Synopses & Reviews
The heroes of the city's streets become the hunted in this crime fiction classic Ed McBain's first 87th Precinct novel!
Swift, silent, and deadly someone is knocking off the 87th Precinct's finest, one by one. The how of the killings is obvious: three .45 shots from the dark add up to one, two, three very dead detectives. The why and the who are the Precinct's headaches now.
When Detective Reardon is found dead, motive is a big question mark. But when his partner becomes victim number two, it looks like open-and-shut grudge killings. That is, until a third detective buys it.
With one meager clue, Detective Steve Carella begins his grim search for the killer, a search that takes him into the city's underworld to a notorious brothel, to the apartment of a beautiful and dangerous widow, and finally to a .45 automatic aimed straight at his head...
Review
"McBain has caught TV's semi-documentary flavor excellently. He's written a tough, sexy novel with inherent honesty and decency." Anthony Boucher, The New York Times (1956)
Review
"Ed McBain is, by far, the best at what he does. Case closed." People
Review
"McBain is so good he ought to be arrested." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
The pen name of author Evan Hunter (19262005), Ed McBain held the Mystery Writers of America's prestigious Grand Master Award and was the first American to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers' Association's highest award. The author of more than one hundred books, he passed away on July 6, 2005.