Hail to the Chief

I’ve been reading Ed McBain since before there was a Kindle to read his novels on. Now I’m reading them sequentially, and I find this one of the less successful installments.

As usual, he tries to depict both the times (1973) and how detectives solved crimes in fictional Isola, a stand-in for NYC. Three race-based gangs fight over turf. The problem for me is that McBain explains gang behavior and motivation via long stretches of first-person narration by “the Chief” of the white gang. The man is vicious and self-righteous while claiming to be neither.

Most of the detectives of the 87th Precinct are likable, some very likable. The Chief’s stretches of this book are so repugnant that I almost quit reading, and that happened more than once. Only determination to make it through the whole series kept me going.

Whether this book has anything to do with Nixon and Vietnam, as some claim, I doubt. I do believe that inserting long passages of “what I did and why” were unsuccessful enough that McBain never used it again.

That’s what I meant by a noble experiment. A good try, but a failure nonetheless

Going through the whole 87th series sequentially I have had the great luck in reading 3 fantastic entries back-to-back-to-back with this being the first of the 3. First off the cover is completely misleading the main baddy in this novel is a bigoted white guy so not sure why the guy on the cover is black but whatever.

The novel has a pretty gruesome crime at the start with 6 bodies found in a ditch. Essentially the story is about street gangs and is less of a who-done-it mystery and more of a “stay seated and enjoy the ride”. The story goes back and forth in timelines with 1 timeline being shown as the crime is being investigated and the 2nd timeline being the final interrogation of the baddy. The buy guy in this is revealed right from the start and the guy is pretty reprehensible/racist/violent. The story is very well written and having part of the story shown from the bad guys POV which is pretty interesting because you see how he is justifying what he is doing.

Overall an awesome book and well worth the money!

Notes:
Worth The Money: Yes
Would I Recommend It: Yes

With many McBain 87th Precinct novels under my belt, I was expecting a little more from Number 28 in the series. With this long a series, I suspect I have taken to comparing each individual book with those that have gone before, so anyone reading my assessment should take that into account. This work opens with six naked bodies found in a ditch. The story line includes the usual McBain elements, namely dialogues that are sometimes humorous and sometimes irrelevant to the plot that make the reader part of the on-going action and Bert Kling in love again. There is a twist, however. There is an after-the-fact confession woven into the on-going story that adds interest.

But, as I said earlier, for me there was something missing in this story compared to those I have read up to now. I was able to put the book down a lot easier. Was it McBain or just me? You’ll have to judge that for yourself. As for me, I won’t hesitate to pick up the next book in the series when I come across it.

I began my love affair with ”cop” novels with Mr McBain…and I have read ALL of them…he gives an excellent story line with characters you will love…action …insight in police techniques and in the amount of hard work it takes to identify and apprehend criminals….don’t hesitate to buy this or any of his novels….he was an amazing author….

A fair 87th Precinct novel, #28 by Ed McBain, released in 1972.

Detectives Steve Carella and Bert Kling are called to a multiple murder on a cold night. Six victims including a baby. The gimmick in this book is we find out the one responsible is the “president” of a local gang. We hear his confession throughout the book.

Kling has decided he wants to propose to Augusta Blair, the gorgeous model he met in the last book. I am interested to see how this plays out in later stories, since Kling has bad luck with women in prior books.

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