The Detectives of the 87th Precinct Tackle Two Unnerving Cases

Reviewed by James L. Thane
Three out of five stars

In this installment of the 87th Precinct series, the precinct's male detectives spend their days and nights hunting someone who is killing young women and then hanging their bodies from lampposts around the city. They are assisted in their investigation by Fat Ollie Weeks of the 83rd Precinct and, as always, this is something of a mixed blessing.

Meanwhile, Eileen Burke of the Rape Squad is undercover, attempting to catch a particularly sadistic rapist who continues to attack the same few women over and over again. Burke is acting as a stand-in for one of the victims, hoping that she will be able to decoy the rapist into attacking her and that this will give her the opportunity to arrest him.

As always, the story is well-written; the police procedures are interesting and the by-play among the detectives is entertaining. But there's a certain creepiness factor involved with both storylines that kept me from enjoying the book as much as I otherwise would have. I'm not normally overly sensitive to this sort of thing, but in this case McBain is so good at creating truly repulsive situations that I found myself wanting to cover my eyes at some points. Thus three stars for me rather than four.

Steve Carella Hunts for the Killer of the "Calypso King"

 

George Chadderton is a musician who bills himself as the "Calypso King." Late one rainy September night, he leaves a gig with his manager and as the two are walking down the street someone comes up from behind them and shoots George to death. The killer also wounds George's manager in the shoulder. The manager falls to the ground and the killer stands over him and fires directly at his head. But the gun is empty and the killer is forced to flee, leaving the manager still alive. A few hours later Reviewed by James L. Thane Four out of five stars George Chadderton is a musician who bills himself as the "Calypso King." Late one rainy September night, he leaves a gig with his manager and as the two are walking down the street someone comes up from behind them and shoots George to death. The killer also wounds George's manager in the shoulder. The manager falls to the ground and the killer stands over him and fires directly at his head. But the gun is empty and the killer is forced to flee, leaving the manager still alive. A few hours later, it's still pouring rain, and a hooker who's looking for one last trick is shot to death with the same gun that killed Chadderton. Chadderton's murder took place in Isola's 87th Precinct and the case falls to veteran detectives Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer. They wake up the newly-widowed Mrs. Chadderton to give her the bad news while surreptitiously checking to see if she might have been the shooter herself. (They don't yet know that there is a second victim because the hooker was killed in another precinct and it will take a while before anyone realizes that the ballistics match.) Mrs. Chadderton is a very attractive woman who works at a topless club. She appears to be devastated by her husband's death and has no idea who might have wanted to kill him. Sadly, there appear to be no leads at all, and in investigating the victim's background, the detectives discover nothing of interest save for the fact that Chadderton's brother, Santo, seems to have disappeared into thin air seven years earlier. That's neither here nor there, and the case presents one of the toughest challenges to confront Carella and friends in any of the first thirty-three books in this series. This is also one of the best books in the series, and it first appeared in 1979. By then, McBain had really hit his stride and this is one that any fan of the series will not want to miss.

The Detectives of the 87th Precinct Tackle a Case Involving Blood Relatives

Reviewed by James L. Thane
Four out of five stars

This book, which first appeared in 1975, is about halfway through the 87th Precinct series and it's one of the better books in the series. Two young female cousins, seventeen and fifteen, are walking home late one night after a party in a driving rainstorm. As they take refuge from the rain in an abandoned building, the elder of the two is viciously stabbed to death. The younger, though cut in several places, manages to run to the 87th Precinct station house where she reports the crime.

The younger girl is able to give the detectives a fairly detailed description of the man she says attacked them, and the detectives' first step is to interview known sex offenders. They find one who closely matches the description the girl has given them and the guy has the world's worst alibi for the time of the attack. But when the young girl looks at a lineup, instead of identifying the known perv, she mistakenly picks out a detective.

Her mistake totally destroys the girl's value as an eyewitness and so Steve Carella and the other detectives on the case are forced to fall back on other, much more pain-staking and difficult methods in their attempt to capture the guilty party. There's more than the usual amount of police procedure in this book, and it's fascinating to watch the way in which the detectives would work a case like this--or at least the way they would have worked it forty years ago, before the advent of DNA testing and other more modern investigatory tools.

