Ed McBain is the only American winner of the coveted Diamond Dagger Award, and he is also a past recipient of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award. So, when a reader picks up the latest installment of McBain's 87th Precinct series, the bar is set pretty high. But with The Big Bad City, McBain meets expectations.

In the opening pages, Steve Carella and Artie Brown return to the department with 9 basketball players (the 10th player was murdered) only to discover a knife fight erupting in a holding cell. It's a steamy August night, and Carella and Detective Parker end up having to shoot one of the fighters to cool things down. Then Meyer and Kling enter the scene; they're hot in pursuit of the Cookie Boy, a thief who leaves chocolate-chip cookies at every crime sight. Before the interminable day is done, Carella and Brown are called out to Grover Park to investigate a homicide. A nun has been strangled to death, but she's no ordinary Sister. She's got signs of a breast augmentation operation that hint at a sordid past. Finally, readers are privy to a conversation between Juju and Sonny. Sonny killed a cop's dad, and Juju is convinced that the police will bend the rules to see that Sonny winds up dead. Juju insists that the only way out of the death trap is to kill the cop first. The officer's name is Steve Carella. And all of this happens in the first 15 pages.

McBain is one of the artists of the police procedural. Though his city is fictional, it breathes with the darkness and gritty reality of many American cities. He enters the minds and hearts of his characters to uncover the daily insecurities that accompany the work of policemen. Readers new to the 87th Precinct will want to venture back to such tales as 1956's Cop Hater, 1964's Ax, and 1965's Doll, among the 47 installments in this series. Those who've been along for the ride will be happy they did not give up their seat. --Patrick O'Kelley


From Publishers Weekly
McBain has been writing his 87th Precinct stories since 1956, but Isola's cops and crooks remain as fresh as rain. In the 49th book in the series, detectives Steve Carella and Artie Brown are searching for the killer of a nun. An autopsy reveals that the strangled woman had breast implants and an unconventional background, moving between her pious, charitable order and a freewheeling secular life. Other oddities are plaguing the 87th, too. The hood who recently murdered Carella's father is walking around loose because an inept prosecutor blew the case. Now the thug is stalking Carella, and Carella's sister wants to marry the prosecutor. Meanwhile, detectives Meyer Meyer and Bert King are tracking the Cookie Boy, a burglar who leaves a little box of home-baked chocolate chip cookies at his victims' homes. His crimes escalate to felony murder when he interrupts a tryst and things go very bad, very quickly. As always, McBain invests the many story lines with off-the-wall humor (nun jokes abound), a startlingly real cast of suspects and witnesses and a terrifically entertaining mix of cop dialogue, gritty city atmosphere and action. McBain is so good, he ought to be arrested. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
McBain is back with another 87th Precinct novel, this time concerning the murder of a young nun with a shocking past as a rock singer.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
When it comes to the voices of this city, McBain is the man with the golden ear.


From AudioFile
McBain's gritty 87th Precinct mysteries are noted for their clever plotting, ironic humor and vivid characters. This title exemplifies all these virtues, particularly as read here by the author. His voice sounds as if he's been ravaged by years of hard living on New York streets. One can readily believe he witnessed the three cases he reports herein--the murdered nun, the "cookie boy" burglar and the thug stalking the cop. His delivery is professional, but his authentic sound makes his technique seem invisible. He is not only one of the top detective fiction writers in America today, but one of the best author/narrators, as well. Y.R. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
Looks like more overtime for the detectives of the 87th Precinct. Only a few blocks from the station house, a nun lies strangled in a city parkand not just any nun, but one who shelled out $3,000 for breast augmentation only a few years ago. As St eve Carella and Artie Brown chase sister Mary Vincent's killer through the corridors of her past, another case blows up for Meyer Meyer and Bert Kling when the burglar the papers call The Cookie Boy (because he leaves a dozen home-baked chocolate-chip-coo kies at each crime scene as a thank-you) runs into a scene that ends in a double homicide. Meantime, Carella himself, all unaware, is being stalked by the street punk who killed the his father, beat the rap, and now worries that Carella will always be wat ching over his shoulder unless she pops a cap in him first. As you'd expect from a place as crime-ridden as the Eight-Seven, there's a little something for everybody. The case of the murdered nun turns into the sort of sober, expert, if not exactly dazzli ng investigation that McBain (Nocturne, 1997, etc.) could turn out in his sleep. The Cookie Boy caper, by contrast, sparkles like a Fourth of July skyrocket, then fizzles. And the plot against Carella will still have you sweating, though not really guessi ng, as you turn the last page. How spoiled has McBain gotten his fans? It's all too easy to forget that this mid-grade adventure for the 87th, his 48th, continues to set the gold standard for the genre he invented. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Asso ciates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Seattle Times-Post Intelligencer As good as it gets...compulsively readable.


