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A review by jdcorley
The Pusher by Ed McBain
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.