It's a very entertaining book that takes a number of totally unexpected twists and turns, one that's sure to appeal to any fan of the series and to most readers who enjoy crime fiction.  

Fat Ollie Weeks Joins the Detectives of the 87th Precinct

Reviewed by James L. Thane
Four out of five stars

On a hot August afternoon, a man comes into the 87th Precinct demanding fast action on the investigation into a fire that destroyed his warehouse along with $500,000 worth of small carved wooden animals that were housed there. He insists that he has to get the insurance claim settled immediately so that he can afford to pay for the next shipment of animals that is already on the way from Germany.

About half of the precinct's detectives are on vacation, given that these are the dog days of summer, but Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes and the other detectives who are on duty promise to do what they can. The investigation turns out to be more complicated than your average arson case, though, especially when people start turning up dead. In addition to arsonists and killers, there are hookers and urban redevelopers running loose in the city and Carella and company have to get all these things sorted out before they can appease the guy who wants his insurance claim settled.

All in all, this is one of the more intriguing entries in this long-running series and this book is critical to the series because it introduces the character of Fat Ollie Weeks who will appear prominently in several books from here on out. Weeks is a miserable pig of a human being who does an awful impression of W. C. Fields, but he has great skills as a detective and so the other detectives of the 87th and the reader as well, will just have to grin and bear it. Another fun read from one of the masters.

A Spanish American War Vet Gets the Ax

Reviewed by James L. Thane
Three out of five stars


On a bitterly cold January afternoon, the detectives of the 87th precinct are called to the basement of an apartment building where the building super is Mr. George Lasser. Lasser is eighty-six years old and a veteran of the Spanish American War. Lasser managed to survive the encounter with the Spanish and a whole host of other difficulties that beset the planet between 1898 and 1963, when this story was written. But when someone plants an ax in the middle of his skull, it's pretty much lights out for George.

There's no evidence pointing at the killer and all of the early suspects have what appear to be iron-clad alibis. This means that Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes and the other bulls are going to have to put in a lot of time and use up a lot of shoe leather, trying to determine who might have had it in for the old man. The guy's wife is totally nuts; his son refuses to leave the house; his three old buddies from the war have nothing to offer, and so there's not a lot of help there.

But Carella is nothing of not persistent, and pushing his network of snitches and other acquaintances, he finally begins to tease out a picture of the victim that may lead to the killer, though maybe not before he or she strikes again.

This is another solid entry in the 87th Precinct series and follows the formula that McBain had worked out in the previous seventeen books. Nothing wrong with that--it's a pretty entertaining formula.

A Busy Spring in the 87th Precinct

Reviewed by James L. Thane
Three out of five stars


Spring finds the detectives of the 87th Precinct busy as usual. As the book opens, Detective Steve Carella has to deal with a beautiful young woman who decides she has nothing to live for and who has climbed out onto a ledge high above the street in her nightgown. She's ready to jump and in 1962, the PD doesn't yet have trained specialists to deal with a situation like this. Carella will do the best he can, but this really isn't his area of expertise.

Meanwhile, a hairbrush salesman is making his rounds. (Remember, it's 1962 when people other than the Girl Scouts apparently still sold things door-to-door.) The unsuspecting salesman rings the doorbell at an apartment which, unfortunately is filled with leaking natural gas. The electrical impulse from the bell touches off an explosion which blows the salesman and his hairbrushes all to hell.

When the dust settles, the police discover a man and a woman lying virtually naked in the bedroom dead from inhaling the gas. They also find a couple of empty Scotch bottles and a suicide note. But something seems off and most of the detectives believe that the deaths were really homicides.

Sadly, their investigation leads them nowhere. They discover some quirky facts about the case but nothing that absolutely disproves the apparent suicide and nothing that points the finger at a viable suspect. In the meantime, some unknown person has made it his hobby to periodically kick the crap out of Steve Carella, which does nothing to improve the detective's disposition. And unless the detectives catch a break soon, it appears that none of this will be resolved to anyone's satisfaction.

This is another very good entry in this series. As always, it's a pretty quick read and fans of the series are certain to enjoy it.