Great book

Wonderful start to the 87th Precinct series. McBain created some memorable characters over the years. Most of all he knew how to set the scene and make you feel what was happening. Great book. Look forward to reading the rest of the series.

I enjoyed it but I saw the killer's motive coming a mile away so the 'surprise' ending was no surprise at all. It seems like this series could get better over time so I will likely read 87th precinct novels in the future.

Stephen King brought me here, when he mentioned in one of the Bill Hodges books that Bill reads only two detective story authors: Michael Connelly and Ed McBain. I love Connelly's Bosch books, so I figured I'd give Ed McBain a shot as well.

I'm not going to judge the man's entire extensive catalogue based on the first book of the series, so I'll just say that this particular book was kind of rough. It's in that awkward spot of taking place in the late 1950s, which is not quite old enough to feel quaint and historical like the Sherlock Holmes stories, and instead just feels outdated. As advertised, all the procedural stuff feels very accurate to how it was in the 1950s, so even though the methods in the books feel quite outdated, my problem isn't with them. Sadly, the book's views on women are equally outdated, as they feel like they're in the book only to be effectively furniture, or to vex the main characters -- all men -- who can't understand why they're so mean or cruel or inscrutable in their mysterious femininity.

To compound matters, the actual mystery itself isn't terribly entertaining. Some lunatic seems to be gunning down cops in the streets, and the detectives of the 87th are floundering about as they try to solve the cases. Now, this is probably quite realistic, but it doesn't make for a terribly entertaining crime story when the cops are clueless for 90% of the book and then end up solving the case through sheer dumb luck. Again, based on stuff in factual books like Homicide, this feels like it probably happens quite often to detectives, so points to McBain for keeping it real, but in this book it just feels awkward and out of nowhere. Like McBain had a hard page limit and suddenly realized he was 5 pages away from hitting it and had to wrap things up immediately.

Still, problematic areas aside, I am a sucker for accurate procedural stuff and have been trying to find more of the good stuff for a while now, so I guess I'll give McBain a second chance and see if this was just the awkward first effort, or if the reputation these books have is overblown.

Very innovative, especially for it's time.

It is astonishing how much McBain's writing style changed, and how quickly, over the course of the 87th Precinct series. Because this reads nothing like any of the other books. Dialogue is clunky and abrupt, the plot has 12 kinds of loose ends floating about, and the location's kind of shoe-horned in at strange angles.

I've been reading this series since I was like, nine years old, a small and morbid child reliably let loose in the public library once a week, to drag home as many books as I could carry. I recently sat down and tried to figure out exactly how much of this series I've read (yes, I keep records; have since 8th grade), and it turns out: a lot. Except this first one.

That has now been rectified.

Really enjoyed this. Great change of pace book. I’ll definitely continue with the 87th Precinct series.

My first experience of the 87th Precinct novels was good fun, unexpected in its style and content but an enjoyable read. Having recently read [b:Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets|18956|Homicide A Year on the Killing Streets|David Simon|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317793065s/18956.jpg|3187942] I felt that the banter and camerarderie of the station house detectives felt both familiar and authentic which for me helped to give the book the edge over continuing or giving up early on.

It's a novel that's nearly 60 years old now and it hasn't really dated which is incredibly impressive. Sure we've all become immune to being impressed with the forensic nature of police work after the saturation of our daily lives with CSi and it's clones not to mention the many books that are constantly written featuring pathologists, forensic experts, bone cutters and whatever else trashy authors like [a:Kathy Reichs|26372|Kathy Reichs|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1201288896p2/26372.jpg] and [a:James Patterson|3780|James Patterson|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1284492096p2/3780.jpg] come up with in an attempt to shift units. But Ed McBain actually explains it so that you can understand it, he includes graphs and charts to simplify it further and also adds a nice touch to the reading experience. I found myself rolling my eyes early on, as if I found his explanations unnecessary but then realised that actually I might have heard this stuff repeated ad infinitum but I hadn't actually learned it. A crime novel that actually educates the reader but doesn't treat them like a child at the same time? Cool.

The characters were not fully realised but you manage to a get a fair sense of who they are and of course it's counteracted by the fact that you know there are so many more novels written about these guys which will hopefully allow them to grow and add depth over time. In this way it really is like a fly on the wall TV show. I read somewhere that this was the basis for Hill Street Blues (which I haven't seen) but it has definitely leant itself to inspiring countless cop shows most notably in my mind is the show based on the [a:David Simon|11395|David Simon|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1271661731p2/11395.jpg] book mentioned above, Homicide Life On The Street.

I should note that it's actually quite funny in parts, like true human interraction tough times and the everyday life of work are made better with humour and the observation of the behaviour of cops gathered together is another high point for Ed McBain.