Cop Hater

This is Ed McBain’s first novel of the 87th Precinct police series of novels which was published back in 1956. I am in the process of reading all of McBain’s books in order (started this in 2015) and I can honestly say that this book still holds its own and does not feel fully dated. The book has an awesome hook in that the book starts off with the murder of a police detective and the boys at the 87 must solve the case. I am 22 books into my serial reading of the 87 precinct books and I still feel that this book is one of the strongest.

The main characters are well written and the writing really draws you into the 87 universe. If you like police novels pick this up now (and keep reading the other novels too!)

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

Almost all readers with the slightest interest in crime fiction are aware of Ed McBain and his 87th precinct series of fifty-five books. McBain was born Salvatore Lambino. He wrote “Blackboard Jungle” under the name Evan Hunter. He also was a screenwriter and adapted DuMaurier’s short story into Hitchcock’s “The Birds”and wrote for a number of TV series including “Columbo”.

Set in the fictional Isola and remarkably similar to NYC, the 87th Precinct series spanned fifty years. The first book was “Cop Hater” (CH), 205 pages and published in 1956. CH focuses on Steve Carella, though he is not exactly the protagonist; rather that seems to be the cops of the 87th. The story begins with the murder of one of the 87th’s detectives on his way to work late one night; he leaves a wife and two young kids. Before long there are more murders, all the victims are from the 87th.

I didn’t really get into this book until I had finished the first fifty pages or so, and then I began to enjoy it very much I was particularly interested in how well a book written sixty years ago would hold up. Would it be relevant? ? I have read other crime fiction from this period and earlier and some have been ultra dull with such skimpy descriptions they could well have taken place anywhere between pre-WWll and post Viet Nam. But not so with CH. To my surprise, and delight, it was rather sexy. Not in a pulp fiction way, and while not graphic, there were scenes that you would not see in a Hitchcock film of any era. A second surprise was the crime solving technology. Residential air conditioning was rare in these days. During a heat wave, many folks would escape for a few hours of cool, not matter how bad the movie. But there were precursors of CSI already evident. Following one cop’s murder, one of the investigators is able to make a fairly detailed and accurate description of the shooter based on forensic evidence of hair, blood and skin on the victim. One final big surprise is how naive and open one 0f the detectives is with a reporter going so far as to share the name of his fiance and the and the neighborhood in which she lives – I guess privacy had not been invented yet.

CH was very interesting. The story takes quite a turn toward the end. The plot is excellent, the pace is very fast, good tension and the dialog is excellent. What next. I don’t intend to read a 55 book series at this stage but I will read more McBain. I think I will jump into the next decade, and choose a promising title (perhaps “Doll” from the mid-60s) and see how the stories compare over time, and then maybe to the next decade.

This is the second crime fiction classic I have read recently, the other being Ellery Queen’s “Penthouse Murder”. I recently took a course on classic crime fiction and will read and review a number of the books the professor cited.

With Cop Hater Ed McBain creates a fictional city filled with fictional cops that seem just as real as people you know. Mr. McBain introduces the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals in a unique way, particularly since he hasn’t gotten his groove yet. The earlier novels are more succinct and straightforward than the later ones which flesh out the cops, victims and killers more. Plus this book is not only a police procedural but also in many cases a whodunit. Clues to the killer of the 87th Precinct detective are provided at various points in the story, including the title of the book, building to a great plot twist at the end. Mr. McBain does this on occasion in later novels, always to great effect. Readers could do a lot worse than giving this series a try. Sadly I wasn’t around at the beginning but happily I eventually caught up and was able to read the last one just after its release. I wish Mr. McBain and this series were still going strong.

Gritty, lean, and at times surprisingly romantic, the first entry in the 87th Precinct series remains one of the best. Evan Hunter, author of The Blackboard Jungle and screenwriter for Hitchcock’s, The Birds, is better known today as Ed McBain because of the 87th Precinct series. He wrote Cop Hater in 1955 in hopes of filling a void being created at Pocket Books by the slightly diminishing output of the prolific Erle Stanley Gardner. The 87th Precinct novels not only filled that void, they broke new ground, creating the first and finest of all police procedurals.

It seems old-hat today, tagging along with Carella, Kling, Meyer Meyer, Hawes and the rest of the 87th Precinct cops as they tried to solve multiple crimes so they could make it home to their sweethearts or go find one, but when Cop Hater was written, it stood alone as something unique. Despite it being imitated over the decades in various ways by a lot of authors, some of them very good in their own right, it still does.

In Cop Hater we are introduced for the first time to Detective Steve Carella, a mainstay of the revolving rotation of cops working out of the 87th Precinct that we would come to know over the next few decades. Carella was in love with the deaf Teddy in this one, and she’ll end up playing a major role as the search for a cop killer turns very deadly and perhaps fatal for some members of the 87th Precinct.

