Fiddlers: A Novel Of the 87th Precinct [Hardcover]

MWA Grand Master McBain's 55th 87th Precinct police procedural suffers by comparison with 2004's Hark! as well as other top books in this iconic series, but still has plenty of good moments. A killer living the high life is exacting the last full measure of revenge. As his victims pile up, the 87th falls prey to the FMU or "first man up" rule. Since the initial victim, a blind violinist shot in the face, was done on the 87th's turf, all subsequent murders are theirs as well. More are not long in arriving; each victim shot in the face at close range with the same 9mm Glock. The whole cast of the 87th is stretched thin trying to track down clues in geographically disparate killings. This gives McBain license to update us on such matters as the romance between Bert Kling and Sharyn Cooke and Fat Ollie Weeks's courtship of Patricia Gomez. All are searching for the one lead that will pan out gold. While McBain siphons off some suspense by making the reader privy to the killer's actions, and his trademark dialogue isn't as crisp as usual, he still delivers dependable entertainment.
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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

MWA Grand Master McBain's 55th 87th Precinct police procedural suffers by comparison with 2004's Hark! as well as other top books in this iconic series, but still has plenty of good moments. A killer living the high life is exacting the last full measure of revenge. As his victims pile up, the 87th falls prey to the FMU or "first man up" rule. Since the initial victim, a blind violinist shot in the face, was done on the 87th's turf, all subsequent murders are theirs as well. More are not long in arriving; each victim shot in the face at close range with the same 9mm Glock. The whole cast of the 87th is stretched thin trying to track down clues in geographically disparate killings. This gives McBain license to update us on such matters as the romance between Bert Kling and Sharyn Cooke and Fat Ollie Weeks's courtship of Patricia Gomez. All are searching for the one lead that will pan out gold. While McBain siphons off some suspense by making the reader privy to the killer's actions, and his trademark dialogue isn't as crisp as usual, he still delivers dependable entertainment.
  (Publishers Weekly )

Over his lifetime, McBain wrote more than 100 novels, short stories, and screenplays. In these works, he helped define the police procedural genre with his gritty urban realism and flesh-and-blood characters. Critics agree that Fiddlers, his last work (McBain died this past July), is a fitting end to his long career—and a rewarding, if not perfect, cap to his 87th Precinct books. Readers familiar with this series will find the usual endearing characters and settings—Carella, his hearing-impaired wife, and their adolescent twins, and the fictional New York City metropolis of Isola. In a new twist, McBain examines the perspective of the killer, a tactic that sheds light on the latter’s murderous motives but diminishes suspense. All told, "McBain was a master, and his tales of the city are timeless" (Washington Post). (Bookmarks Magazine )

Ed McBain's latest installment in the 87th Precinct series finds the detectives stumped by a serial killer who doesn't fit the profile. A blind violinist taking a smoke break, a cosmetics sales rep cooking an omelet in her own kitchen, a college professor trudging home from class, a priest contemplating retirement in the rectory garden, an old woman out walking her dog--these are the seemingly random targets shot twice in the face. But most serial killers don't use guns. Most serial killers don't strike five times in two weeks. And most serial killers' prey share something more than being over fifty years of age. Now it falls to Detective Steve Carella and his colleagues in the 87th Precinct to find out what-or whom-the victims had in common before another body is found. With trademark wit and sizzling dialogue, McBain unravels a mystery and examines the dreams we chase in the darkening hours before the fiddlers have fled.

Ed McBain's latest installment in the 87th Precinct series finds the detectives stumped by a serial killer who doesn't fit the profile. A blind violinist taking a smoke break, a cosmetics sales rep cooking an omelet in her own kitchen, a college professor trudging home from class, a priest contemplating retirement in the rectory garden, an old woman out walking her dog--these are the seemingly random targets shot twice in the face with a Glock. But most serial killers don't use guns. Most serial killers don't strike five times in two weeks. And most serial killers' prey share something more than being over fifty years of age. Now it falls to Detective Steve Carella and his colleagues in the 87th Precinct to find what the victims' had in common before another body is found. With trademark wit and sizzling dialogue, McBain unravels a mystery and examines the dreams we chase in the darkening hours before the fiddlers have fled.

