Whew, I have some catching up to do! All these books are of course by Ed McBain. And I found 5 more in my closet earlier today, so I'm set for another few days.
On Thursday I reread "Widows" and "Cop Hater". "Widows" was a really great one: Carella's father is killed in a burglary at his bakery, the 87th is dealing with a bunch of murders involving a man and his many mistresses and wives, plus Eileen Burke is making the transition from being a decoy to a hostage negotiator. Meaty stuff. I loved the little inside joke about the house being bought by the "Bordens" and then the floor plan being the same as Lizzie Borden's house back in 1892. Around the same time McBain wrote this book, he also wrote a fictionalized account of Lizzie Borden and the murder of her stepmother and father of which she was acquitted. I haven't yet read McBain's book. It's not easy to get ahold of, but I wonder how many people picked up on his little funny. Very clever.
"Cop Hater" was the first in the series, written back in 1956. Three of the 87th's detectives are murdered. It turns out it was the lover of the wife of one of the cops who wanted to bump his girlfriend's hubby off and make it look like an unrelated string of murders targeting cops. Brilliant.
On Friday I reread "The Mugger", the second book in the series. Eileen Burke makes her first appearance in this one, posing as a decoy to help catch a mugger who thanks his victims afterward. Patrolman Bert Kling is promoted to Detective after helping to solve the murder of an old friend's sister-in-law, who was just 17.
Saturday I reread "Killer's Payoff". It had a kind of "Murder on the Orient Express" theme going on, where a group of men kill off a blackmailer.
This morning I reread "Heat". An apparent suicide turns out to be a murder, and Bert discovers his wife is cheating on him. Ouch. To make matters worse, there's a man bent on revenge who is stalking him, and almost succeeds in killing him...twice.
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