Set in the fictional Isola, which mirrored New York City, Isola is its own character here, McBain giving it a pulse and a heartbeat. When one of their own is slain, the boys of the 87th doggedly pursue every avenue they can to discover who is out there killing cops. The tawdry and seedier aspects of Isola’s underbelly is shown while we follow Carella and the boys as they augment police procedures with hunches and persistence. But two more cops are slain before Carella figures out almost too late, that this particular cop hater is hiding a lot more than a .45.

McBain doesn’t cheat the reader during the fast and involving narrative. We see everything the cops do, including an intimate scene we read as wrong as one of the cops does. Filled with humor and grit, and more than a bit of tenderness, Cop Hater is one of McBain’s finest, despite some outdated police techniques. Like John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series and Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm series, McBain always gets right into the story, and in no time you’re in Isola with Carella and the boys. You don’t have to start with Cop Hater to enjoy this series, but you don’t want to miss it either. A real winner.

When a cop is shot down in the street one night, the squad from the 87th Precinct in Isola swing into action. At first the reason for the shooting isn’t known. Was it random? Was it personal? But when another cop from the precinct is killed in the same way it begins to look like there’s a cop hater on the loose. Now Detective Steve Carella and his colleagues have two reasons to find the killer quickly to get justice for their fellow officers and to stop the perpetrator before he kills again…

First published in 1956, this is the first in the long-running, successful and influential 87th Precinct series. I read many of them in my teens, but this is the first time I’ve revisited the Precinct in decades. I have no memory of the individual plots, but vividly remember the setting and several of the characters a testimony to how well drawn they are. In this one Steve Carella is the main focus but as the series progressed McBain developed an entire group of detectives who took their turn in the spotlight, which is why the series is known by the name of the squad rather than any one detective. Carella stays at the forefront more than the other detectives overall, though, throughout the series. The books are based in Isola, an area of a major city which is clearly a fictionalised New York. The various boroughs have been given different names but are apparently recognisable to people who know the city (which I only do through books and TV or movies – I suspect my first impressions of New York may in fact have come from this series).

The style seems to me like a kind of crossover point between the hardboiled fiction of Hammett, Chandler and their generation, and the more modern police procedural that would come to the fore and perhaps dominate crime fiction over the next few decades. (I hasten to add I’m no expert and not particularly widely-read, especially in American crime fiction, so this is just my own impression perhaps other writers had been making the transition before McBain got there.) When he writes about the city the soaring skylines, the dazzling lights, the display of wealth and glamour barely hiding the crime, corruption and violence down on the streets it reads like pure noir; and in this one there’s a femme fatale who equals any of the greats, oozing sexuality and confidence in her power over men.

But when he writes about Carella and the squad his tone is warmer, less hard-edged. While hardboiled and noir detectives always seem to be loners, rather mysterious men without much in the way of backstory, McBain’s police officers are real humans, who joke and watch sports, who have wives and children. Personally I prefer that mix to pure noir McBain’s detectives aren’t always wholly likeable, but they’re human enough to allow me to care about them. Also, because he uses an entire squad as his protagonist, each individual is more expendable than the single hero or partnership of many other authors, so there’s always an air of real suspense as to whether they will come through dangerous situations. They don’t always…

The plot is excellent I won’t give any spoilers, but I will say that it was only just before the reveal that I really got any idea of where it was heading. McBain creates great atmosphere with his writing, which actually is of much higher quality than I remembered. Some of the scenes had me on the edge of my seat and he left me shocked more than once, but without ever stepping over the credibility line. In fact, realism is at the heart of the book these detectives have to rely on doing the legwork, using informants and hoping for lucky breaks. There’s a fair amount of casual police brutality, with the impression that this was the norm back then, and rather approved of than otherwise, both within the service and by society in general (and, I suspect, by McBain himself). Times change depictions of casual and repeated brutality by police protagonists in contemporary British crime fiction annoy me because it wouldn’t be considered acceptable here today and so jars as unrealistic. But it feels right in this book, and isn’t over-emphasised; it’s just part of the job.

There’s also a strand about the relationship between the police and the press, with an irresponsible journalist creating problems for the investigation. This is handled very well, with the reader put firmly on the side of the police. They may not always be nice guys, but McBain leaves us in no doubt that they’re the good guys. And yes, I do mean guys no women yet in this detective squad. Women are strictly either femmes fatales or loving wives and girlfriends. Well, it was the ’50s!

The ending has aspects of the thriller and again reverts to a more noir-ish feel as we discover the motivation behind the crimes.

I was expecting to like this but perhaps to find it a bit dated. In fact, I loved it. Writing, setting, atmosphere, characterisation all superb. While some of the attitudes are obviously a bit dated, the storytelling isn’t at all, and the vices and weaknesses of the human animal haven’t changed much over the years. Excellent stuff definitely a classic of the genre, and highly recommended to anyone who enjoys a realistic police procedural with an edge of noir.

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