Fat Ollie’s Book: A Novel of the 87th Precinct

Detective Oliver Weeks is fat, alright, and he’s racist, xenophobic, and a glutton, as well as having unpleasant body odor. Thank goodness he isn’t a member of the 87th Precinct. Unfortunately, he’s a good detective, in his own detestable way, and he happens to like Detective Steve Carella, who IS a member of the 87th Precinct. In this entry in the half-century long series, Fat Ollie is demanding Steve’s help. He’s unsubtle enough to keep reminding Steve that he recently saved his life – twice – so he and, by extension, the 87th Precinct, owe him big-time. What makes this a particularly appealing and funny book is the book…the one that Fat Ollie wrote, and plans to publish. This novel is beyond bad, and the reader gets to see pages of it and howl. Even better, it is stolen, and a criminal believes it to be nonfiction. Mistaken identities ensue, and cases intertwine, and Fat Ollie is on a mission to find his manuscript, since he only had one copy of it. While all of that is going on, and a murder is being solved, an unexpected relationship arises. This is a fun book, sometimes a laugh-out-loud one. Not bad for a murder mystery!

This is probably my favorite McBain novel and the horror show that is Fat Ollie is probably my favorite character. After catching so many glimpses of the obnoxious, offensive, and often hilarious Ollie in other 87th Precinct stories I was thrilled to read this almost slapstick rendition of a police procedural. I wasn’t disappointed. McBain always had a lot of wry humor but Ollie is just a walking poster boy for bad attitudes. This is a fast paced and fun read driven more by Ollie’s shenanigans than the plot (which is still entertaining). A must read for fans of the series. I liked it so much I bought it for kindle even though I own the paperback.

I have been reading these 87th precinct books for a while now. Haven’t bothered going in order, there is no need. But I do think this one was the best yet.

I must say that Fat Ollie is a caricature of all of the most racist, bigoted people you have ever met. If this bothers you please don’t read this. If you can accept this for what this is, this story is hilarious. While Fat Ollie is awful the come backs of other characters is great. Oh, and the police procedures are pretty good too.

Can’t recommend this book enough.

Generally, I have greatly enjoyed Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct books. Sadly, I cannot say that about this one. I found the writing style intrusive enough that I felt it distracted from the plot. While Fat Ollie and the other characters were interesting, I found it quite hard to empathize with his as the story’s protagonist. I think the author might have felt that the old “book within a book” idea would be enough of a hook to keep the reader interested, it just wasn’t for me. The presence of some familiar characters, and a couple of interesting new ones as well as McBain’s mastery of his genre was enough to earn 3 stars from me, but no more than that.

This book is for all Ed McBain and police procedural fans, but if you have not read MONEY MONEY MONEY you should read that first because this is a direct sequel. Detective (Fat Ollie) Weeks is the first detective on the scene to investigate the murder of councilman Lester Henderson, who was considering a run for mayor. The murder actually occurs in the 88th precinct where Ollie is stationed, but this becomes the next book in the 87th precinct series because Henderson lived in the 87th and (despite the reluctance of their lieutenant) Ollie decides to enlist the help of detectives Steve Carella and Bert Kling, with whom he worked in the MONEY MONEY MONEY case. The murder is solved in a straightforward way (with the unintentional help of the murderer), but that is background to the main story and almost incidental.
This is not FAT OLLIE’S BOOK just because he was lead detective on the case, but also because he had just finished his manuscript for the dectective story which he had decided to write during his and Carella’s previous case. As he was investigating the Henderson murder, his briefcase with his only copy of REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER (written using the pen name Olivia Wesley Watts) was stolen from his car. Thus, Ollie is simultaneosly trying to retrieve his manuscript and apprehend the murderer. We revisit not only Carella, Kling and Ollie, but several other characters from previous books, including the Reverend Gabriel Foster, and detective Eileen Burke, a previous love interest of Kling who gets assigned to the 87th in a move that threatens to complicate his relationship with Deputy Chief Surgeon Sharyn Cook. And we meet Officer Patricia Gomez, to whom Oliie becomes attracted in the process of Gomez helping Ollie solve the case. We gradualy get to read Ollie’s manuscript interpersed with the Henderson case through a clever device which McBain adopts which introduces another complication and very funny thread to the book.
Ollie remains his bigoted self, and this element plays an integral role in the story. It is carried to such extremes that it is at times hilarious, but not, of course, for the targets of his bigotry. And it does remind us of how such attitudes lurk just below the surface in many organizations. Before reading very far into the book I decided that it was to be read in a lighthearted way, sort of a parody of mystery writers, detective stories, bigots, racial agitators, drug addicts, and homosexuals. From this viewpoint, it was a fun, very fast read, while further developing the characters with which I was already familiar as an avid McBain reader. While I loved the cleverness of the idea of parallel cases for Ollie as the basis of this book, a few unanswered questions (which would reveal too much of the plot) and the (perhaps intentional) superficiality of the story kept me from giving it a five star rating.

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