a live wire in the 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain, the bestselling author that People magazine describes as “a skillful writer who excels at pace, plot, and, especially, the complex clockwork of a cop’s mind.”Amazon.com ReviewStephen King and Nelson DeMille on Ed McBain I think Evan Hunter, known by that name or as Ed McBain, was one of the most influential writers of the postwar generation. He was the first writer to successfully merge realism with genre fiction, and by so doing I think he may actually have created the kind of popular fiction that drove the best-seller lists and lit up the American imagination in the years 1960 to 2000. Books as disparate as The New Centurions, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Godfather, Black Sunday, and The Shining all owe a debt to Evan Hunter, who taught a whole generation of baby boomers how to write stories that were not only entertaining but that truthfully reflected the times and the culture. He will be remembered for bringing the so-called "police procedural" into the modern age, but he did so much more than that. And he was one hell of a nice man. --*Stephen King Way back in the mid-1970s, when I was a new writer and police series were very big, my editor asked me to do a series called Joe Ryker, NYPD. I had no idea how to write a police detective novel, but the editor handed me a stack of books and said, "These are the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain. Read them and you'll know everything you need to know about police novels." After I read the first book--which I think was Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man--I was hooked, and I read every Ed McBain I could get my hands on. Then I sat down and wrote my own detective novel, The Sniper, featuring Joe Ryker. My series never reached the heights of the 87th Precinct series, but by reading those classic masterpieces, I learned all I needed to know about urban crime and how detectives think and act. And I had a hell of a time learning from the master. Years later, when I actually got to meet Ed McBain/Evan Hunter, I told him this story, and he said, "I would have liked it better if my books inspired you to become a detective instead of becoming my competition." Evan and I became friends, and I was privileged to know him and honored to be in his company. I remain indebted to him for his good advice over the years. But most of all, I thank him for hundreds of hours of great reading. --Nelson DeMille*To read about how Ed McBain influenced other mystery and thriller writers, visit our Perspectives on McBain page.For a complete selection of 87th Precinct novels available for Kindle, visit our Ed McBain's 87th Precinct Booklist.About the AuthorEd McBain was one of the pen names of successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926 – 2005). Debuting in 1956, the popular 87th Precinct is one of the longest running crime series ever published, featuring over fifty novels, and is hailed as “one of the great literary accomplishments of the last half-century.” McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain.
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87th Precinct #33
Calypso
Ed McBain
"This is your case," the manual advised, "stick with
the investigation." Stick with it in the pouring rain where a man lay with his
open skull seeping his brains onto the sidewalk, stick with it in a hospital
room reeking of antiseptic, stick with it in a tenement apartment at two in the
morning, the clock throwing minutes into the empty hours of the night while a
woman wept tears for her man who was dead. Search her closet for the clothing
the killer wore. Get her to talk about her husband's possible infidelities. Be a
cop.
Being a cop was something Steve Carella of the 87th
Precinct knew a lot about. He knew about the careful, painstaking work of
tracking down leads that could mean nothing or everything. He knew that cops
like continuity even if it takes a couple of corpses to provide it and that
right now he and his partner Meyer Meyer had all the continuity they could
handle. They had two corpses shot within four hours of each other on the same
rainy Friday night with the same.38 Smith & Wesson-one a calypso
singer from Trinidad who had just finished a gig. the other a hooker named C. J.
who had just turned her last trick. Carella knew they had a case that was
growing as cold as a slab in the morgue. He knew that they had a killer loose in
the city who had killed once, twice, and perhaps would kill again if he and
Meyer didn't follow the leads, didn't stick with the case, didn't get there
first…
With this breathtakingly suspenseful novel Ed McBain
shows us what the police procedural novel is all about. Whether you're one of
the millions of faithful followers of the 87th Precinct or a fan-to-be, from the
first terse page of Calypso to an ending that will frighten you out of
your skin, you'll know you are in the hands of a master.
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87th Precinct #46
And All Through the House
Ed McBain
All's quiet at the 87th Precinct on Christmas Eve… until
Steve Carella's fellow detectives appear with a kid who's stolen a sheep, a
robber with a bagful of gold, two guys fighting over a sack of frankincense, and
a young couple who give birth to a baby boy at midnight!
Warner Books, 1994. Hardcover, 40 pp.
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87th Precinct #53
Frumious Bandersnatch
Ed McBain
SUMMARY:
"It should have been the night that launched a new pop idol. Tamar Valparaiso is young and beautiful, with the body and voice of an angel, and the stage is set for her to launch her debut album, Bandersnatch, on a luxury yacht in the heart of the city. But halfway through her performance, while the partygoers look on helplessly, masked men drag Tamar off the stage and into a waiting speedboat. Detective Steve Carella is just showing up for the graveyard shift when news of the kidnapping comes in. Working disjointedly with a Joint Task Force that calls itself ""The Squad,"" Carella and the men and women of the Eight-Seven must find Tamar before time -- or indeed her very life -- runs out. In this brilliant look at the music industry, Ed McBain once again combines his mastery of the form with the fast-paced dialogue and intricate plotting that have become his signature."
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