Friday, September 21, 2007

"Nocturne" by Ed McBain - Book Review

Another in Ed McBain's series on the 87th precinct "Nocturne" is a great addition to the series and after being somewhat underwhelmed with Hark! this book is a pleasant surprise. Typical of McBain's style in this series its a police procedural set in New York City with no clear timeframe (presumably present to mid 1980s could fit the timing). In an interesting mystery, the detectives at the 87th must track down the killer of an 80 year old former concert pianist and her cat (who unfortunately got in the way). We're lead on a great journey as Detectives Carella, Hawes, Kling and Fat Ollie Weeks track down the killer. As the story opens with the call out going out to Carella and Hawes to come and check the crime scene we start on a journey to find the killer.

This novel also follows another major storyline with what turns out to be a triple homicide of a drug dealer, a prostitute and her pimp. McBain lays out a gritty series of scenes and we see Fat Ollie Weeks chase down the clues to find the unlikely killers (yes, killers!).

Bottom line - this is a solid mystery and I'm now convinced that its worth investing the time in picking up more of the 87th Precinct series novels and following the adventures. Nocturne avoids the gratuitous subplots that kept cropping up and annoying me in Hark! and is a straight up hard driving mystery - well worth a read.

I'm still working on trying to refine my style in terms of providing you with great mystery reviews without revealing too much - email me at the address above and let me know what I could improve.


Want to learn more about Ed McBain's novels - here are a few useful links:
http://www.coffeewithcrime.blogspot.com/ Here is a great site with lots of back information on Ed McBain along with some links to articles that offer interviews with him prior to his passing away.
http://www.edmcbain.com/ The official site.

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