Give the Boys a Great Big Hand

You either like the 60’s mystery genre or you don’t, John D MacDonald, Mickey Spillane and Ed McBain. Some rough images, but not the gore and violence that mark so many recent mystery novels. McBain stands a bit apart from his contemporaries in his sprinkling of off topic dialogues that make you wonder if the record hasn’t skipped a few grooves, but actually brings you into a conversation between a cop and a suspect/witness. And out of the blue, a paragraph or two that sound more like poetry than a murder mystery. And that’s why I have read so many McBain novels.
In this one, it all starts with a hand in a bag. Throw in a missing stripper named Bubbles, a merchant seaman (also missing), another hand and what have you got? Obviously, another McBain winner.

I’m a big fan of the 87th Precinct series but was a little disappointed in this one. The story revolves around several missing persons and a severed hand that a police officer discovers. They think they have it narrowed down to two missing men and while following up on those leads they discover two more people missing. Who is the victim and who is the murderer, since it seems obvious the owner of the severed hands is no longer alive. A decent read, but it doesn’t build up to an exciting finish like others in this series.

In the world of 2013, if a policeman were to find a bag abandoned near a crowded bus stop, the first thing he might expect to find in the bag would be an explosive devise left by a terrorist. But in the simpler world of 1960, it’s only a bloody, crudely severed hand.

It’s raining day after day in Isola and the last place the detectives of the 87th Precinct want to be is out running around in the rain, trying to figure out who might be missing the hand in question. In due course, yet another hand turn up, apparently removed from the same victim. The lab determines that the hands were once attached to a large white male, but someone has carefully sliced the edges of the fingers off of the hands, so there’s no way of knowing who the large white male might have been.

Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes and the other members of the squad spend a lot of time chasing down missing persons who might be missing their hands, but without much luck. They also stumble over a stripper named Bubbles, who may or may not have anything to do with anything, but they will continue to push ahead until they find a resolution to this gruesome and troubling case.

The result is another entertaining entry in Ed McBain’s acclaimed series. As always, it’s fun to watch Carella and the other detectives at work, and in this case, there’s even a fist fight in the squad room. Any fan of the series will certainly want to find this book.

The 87th Precinct novels are written in the 1950ies through the 2000’s. Some reviewers write that the language is old fashioned – well, some of the early stories are 60 years old! The novels are short by today’s standards, more like a novella. They are a series, but you can certainly pick up anywhere in the series and not miss out on much. It would not be the same as trying to follow a Grimes Jury mystery or even one of Sandford’s Prey stories half way though the series. If you have never read one of the novels before and enjoy police procedural, there are none better than Evan Hunter/Ed McBain. Do yourself a favor and read the intro/forward. The background will be helpful (though not mandatory) to the uninitiated.

With regard to this particular story, it is fairly fast paced. Not my favorite McBain but I was kept guessing until almost the end. I would rate it 3 1/2 stars, compared to some of the others I rate 4 1/2 (only a true masterpiece gets a 5 star rating from me.) Not an absolutely “do not miss” but read if you love McBain or it’s 99 cents on Amazon.

Ed McBain is a great writer. Many current crime novelists credit McBain and his style. After reading a dozen of his 87th Precinct novels, this seemed a bit less developed than the others. The title was sophomoric, relating to a crime where detectives unfold the crime by finding first one then the second of the victim’s dismembered hands. This one also feels a bit dated because how women are referred to, analogies of great cities being like women, etcetera. Also references to a Hispanic cop of the era who wanted to be considered a credit to all Hispanics. It could also be that after buying and reading so many of the McBain novels, they’re not wearing so well anymore. It also could be the novel trudged along and then unfolded quickly at the end, almost too quickly.

By all means, buy a couple of the McBain 87th Precinct stories. Amazon often has several on sale as Kindle daily or monthly deals for two or three dollars. McBain on a bad day beats some of the efforts of today’s current novelists, the ones who work more on the book jacket promo quotes than the book itself.

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