Kiss

by Ed McBain

Overview

Emma Bowles, wife of successful businessman Martin Bowles, discovers that her life is in danger. To ease her mind, Martin hires Denker, an out-of-town bodyguard, to protect her from harm. Which is good—except she suffers two near-fatal accidents on Denker’s watch. Unsure of anything anymore, she does the only sensible thing a damsel in distress can do: she calls on the detectives of the 87th Precinct.

Detectives Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer are quickly suspicious of the entire setup—and of Denker in particular. Meanwhile the dramatic events surrounding the murder of Carella’s father are finally revealed…Torn between personal tragedy and the day-to-day of his job, Carella struggles to find an attempted murderer while he desperately searches for the solace he needs to carry on.

A fascinating performance from crime fiction icon Ed McBain, Kiss takes the gritty glare of his famed 87th Precinct and focuses intensely on personal struggles as well as the nature of justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612181721
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	03/27/2012
Series:	87th Precinct Series , #44
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ed McBain was one of the pen names of successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926 – 2005). Debuting in 1956, the popular 87th Precinct is one of the longest running crime series ever published, featuring over fifty novels, and is hailed as “one of the great literary accomplishments of the last half-century.” McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain.

Editorial Reviews

Along with his bleak sermon on the collapse of urban civilization, the author delivers the rest of the goods: wired action scenes, dialogue that breathes, characters with heart and characters who eat those hearts, and glints of unforgiving humor. And this time, besides the usual masterly display of police procedures, there is also the grim pleasure of watching the criminal court at work. Call it Isola or call it hell, Ed McBain owns this turf.
— The New York Times

Marilyn Stasio

McBain's new 87th Precinct installment, less ambitiously multi-plotted than some recent entries, has just two very different narratives, delivered in alternating chunks. Plot One, picking up where Widows (1991) left off, is the trial of the psychopath-punk who killed Detective Steve Carella's old baker-father in a brutal holdup. Although not completely convincing in some of its courtroom details, and a bit crude in its attempt to echo recent news events involving racial tension, this is solid, plain, streetwise McBain—familiar but effective in dramatizing law-and-order issues. Plot Two is a sex-triangle melodrama, initially intriguing but ultimately irritating and artificial in the made-for-cable-TV (not HBO) manner. Someone is trying to kill rich, beautiful Emma Bowles. Is it her stockbroker- husband? And can she trust the handsome private eye her husband has hired to "protect" her? The outcome, which involves sleazy, illicit romance and a contrived twist, is neither surprising nor satisfying. In sum: so-so McBain, with too much attempted glitz and not enough old-fashioned personality and legwork. (Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection for April)

Kirkus Reviews