Fiddlers: A Novel of the 87th Precinct [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Ed McBain (Author), Charles Stransky (Reader)

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Product Details

Audio CD
Publisher: HighBridge Company; Unabridged; 6 hours on 5 CDs edition (Aug 1 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1565119894
ISBN-13: 978-1565119895
Product Dimensions: 14.2 x 12.4 x 2.5 cm
Shipping Weight: 204 g

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Stransky proves a fine choice as narrator of Ed McBain's final 87th Precinct novel. A series of killings has claimed several victims who seem unrelated except that each has been killed by the same gun with two shots to the face. The detectives of the 87th try to find the common thread linking the victims that will lead to the killer. McBain's fictional city of Isola has stalwartly stood in for New York City for nearly five decades and does so once again, offering Stransky the opportunity to show off the diversity of the city's populace as they weave in and out of the detective's investigation. Stransky slips easily into each of McBain's characters regardless of sex, age or ethnicity, keeping his portrayals grounded and real. His descriptive narration, especially when dealing with the murders and their aftermath, is delivered in a straightforward, just the facts, manner, that turns these passages into moving observations on the fragility of life and the finality of death. Fiddlers is classic McBain, handled with aplomb by Stransky, and though this may be the last case for the detectives of the 87th, at least it is a case of going out in style.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

A blind violinist is shot in the alley behind the restaurant where he works. A sales rep is gunned down in her apartment while cooking dinner. They are both killed with the same gun. Detective Steve Carella and his 87th Precinct team investigate. The case grows more confusing when an elderly priest and an old woman walking her dog are also murdered with the same gun. The killer, a seemingly ordinary man, is on a last fling with a call girl, who doesn't understand the darkness residing within the man she hopes will pull her out of the life. McBain has written more than 100 novels and earned more awards than can be cataloged in a brief review. His 87th Precinct novels remain the benchmark for both police procedurals and crime series fiction. Here he offers a proposition: with one's own end in sight, would there be any satisfaction in exacting revenge on those who forced your life off course? Say a teacher who gave you a C when a B would have kept you safe from Vietnam? McBain asks the question and--in making the killer something less than a monster--provides a provocatively open-ended answer. McBain just keeps getting better and better. This one will have readers waking in the middle of the night wondering if they, too, have killers inside themselves. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Amazon.com: 4.3 out of 5 stars (32 customer reviews)

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars God speed, Salvatore!, Sep 7 2005

By Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" - Published on Amazon.com

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This review is from: Fiddlers: A Novel Of the 87th Precinct (Hardcover)

Sadly, Salvatore Lombino, alias Evan Hunter, alias Ed McBain has gone to his just rewards.

No other writer has been as consistently good for as long as McBain, who started this series in 1956. Admittedly, I did not like the 87th Precinct novels at first, but I became hooked when I bought a three-for-one anthology at a booksale. Police procedurals stress plot over characterization and it took me that long to get to know Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, Cotton Hawes, Burt Kling and the rest.

McBain is a master at weaving together subplots, and FIDDLERS is no different. The detectives of the 87th are on the trail of a serial killer who seems to be targeting senior citizens: a blind violinist, a cosmetics sales rep, a college professor, a priest, and an old woman out walking her dog. We also get a brief look at Carella's personal life as his thirteen-year-old Twins are growing up. There's also some social commentary as Burt Kling deals with his bi-racial relationship. The novel ends with a hook, pointing toward the next in the series: Fat Ollie's love affair with Patricia Gomez seems headed for trouble as he turns to Andy Parker, of all people, for advice.

I have a feeling McBain was working right down to the end, as he often completed two novels a year, as McBain and his alter ego Evan Hunter. But if there are no further Precinct novels, I plan to start all over with COP HATER and THE MUGGER if I can find them. Although McBain always kept some 50s elements in his newer work, it'll be fun to compare the early work with his modern stuff.

God speed, Salvatore!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fiddlers is pure gold, Aug 30 2005

By Bruce Trinque - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Fiddlers: A Novel Of the 87th Precinct (Hardcover)

Fiddlers is the latest (and, given the recent death of author Ed McBain, presumably the last) of the remarkable series of "87th Precinct" police procedural novels -- more than fifty books published over a period of fifty years. The usual cast of detective characters is here: Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, Kling, Brown, Parker and even Fat Ollie Weeks. And as has been the focus of the last several 87th Precinct novels, the story is as much about their personal lives as about the crimes they investigate. There is a serial killer on the loose, but a serial killer murdering at a furious pace -- a new victim every few days, two bullets fired into the face. But what connects the victims? A blind violinist, a cosmetic sales rep, a college professor, a retired priest ... "Fiddlers" in the end is about relationships. Beginning relationships, ending relationships, relationships too fleeting to have a proper beginning or ending, destructive relationships, redemptive relationship.

If this is indeed the final 87th Precinct novel, then it was a fine note on which to end the symphony.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Star Finale, Oct 16 2006

By Kevin Killian - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Fiddlers: A Novel of the 87th Precinct (Paperback)

Though it had to be, what a shame to end the series on such a downbeat note, with Steve Carella's little April, once the apple of his eye, turning into a gang girl, and her opposite number, the boy twin, becoming a snitch, a rat, of the worst description, telling on April as soon as it's convenient. Those twins once were the highwater mark of cute kids in the detective novel, now they're just like slimy movie kids. Their mother seems incapable of keeping up with the changes puberty brings. Yes, she can sign "No drugs!" as loudly as she can, and it may work the first time, but eventually the kids will do their own thing, rebelling against the unusual home setup (obsessed cop dad and signing Mom) and wanting to be like other more normal families.

However, Ed McBain's tragic death deprives us of resolution, and I expect something in the man delighted in this, for he had a pretty good opinion of himself and, much like you and I, considered himself one of the great American novelists. Irreplaceable. I for one don't want any V C Andrews scam occurring to the 87th Precinct series. We loved him for his writing pure and simple.

FIDDLERS is pretty good and it's miles better than that wretched book where Ollie Weeks was writing a novel, remember that? Its lame parody of bad writing, presented in standard 87th Precinct facsimile form? Yikes was that awful. This one is much better, and although the actial revenge plot borrows quite a bit from Cornell Woolrich's two 1940s thrillers THE BRIDE WORE BLACK and RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK, the addition of the red-headed prostitute, Reggie, turns the human interest up a notch, so we become interested in the unlikely pairing of serial killer and call girl.

Why "FIDDLERS" though? OK, the first victim played the violin. Maybe there's some larger, overarching metaphor here. Funny thing that FIDDLERS should be Ed McBain's last book, while FIDDLERS THREE was the last play that Agatha Christie wrote. Nothing but a coincidence, but I'm just saying.

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