Synopses & Reviews
In this city, you can get anything done for a price. If you want someone's eyeglasses smashed, it'll cost you a subway token. You want his fingernails pulled out? His legs broken? You want him hurt so bad he's an invalid his whole life? You want him...killed? Let me talk to someone. It can be done.
The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby little apartment in a meager section of the 87th Precinct is nothing much in this city, especially to detectives Carella and Meyer. But everyone has a story, and this old man's story stood to make some people a lot of money. His story takes Carella, Meyer, Brown, and Weeks on a search through Isola's seedy strip clubs and to the bright lights of the theater district. There they discover an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug -- and a killer who stays until the last dance.
Review
The New York Times Book ReviewThe real achievement is how Mc Bain has managed to sustain the continuity of the series for nearly half a century without compromising his formula or sacrificing its freshness....Having stripped down and refined his language over the years to the point where it now conceals as much as it reveals, McBain forces us to think twice about every character we meet in The Last Dance, even those we thought we already knew.
Review
Larry King
USA Today
McBain remains simply at the top of his game....The Last Dance [is] a great piece of writing.
Review
Los Angeles TimesMcBain...retains mastery of words, plots, small tragedies, and still smaller triumphs.
Review
Kirkus ReviewMcBain plots masterfully, each new encounter winding the skein tighter...[McBain shows] matchless affection for all his detectives, the good, the bad, and the dyspeptic.
Review
Booklist[A] landmark series.
Review
Amazon.com
The Last Dance is so good it will immediately send you scurrying back for the [87th Prcinct novels] you missed...[McBain] is a national treasure.
Review
Barnesandnoble.com
Fresh, funny, lively, and literate.
Review
The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)
Airtight plot. Stun-gun dialogue. Morant wit. Start The Last Dance after dinner and you'll be done by News-at-11, which will seem oddly unauthentic after McBain's hyper-realism.
Review
"Ed McBain is, by far, the be st at what he does. Case closed." -- People
Synopsis
Since its 1956 debut Cop Hater, Ed McBain's 87th Precinct books have captivated readers throughout the world -- now celebrate a publishing event with The Last Dance, the 50th novel in the bestselling series!
The hanging death of a nondescript elderly man in a meager section of the 87th Precinct is nothing much in this city. But, as they say, everyone has a story...and the one about this old man stands to make some people a lot of money. Now Carella, Meyer, Brown, and Weeks search from the seedy strip clubs to the bright lights of the theater district, where they discover an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug -- and a killer who stays until the last dance.
About the Author
Ed McBain is the only American to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Association's highest award. He also holds the Mystery Writers of America's coveted Grand Master Award. His books have sold more than one hundred million copies, ranging from
The Last Dance, the fiftieth title in his outstanding 87th Precinct series, to the bestselling novels
The Blackboard Jungle and
Privileged Conversation, written under his own name, Evan Hunter. He is also the author of the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's
The Birds. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Dragica.