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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
I'm starting to be convinced that McBain was a genuine genius. Each book comes at the precinct from a different angle. We've had straightforward procedurals, behind the scenes kidnappings and this is a street level examination of immigrants and their relationships to crime and the police. He even gets a bit meta at the end imagining how God could give everyone a happier ending. I continue to be amazed and impresses 13 books in to the series.
The writing’s still a bit purple, but finally we see a glimpse of the McBain to come–the McBain that knows what a mystery is and knows how to show it to us rather than tell it to us. The set-up on this book is simple–in the first chapter, McBain tells us that two people are going die this day. From then on, character after character, and situation after situation, is introduced, and everytime you think, “ah-ha! here’s the one that’s going to die,” McBain pulls the rug out and disaster is averted. Or, when someone gets shot and you think, “no, this isn’t the person to die, can’t be,” well, you’re wrong. There really isn’t a mystery per se here, but there is a quite a bit of tension and surprise. Also, McBain kills off a repeating character in such an unexpected manner, showing you the difference between his series and those of other mystery writers. For other writers, the characters are king. Pick up any Nero Wolfe novel, and you know that Nero, Archie, Fritz, Saul, and Inspector Cramer will be there. Not so with McBain. His character is the 87th Precinct, and no matter who the cops and villains are, it is the city and the precinct that will be there.
Not one of McBain's usual mysteries, but a crime drama, or even an urban social drama, centring on a single Sunday morning on a baking hot street in a Puerto Rican neighbourhood in McBain's fictitious city. A teenager on the make, a drunken sailor looking for a good time and McBain's perennial Bad Cop, Parker, congregate in luncheonette. The cops of the 87th Precinct are hunting notorious killer Pepe Morano. While the sailor looks for love, the teenager looks for blood and Parker mouths off, a violent siege develops, a crowd gathers and the neighbourhood threatens to explode. McBain winds the tension and suspense with consummate skill and a keen eye for the foibles and failings of multifarious humanity. Fast paced and unputdownable, but then I don't think McBain ever produced a dud in his life.