Jigsaw

When two men turn up dead in a sleazy apartment, one shot and the other stabbed, detectives Brown and Carella conclude that the man who lived in the apartment surprised a burglar and killed him, but not before the burglar was able to inflict a fatal blow on the tenant. It seems like an open-and-shut case until the detectives discover that one of the men is holding a small piece torn from a photograph. What could that be all about?

Shortly thereafter, an insurance investigator shows up in the squad room and says that the two victims were loosely tied to a bank robbery several years earlier. $750,000 was taken and is still missing. The investigator’s company had to pay off the claim and the investigator is still on the hunt.

It turns out that most of the men who committed the robbery are dead, but when they hid the loot, they took a photograph of the location. They then tore the picture into pieces and distributed them to trusted acquaintances as an insurance policy. The detectives now have one of the eight pieces of the photo; the investigator has leads on a couple of others and suggests they cooperate in finding the others and recovering the stolen money.

Well one thing leads to another, as it almost always does, but a clever killer seems to be one step ahead of Carella and the other detectives. Will they be able to recover the missing pieces of the picture, and how many people will die before they can?

This is a fairly typical 87th Precinct novel; it’s relatively short and a good way to lose an evening. The series has now progressed to 1970; the sexual revolution is in the air, and not all of the detectives are comfortable with the fact. This makes for some amusing moments is what is, all in all, another entertaining entry in the series.

This book, even though its the 24th in the series, can be read without the background of its predecessors. Jigsaw focuses much more on the crime itself than the detectives of the 87th, so theres no need to know about their personal lives and quirks which readers have learned through the series. The puzzle to be solved is definitely different, and it keeps you entertained. In the last couple of chapters, theres a character error that had me going back to do some checking, and that cost the book a star.

This came out in 1970 and Ed McBain enters a new decade of detective fiction.

Arthur Brown gets the spotlight here and he goes undercover after a double murder. It brings him into a plot involving a insurance investigator looking into a robbery from years ago. Several seedy characters are dealing with a torn photograph cut into jigsaw puzzle pieces. Brown is helped by Carella on this one and Meyer and Hawes have brief appearances. Brown is subject to some racist taunts here by some of the suspects.

The book is well done with the intriguing mystery of the puzzle pieces. The most interesting part is seeing each piece of the picture on the pages until it is finally all put together at the end.

In our fast paced world, the key to these books is to read them from the prespective of the time they were written. Ed McBain was the precursor to many contemporary mystery authors and it is fascinating to see/read the evolution, not only of plot lines and police investigative methods, but styles and methods of writing. He did a lot of research which undrepins the plots and makes many of his stories human and compelling. The plots are simple but there is sometimes a special twist. There is a lot of narrative describing the background of the era or the person, which sometimes feels like preaching but be patient. Slow down and take your time reading this series because reading them is a step back into a time not so long ago.

Good Grief, it almost seems I have been reading these story’s about a Police Precinct in a veiled city which has to be New York. It was nice grabbing hold of this, after a while since I read one, kind of like bumping into an old friend. Just enough mystery to keep you interested, not so deep
you get lost and if you are paying attention you can grab some info and guess as to some of it yourself. Nice easy read a good book on a flight or train.

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