Hark! and Fiddlers

Two more Ed McBain rereads. "Hark!" is the last Deaf Man book, where he gets his revenge on Gloria, who double crossed him in "Mischief" and made off with his multi-million dollar drug haul. He recruits another helper, a hooker this time, mistakenly believing she'll be stupid enough not to double cross him. He is planning on stealing a rare violin off of a visiting Greek musician, and he succeeds. Then Melissa, the hooker, steals the violin from him and safely makes it out of the country after shooting the Deaf Man. He survives, and even calls Carella to tell him who Melissa is and where she's headed, hoping he'll catch her. They don't, but good for her. You can't help but cheer for Melissa.
The last 87th book, "Fiddlers", was published two months after McBain died in 2005. A man named Charles learns he is dying of cancer, doesn't have much time left, so he exacts revenge on all the people who have "fiddled" with his life. He kills the Lieutenant who kept him from being honorably discharged from the Army, the girl who called him a faggot back in junior high, his mom who walked out on the family when he was 8, the priest who molested him as a young boy, and the teacher who failed him in high school and kept him from going to college, making him eligible for the draft. I kinda don't blame him. All his targets were mean, nasty people. Doesn't give him the right to kill, of course, but I can understand his motivation.
There are a lot of personal things going on in this book. I really wish I knew what McBain was planning on doing. It's obvious he figured he'd write another one, the way he left this one hanging. I'm sure there are notes somewhere that someday some dreadful writer will cobble together in a pathetic attempt to capture his vision. So, now that I've exhausted my own personal supply as well as the libraries', I will have to wait for all the others I've ordered online to get here before I can read some more. There are 55 total, and I've read 30 in the last 5 weeks. A lot of the other ones I've never read before, so I'm looking forward to those.