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jdcorley's review
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
It's really in this book that the 87th Precinct finds its feet. It's a very quotidian murder - a drug pusher is killed by someone else in the drug game. But the police procedural elements shine brightest when the wheels of the investigation and the counter-wheels of the criminals spread wider and wider, introducing new characters and systems of the city, and commenting on all their intersections and their thoughts. McBain commented that he thought of killing off a main character here, and the publisher stopped him. You can see his logic - ultimately this novel is a novel about the 87th Precinct and a dead junkie, not about any particular cop or criminal. Why not kill one of them? But the publisher noticed that everyone loves Carella, and Teddy, and everyone is right to love them.
I've commented on other works that, at their best, the 87th Precinct novels don't feel like a whitewash of American policing in the way some police procedurals do. This is a perfect example. Ultimately the observations of the city and the characters are what's happening. You're watching a location operate and the police are one of the forces in it. Things happen that are unjust - good luck and bad luck play themselves out - the cops are neither plucky underdogs in the face of evil criminality or genius soldiers in the endless war. They just stumble across stuff, and miss some other stuff, and so does everyone else. It's a highly humanistic viewpoint, and thus lets the reader consider it with their own values.
Perhaps this is the first real police procedural novel - one that's moved past the oohs and ahhs of the pulps and the grim racial politics of the more dire predecessors and is dedicated to the form as a subject for a novelistic lens. Very worth an investment.
I've commented on other works that, at their best, the 87th Precinct novels don't feel like a whitewash of American policing in the way some police procedurals do. This is a perfect example. Ultimately the observations of the city and the characters are what's happening. You're watching a location operate and the police are one of the forces in it. Things happen that are unjust - good luck and bad luck play themselves out - the cops are neither plucky underdogs in the face of evil criminality or genius soldiers in the endless war. They just stumble across stuff, and miss some other stuff, and so does everyone else. It's a highly humanistic viewpoint, and thus lets the reader consider it with their own values.
Perhaps this is the first real police procedural novel - one that's moved past the oohs and ahhs of the pulps and the grim racial politics of the more dire predecessors and is dedicated to the form as a subject for a novelistic lens. Very worth an investment.
max538's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
3hundtony's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bundy23's review against another edition
3.0
My first McBain and almost definitely not my last. This is dark, cold noir starring a bunch of straight cops that actually care. It's very procedural, almost like a noir-ish Law & Order. It's pure entertainment but that's okay, sometimes that's all I need.
The footnote is also well worth sticking around for, it's a pretty amazing look at how the author allowed himself to be bullied into changing the end by the publisher and his agent (although it worked out very well for him in the end).
The footnote is also well worth sticking around for, it's a pretty amazing look at how the author allowed himself to be bullied into changing the end by the publisher and his agent (although it worked out very well for him in the end).
tarana's review against another edition
4.0
Loved it. Listened to the audio straight through.
Relisten.
Relisten.
tearsofthetinman's review against another edition
3.0
Although dated now , the 87th series were a staple of my reading some 30 years ago and I was surprised that I had never read this one.
It’s a good solid cop novel with everything a police procedural needs - a crime , diligent policeman , a little science , solid police work and a little good luck and bad luck. The location oozes atmosphere of an east coast US city not unlike 1950s / 1960s New York .
Plus it’s a short read and one I needed to get that Goodreads challenge completed .
It’s a good solid cop novel with everything a police procedural needs - a crime , diligent policeman , a little science , solid police work and a little good luck and bad luck. The location oozes atmosphere of an east coast US city not unlike 1950s / 1960s New York .
Plus it’s a short read and one I needed to get that Goodreads challenge completed .
plantbirdwoman's review against another edition
4.0
Now this is more like it! It seems for years I've been reading about the 87th Precinct series - what a groundbreaker it was and how Ed McBain has been such an influence on writers of mysteries since the 1950s when this series started. But after reading the first two entries in the series, I confess I was disappointed. As far as I could see they were mostly just interesting for their historical value, but I didn't find them particularly entertaining.
Then I picked up The Pusher, third in the series. He had me with the first sentence. And with the first couple of pages of that wonderfully evocative description of the city in winter, I was hooked. I could have read the book in one sitting, except I had to stop and do other things for a while. I rushed back to it as quickly as I could.
