He Who Hesitates

What can you say about Ed McBains 87th Precinct series that hasnt been said already?

He set the standard for police procedurals and over 57 books in the series always met that standard and most times bested it. Only McBain could make the weather a February snowstorm in this case a character as richly drawn as any human one.

And many times, he broke the mold like here. This is an 87th Precinct book, yet the people who populate the word of the 87th Precinct are only bit players in this entry. The star is a man who spends the whole book vacillating between going to the police and returning to his home in upstate New York. That it didnt feature McBains major characters kept me from giving it a higher rating.

This is the 19th book in the series, written in 1965, and it shows in the dialog, police procedures, and little details (75 cents for a Valentines Day card!) that bring a book to life. But McBains storytelling is as crisp and engaging today as it was 53(!) years ago.

‘He Who Hesitates’ is only 164 pages long, yet the story McBain tells is as complex and richly drawn as any two or three times that length. Thats the mark of a master.

I only have 6 books from this series left to read. And when I finish that sixth one, it will be a sad day indeed.

HE WHO HESITATES is one of the more unusual 87th Precinct novels, and I know a lot of people don’t like it. Several decades ago, as a teenager, I actually discovered this series through this book, and it was good enough to make me go back and find others in the series. I reread (and listened) to it for the first time since then last week, and I have to say that it is, indeed, a mixed bag.

It is told through the viewpoint of a character who is NOT a cop. The cops of the 87th are barely in this book, but it is fun seeing some of these characters (particularly Carella & Parker) through the eyes of another. By the way, if this paragraph means nothing to you, then I would guess the 87th precinct series is not familiar to you. May I suggest, find a copy of COP HATER, the first in the series, and work your way forward from there.

These days, I love this series not just for McBain’s terrific ear for dialogue and his terse yet sometimes humorous writing style. I also like it (at least, the early books) for taking me back to a time in police work when there were no computers, no DNA, no sophisticated forensics, no profiling of serial killers. It was also a time when gender roles were seen very differently, and race was handled differently as well. Yes, many of the characters depicted are what we would call sexist characterizations these days. But when the lead detective’s wife Teddy actually seems to just spend her days at home doing housework and raising the kids and wait for her hubby Steve to get home so she can put his dinner on the table…we are seeing a depiction of somewhat typical lifestyles of the time. Things have changed a lot…McBain’s books take one back to a time before the sexual revolution, before cable TV, before cell phones and before the world had opened up quite so much for women. I enjoy reading about the attitudes towards sex, drugs, abortion, homosexuality, etc. McBain’s books were once a bit racy…now compare any one of them to any episode of LAW AND ORDER: SVU and the gap is extremely wide in terms of what is acceptable to depict.

HE WHO HESITATES is a stand-alone book, because the main character is not really part of the chronology of the beloved 87th precinct characters. They do appear, but their stories aren’t really progressing in this book. We meet Roger Broome, a somewhat simple man who has come to the city from his small town to sell some wood-working that he and his brother have done. He sees this as an opportunity to get away from his beloved but overbearing mother, and he gets up to several interesting things in his time away. We get to know Roger pretty well, and get a very interesting understanding of how his mind works. He’s not the most amazing and fascinating literary creation…but I found digging deep into his psyche, his motivations and his actions always to be interesting. His conversations with several broad characters demonstrate McBain’s (actually Evan Hunter’s) ear for terrific dialogue and his ability to easily manipulate the feelings of his reader.

I think the reviews for the book aren’t stellar because this book is a departure and relatively little happens. If you’re really just looking for a police procedural, then this book will disappoint. But if you are interested more in a character study, you should find this brief book to be a pleasant diversion. For me it was a welcome, even if not always gripping, diversion in the 87th precinct blueprint (much like the earlier SEE THEM DIE book had the cops less front and center too). It is the least essential book in the series, yet I still like it because it shows that McBain was always exploring and looking for new ways to flesh out his world.

(PS: I read some and listened more to the Dick Hill narrated audiobook. Dick Hill has done many of the 87th precinct audiobooks, and they are generally excellent. I’ve heard other narrators over the years, but Hill does a better job of creating distinct characters. I don’t care much for his Meyer Meyer…but on the other hand he does a much better job with his female voices than MANY others I heard.)

A 1964 87th Precinct novel. I am going through the entire series in order, this is my first review.

This is an interesting read, especially if you are familiar with the characters. The other novels have the 87th precinct cops as the main focus, here they are reduced to near cameo appearances. We follow the mind of Roger Broome, a salesman in town who is drawn to the 87th for some reason which we don’t know. He seems a big, friendly fellow, he meets two women he becomes involved with. One is a middle aged red headed barfly, the other is a beautiful black cashier. Since Broome is white, there is a bit daring (for 1964) interracial angle. It ends on a very disturbing note. “Shotgun” a 1969 87th novel is another good one to have along with this one, you will know when you read it.

This is, by far, the strangest of the books in Ed McBains 87th Precinct series, at least among the ones Ive read thus far. While the story takes place within the confines of the precinct, only a couple of the detectives who normally populate these stories make even a cameo appearance, and they have no practical impact on the outcome of the story.

The tale unfolds from the third person point-of-view of Roger Broome who is visiting Isola from a rural community upstate. Broome and his brother manufacture handcrafted bowls and other wooden items and Roger is in town to sell them. The story opens early one cold winter morning when Broome leaves the rooming house where he is staying, intent on going to the police station. He has something to tell the detectives there. We dont learn for some time exactly what it is he has to say, but once he gets to the station, Broome gets cold feet and decides to delay going in for a bit.

He continues to delay for much of the rest of the day while he ruminates about who he wants to see once in the station and what he wants to tell them. Gradually, the reader learns what is on his mind and why hes hesitating so long.

And thats about it. The reader is naturally curious about all of this, but theres very little tension in the story and the book seems excessively padded with material that might have been designed to turn what could have been an entertaining short story into a relatively short book. Its not a bad book, but its certainly not McBains best effort. Readers new to the series would be well-advised to begin with another entry, and all but the most compulsive readers of the series could skip this one without missing much.

Have been a fan of Ed McBain for 50 years, and have collected and re-read all the 87th Precinct books during that time. Now I’m going back to the 87th – this time with ebooks. This is one of the few McBain stories that I haven’t really enjoyed, mainly because, although it’s categorised as a 87th Precinct novel, it’s not really about the characters that you come to know. It’s a different take on the usual format, but for me I wasn’t really interested in the main character in this, and wanted to engage more with the regular ‘bulls’ of the 87th. It’s not badly written, the story’s as well constructed as you would expect from McBain, but if it was the first 87th Precinct I’d picked up, I’d not be too engaged to pick up another. An interesting read if you know the 87th – but not the usual page turner. I can usually read an 87th in one sitting – it took several attempts to get through this one, I’m afraid.

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