PRAISE FOR ED MCBAIN "Flourishing his style like trumps, the author can still send characters wherever he wants-to crack den, station house, jail, or church-and make them act and sound like natives to that turf. Imitators may come and take notes, but McBain still owns the old 87."--New York Times Book Review "Ed McBain [is the] godfather of the modern police detective series."--Boston Globe "Ed McBain is a master. He is a superior stylist, a spinner of artfully designed and sometimes macabre plots."--Newsweek "The amazing thing, beyond the herculean volume of McBain's work, is the quality of it. He has won every important prize available to a crime writer, and the 87th Precinct novels, upon which his reputation will rest, are as impressive a body of work as exists in his chosen genre, the police procedural."--The Washington Post "McBain is one of the best mystery/suspense/thriller writers of our era."--San Diego Union Tribune "McBain shows why he is a master. He makes another visit with the detectives of New York's 87th precinct worth it."--Houston Chronicle "McBain has a great approach, great attitude, terrific style, strong plots, excellent dialogue, sense of place, and sense of reality."-Elmore Leonard "The grand master of the police procedural certainly hasn't mellowed . . . McBain continues to hone his ability to effortlessly toss out memorable observations and characters."--USA Today "Imagine your favorite Law Order cast solving fresh mysteries into infinity, with no reruns, and you have some sense of McBain's grand, ongoing accomplishment."--Entertainment Weekly

ED McBAIN (1926-2005) was the author of more than a hundred books. He held the Mystery Writers of Americas prestigious Grand Master Award and was the first American to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Associations highest award.

The manager of Ninotchka was a wiseguy named Dominick La Paglia. Not a made man, but mob-connected, with a string of arrests dating back to when he was seventeen. Served time on two separate occasions, once for assault with intent, the other for dealing drugs. He insisted the club was clean, you couldn't even buy an inhaler in the place. "We get an older crowd here," La Paglia said. "Ninotchka is all about candlelight and soft music. A balalaika band, three violinists wandering from table to table during intermission, the old folks holding hands when they're not on the floor dancing. Never any trouble here, go ask your buddies up Narcotics." "Tell us about Max Sobolov," Carella said. This was now eleven P.M. on Wednesday night, the sixteenth day of June. The three men were standing in the alleyway where the violinist had been shot twice in the face. "What do you want to know?" La Paglia asked. "How long was he working here?" "Long time. Two years?" "You hired a blind violinist, right?" "Why not?" "To wander from table to table, right?" "Place is dark, anyway, what difference would it make to a blind man?" La Paglia said. "He played violin good. Got blinded in the Vietnam War, you know. Man's a war hero, somebody aces him in an alleyway." "How about the other musicians working here? Any friction between Sobolov and them?" Meyer asked. "No, he was blind," La Paglia said. "Everybody's very nice to blind people." Except when they shoot them twice in the face, Carella thought. "Or anybody else in the club? Any of the bartenders, waitresses, whoever?" "Cloakroom girl?" "Bouncer? Whoever?" "No, he got along with everybody." "So tell us what happened here tonight," Carella said. "Were you here when he got shot?" "I was here." "Give us the sequence," Meyer said, and took out his notebook. The way La Paglia tells it, the club closes at two in the morning every night of the week. The band plays its last set at one thirty, the violinists take their final stroll, angling for tips, at a quarter to. Bartenders have already served their last-call drinks, waitresses are already handing out the checks . . . "You know the Cole Porter line?" La Paglia asked. "'Before the fiddlers have fled'? One of the greatest lyrics ever written. That's what closing time is like. But this must've been around ten, ten thirty when Max went out for a smoke. We don't allow smoking in the club, half the geezers have emphysema, anyway. I was at the bar, talking to an old couple who are regulars, they never take a table, they always sit at the bar. It was a slow night, Wednesdays are always slow, they were talking about moving down to Florida. They were telling me all about Sarasota when I heard the shots." "You recognized them as shots?" La Paglia raised his eyebrows. Come on, his look said. You think I don't know shots when I hear them? "No," he said sarcastically. "I thought they were backfires, right?" "What'd you do?" "I ran out in the alley. He was alre

This latest in McBain's 87th Precinct series is possibly his last, as he died last fall. This time the detectives are challenged by a serial killer who fails to follow any of the established psychological profiles. Charles Stransky's variety of New York accents adds just the right flavor to the story. As the detectives, he conveys a no-nonsense directness. When portraying the other characters, his delivery of the multiple accents of the New York City melting pot enhances the story, whether the character is male or female. His interpretation of the killer is disturbingly benign, a characteristic that gives listeners the intended chill and keeps them involved to the end. S.K.P. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.