It seemed to me that McBain really hit his stride with this book. The 87th Precinct and the city began to come to life for me. I began to care about the characters.
The story starts with a patrolman walking a beat a few days before Christmas. It is bone-numbingly cold. He sees a light that shouldn't be there and goes to investigate and finds a young Hispanic man's body in a tenement basement. There is a rope around his neck and a syringe on the cot beside him. At first, it appears to be a suicide, but an autopsy reveals he had a massive dose of heroin which actually killed him and the rope around his neck was not tied in a way that the victim could have done it. It was murder.
Detective Steve Carella and newly minted detective Bert Kling catch the initial assignment. Carella has a lot of questions about the scene of the crime. Why was it set up as an obviously phony hanging? There are fingerprints all over the syringe that was found but whose are they? There is no record of them in police files. The victim was a penny ante pusher of heroin. Who was his supplier?
As Carella and the other detectives pursue answers to those questions and others, another murder occurs. This time it is a young Hispanic woman, a known prostitute. She was savagely slashed. Much of her blood had drained away before she was discovered and taken to the hospital, but she did not survive and was not able to speak. Turns out that she was the sister of the first victim - which only raises more questions.
Carella hits the streets in search of the dead pusher's possible supplier - a punk who goes by the name of Gonzo. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Byrnes of the Precinct is receiving phone calls implicating his teenage son in the crimes. He must make the decision of whether or not to reveal this to Carella as he struggles to save his drug-addicted son.
As the painfully slow step-by-step process of sorting evidence and following up clues continues, there will be even more drama for the 87th Precinct when another dead body turns up and then one of their own is shot. This is engrossing stuff. I didn't want to put the book down until all the issues were resolved.
Interestingly, in an afterword, McBain reveals that the ending of the story was not the one that he originally wrote. His publisher argued against that ending and convinced him to change it. Good decision.
The writing here is just sparkling. I found myself rereading descriptive passages time and again, just for the pure pleasure of the way the words were strung together. Okay, I do begin to see why so many writers of mysteries revere Ed McBain.
Then I picked up The Pusher, third in the series. He had me with the first sentence. And with the first couple of pages of that wonderfully evocative description of the city in winter, I was hooked. I could have read the book in one sitting, except I had to stop and do other things for a while. I rushed back to it as quickly as I could.
It seemed to me that McBain really hit his stride with this book. The 87th Precinct and the city began to come to life for me. I began to care about the characters.
The story starts with a patrolman walking a beat a few days before Christmas. It is bone-numbingly cold. He sees a light that shouldn't be there and goes to investigate and finds a young Hispanic man's body in a tenement basement. There is a rope around his neck and a syringe on the cot beside him. At first, it appears to be a suicide, but an autopsy reveals he had a massive dose of heroin which actually killed him and the rope around his neck was not tied in a way that the victim could have done it. It was murder.
Detective Steve Carella and newly minted detective Bert Kling catch the initial assignment. Carella has a lot of questions about the scene of the crime. Why was it set up as an obviously phony hanging? There are fingerprints all over the syringe that was found but whose are they? There is no record of them in police files. The victim was a penny ante pusher of heroin. Who was his supplier?
As Carella and the other detectives pursue answers to those questions and others, another murder occurs. This time it is a young Hispanic woman, a known prostitute. She was savagely slashed. Much of her blood had drained away before she was discovered and taken to the hospital, but she did not survive and was not able to speak. Turns out that she was the sister of the first victim - which only raises more questions.
Carella hits the streets in search of the dead pusher's possible supplier - a punk who goes by the name of Gonzo. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Byrnes of the Precinct is receiving phone calls implicating his teenage son in the crimes. He must make the decision of whether or not to reveal this to Carella as he struggles to save his drug-addicted son.
As the painfully slow step-by-step process of sorting evidence and following up clues continues, there will be even more drama for the 87th Precinct when another dead body turns up and then one of their own is shot. This is engrossing stuff. I didn't want to put the book down until all the issues were resolved.
Interestingly, in an afterword, McBain reveals that the ending of the story was not the one that he originally wrote. His publisher argued against that ending and convinced him to change it. Good decision.
The writing here is just sparkling. I found myself rereading descriptive passages time and again, just for the pure pleasure of the way the words were strung together. Okay, I do begin to see why so many writers of mysteries revere Ed McBain.
ring01's review
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0