Why would any man, however deranged, take an overdose of sleeping pills and then calmly turn off his air conditioner with the city sweltering through a backbreaking heat wave? This question nags at Detectives Bert Kling and Steve Carella. Kling’s...
It is late afternoon, Friday, October 13. Detectives Carella, Meyer and Kling of the 87th Squad are waiting for their relief, due at 5:45 P.M. At 5:15, the telephone rings. Meyer answers, listens, jots down a few notes, then says, “Steve, Bert,...
In this city, you have to pay attention. In this city, things are happening all the time, all over the place, and you don't have to be a detective to smell evil in the wind.
Take this week's tabloids: the face of a dead girl is splashed across...
SUMMARY:Outside the 87th Precinct a stranger stands in the falling snow. He knows he should go in and tell a policeman about what happened the night before, about Molly. Every second that he hesitates takes him one step farther away from the 87th...
Here is Ed McBain’s most ambitious and far-reaching novel of the famed 87th Precinct. But Ice goes beyond the world of the 87th Precinct. Ice transcends the genre of crime fiction... as Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold did the novel...
“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,...
Ed McBain's astonishing 87th-Precinct series continues with a hard look at what passes for love in a city grown used to crimes of passion. When a beautiful blonde tells Detective Steve Carella that her husband's former chauffeur has made two...
The minute hand on the station-house clock crept past midnight, and another day began — a not untypical October Sunday, bringing the usual assortment of big city crimes to the detectives of the 87th Precinct. To start the morning hours of the...
“ ‘You’ll have to speak louder,’ the voice said. ‘I’m a little hard of hearing.’ ” What with one thing and another, such as a highly successful cat burglar and what seemed to be a hippie crucifixion, the 87th Precinct didn’t need...