[Book 58] Lady Killer by Ed McBain (1958)

Crank calls and messages are one of the part of the crap and corruption of any police force. Most times they are sent by eccentrics, nuts, the truly psychotic, those craving attention, and so on. They waste time and they waste energy, and a posting I made yesterday is a good example of one such hoax message the police have had  to contend with.

However an anonymous crank tip-off sent to the 87th Precinct, a message made up of words clipped from the newspaper glued to a sheet of paper threatening death to “the Lady” at exactly 8 o’clock that night cannot be ignored no matter how hot it is outside.

And the twists and turns in the story of the ensemble cast of police detectives frantically chasing down in the nine hours they have left the threatening killer makes for yet another exciting entry in this popular series of procedural police stories.

As a curious coincidence, the entire events of this story takes place between 8 am and 8 pm on a certain July 24th.  Which happens to be the exact date TODAY.

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[Book 54] Killers Wedge by Ed McBain (1959)

An honest to goodness locked door murder that is made to look like suicide, the knifing of a local hood-loom, and a crazed madwomen with a bottle of nitroglycerin and a loaded gun holding a group of police officers prisoner.

All in a day’s work in the big bad city for the boys of the 87th Precinct in this 7th book in the long running police procedural series.

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[Book 50] Killer’s Payoff by Ed McBain (1958)

Blackmail and extortion are dirty words to describe the deeds of dirty people.  Whoever shot Sy Kramer in the face with a 0.300 Savage hunting rifle causing it to explode into flying fragments was doing the world a favour in cleaning it up a little.

And not the cops have to clean up after the cleaners…

Another solid, fast-paced entry in the long running 87th Precinct series.

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[Book 32] Killer’s Choice by Ed McBain (1957)

In the fifth entry in Ed McBain’s famous and long-lived 87th Precinct series, danger, beauty and menace abound in the never named big city.

A beautiful red-head is found murdered in a shattered liquor store.  A new police officer is transferred to the Precinct and pulls a boner that almost kills Detective Steve Carella.  Finally, there’s a new cop killer on the loose, one who has killed one of the 87th’s own.

As usual, Ed McBain weaves together these disparate story threads in to a compelling narrative tapestry.  Another solid entry in this highly regarded and recommended police procedural series.

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[Book 10] The Con Man by Ed McBain (1957)

The fourth in the 87th Precinct series finds police detective Steve Carella out of the hospital and back on the job during a warm April in the nameless city where and his new wife Teddy call home.  The warm weather is also bringing out all the grifters and con-men who had laid low over the winter.

Steve’s wounds are still aching from where a pusher pumped two slugs of lead in him last December, but at least he’s still alive. Unlike the faceless and decomposing ‘floater’ found in the river after too many months submerged. A dead and bloated body full of arsenic and having a tiny heart shaped tattoo on the web of the R hand spelling ‘MAC’…

Another great if grisly police procedural detective novel in Ed McBain’s famous crime fiction series.  Many of the others regular police detectives of the 87th Precinct are back in this story, along with a few new faces.  And this time Teddy Carella, Steve’s mute wife, plays an important role, taking up the hue (albeit without the cry)…

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[Book 8] The Mugger by Ed McBain (1956)

In the unnamed city that’s the setting in this long lived series, it’s autumn.  Out on the streets along with the crisp air and the falling leaves is a mugger wearing dark sunglasses who is preying on women walking alone at night, leaving them battered and bruised.

At the end of each mugging when the women are relieved of their valuables, the unknown man takes a sardonic bow and says, “Clifford thanks you, Madam.”

And one time one of those women is found dead…

Another fast and well written novel in the series.  This time, with Steve Carella still on his honeymoon, Burt Kling (just out of the hospital from being shot in Cop Hater), Hal Willis, and Roger Havilland carry most of this story.

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P.S. I was wrong last time, this is really the second book in the 87th Precinct stories, and The Pusher is the 3rd. The copy I had of the latter had a phony number 2 on its spine and cover.

[Book 7] The Pusher by Ed McBain (1956)

The second third entry in Ed McBain’s famous 87th Precinct series, starts off with a bang. Only its the crash of a late December winter storm, not a gunshot, that starts off this breakneck story.

A half-frozen beat cop making his 2 am rounds finds a dead junkie who has hung himself in a tenement basement.  At first it’s thought by detective Steve Carella (back from his honeymoon after getting married at the end of Cop Hater) and his boss Lieutenant Byrnes as a clear case of suicide…and then the autopsy unexpectedly reveals that the young addict died of a massive overdose of H, not from asphyxiation.

So who set up the phony hanging suicide?  And why?

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[Book 1] Cop Hater by Ed McBain (1956)

In the middle of a terrible heat wave there’s a killer is loose in the unnamed city.  A killer of policemen. It must be a cop hater…or is it?

The very first of the McBain’s famous 87th Precinct series, and the first of these famous police procedurals I’ve novels read.

A fast, very polished book. Highly recommended.

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