The Barnes & Noble Review
Ed McBain, author of nearly 50 novels revolving around the fictitious, gritty 87th Police Precinct, insists that there is not one definite explanation of why he chose the number 87. "No significance at all," he maintains, "except maybe in Hong Kong, where high numbers are considered lucky and where, I guess, an eight and a seven combined would be most fortuitous. I chose the 8-7 only because there was no 87th precinct in New York." With the Big Apple as a backdrop and plenty of prostitutes, pimps, players, and protagonists to dot the blotter of the 87th, Ed McBain took off on a mystery-writing blitz that has solved many a grisly crime and handcuffed legions of fans. Now the "best crime writer in the business" has produced Nocturne, his latest case involving the celebrated precinct.
Nocturne showcases the return of McBain's two most popular crime solvers, Detectives Carella and Hawes of the 87th. On the coldest night of the year, a seemingly destitute old woman is found lying inside the doorway to her shabby one-bedroom apartment, a shattered liquor bottle by her side and two bullet holes in her chest. The window to the fire escape is ajar, and Carella and Hawes assume the case is as open-and-shut as the window — a robbery gone wrong. It's never so simple, however, when McBain is at the helm. The mystery deepens when the dead woman is discovered to be Svetlana Dyalovich, a famed classical pianist fallen from her prime, when she had headlined in concert halls across the world.
Carella and Hawes embark on a hunt for the murder weapon, and the hand that held it,andit is a wild and shady ride through the backstreets and steamy alleyways of the city. Each moment the suspect list grows larger, including Svetlana's granddaughter, a tough, sexy lounge singer flanked by scowling bodyguards at all hours.
With classic page-turning flair, the author introduces an eclectic cast of characters, hanging out everywhere from trendy uptown nightclubs to seedy abandoned movie theaters, crack-dealers' alleys, and the forensics lab where the murder weapon is identified. When a young prostitute, her pimp, and a drug dealer are murdered, the hunt for the murderer and the connections between the pianist and the city's sin-filled underground intensify.
Carella and Hawes are working late into the night once again, much to the delight of McBain's legion of crime-writing fans, who visit the underbelly of New York City through the prose of his pen. In the world of Nocturne, darkness overtakes the daylight, and only some of the victimizers are truly criminals.
Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, will be published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com) in the spring of 2000.
The best crime writer in the business.
Packs a wallop....McBain is one of the best in the business.
Before this long, dark night is through, Mr. McBain will make us care about a 19-year-old hooker who is savagely killed in a gang rape, a pimp and a drug dealer who also die hard and 25 roosters torn up in a cockfight. Living or dead, even the bit players twitch with animation, especially the ones caught with their mouths wide open telling a dumb joke, getting teary over a Johnny Mercer song, arguing about a movie title or praying for their lives. The stories behind these bluesy vignettes of one night's life and sudden death in the city can be sad, sordid, bizarre or disgusting, but they are never not real.
— The New York Times
Another great yarn in a magnificent series....Stunning: flawless dialogue, superb pacing, razor-sharp humor, and characters that make Bobby Simone and Andy Sipowicz of television's NYPD Blue look like cardboard cutouts.