Book Description
In this city, you have to pay attention. In this city, things are happening all the time, all over the place, and you don't have to be a detective to smell evil in the wind. Take this week's tabloids: the face of a dead girl is splashed across the front page. She was found sprawled near a park bench not seven blocks from the police station. Detectives Carella and Brown soon discover the girl has a most unusual past. Meanwhile, the late-night news tracks the exploits of The Cookie Boy, a professional thief who leaves his calling card -- a box of chocolate chip cookies -- at the scene of each score. And while the detectives of the 87th Precinct are investigating these cases, one of them is being stalked by the man who killed his father. Welcome to the Big Bad City.


About the Author
Ed McBain is the only American to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Association's highest award. He also holds the Mystery Writers of America's coveted Grand Master Award. His books have sold over one hundred million copies, ranging from his most recent 87th Precinct novel, Nocturne, to the bestselling novels The Blackboard Jungle and Privileged Conversation, written under his own name, Evan Hunter. He is also the author of the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Dragica.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
I've spent the last half hour trying to think of any other series of detective novels that have stayed as vital, inventive, and fresh as Ed McBain's Tales of the 87th Precinct.

I can't think of one that even comes close.

McBain seems to have two types of readers: the ardent fan who automatically buys every 87th for the pure pleasure he knows it will render; and the ardent writer who automatically buys every 87th for the pure pleasure he knows it will render — and for all that it will teach him as a storyteller.

Everybody from Stephen King to Tony Hillerman has acknowledged learning from McBain. As I've said before, McBain sets writing problems for himself that make most of us cower — and solves them all in great high style and with cheery abandon.

What is just as remarkable is that virtually every 87th has a different story engine. He's given us locked rooms, Sherlockian puzzles, dark and driven Simenonlike character studies, hostage drama (the entire 87th held hostage, in fact), black comedies, and almost merry murder tales whenever the Deaf Man hits McBain's beloved Isola.

At hand now we have the 48th 87th, The Big Bad City, and it provides all the same kicks, frenzy, shocks, comedy, and urban despair we not only expect but demand from the very best 87ths.

The story tracks are these: A lovely young nun is murdered. But what's this? A few years back she wasn't a nun at all. She was a high-living rock star. Curiouser and curiouser. Then there's the Cookie Boy, a surly lad so named for the cookies he leaves behind whenever he violates thelaw.There is, concurrent with both these story lines, all the great cop talk at the precinct, the personal preoccupations of the detectives themselves, the sardonic McBain take on urban exasperation in all its noisy and sullen splendor, and even some scenes in which our man Carella feels the hot, murderous breath of his past on the back of his neck.

In other words, another page-turning, nonstop 87th one would have to put among the best of them all. A few notes: While the humor is sturdy and witty as ever, one senses that McBain holds out less hope for our urban problems. At least in this book, there's a cynicism that can't be mitigated by laughter. The Big Bad City is exactly that. The violence hurts, too. In earlier 87ths, McBain dealt more sparingly with violence, not so much in the amount of space he gave it, but in the way he presented it. Here, it isn't book violence — it's much closer to the real thing: brief, sloppy, ugly, and profoundly frightening. If anything, this enhances the reality of the book and forces us to look at it as a problem all around us.

While there are certainly some 87ths I like better than others, I've never read an 87th I didn't enjoy. McBain is the master. That he has been able to continuously keep his plotting unique and ingenious, his characters fascinating, and his famous literary voice (which includes the ultimate no-no, speaking directly to the reader) all at peak momentum since 1958 — well, as I said at the beginning, there's nobody else in the history of crime fiction who's even come close.

—Ed Gorman

Ed Gorman's latest novels include Daughter of Darkness, Harlot's Moon, andBlack River Falls, the latter of which "proves Gorman's mastery of the pure suspense novel," says Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. ABC-TV has optioned the novel as a movie. Gorman is also the editor of Mystery Scene Magazine, which Stephen King calls "indispensable" for mystery readers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The first thing you need to know about this city is that it is big. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never seen it. The next thing you need to know is that it's dangerous. Never mind the reassuring bulletins from the mayor's office; just watch the first ten minutes of the eleven o'clock news and you'll learn exactly what the people of this city are capable of doing to other people in this city.

This week's city tabloids depict the face of a pretty, dead girl who lay sprawled near a park bench not seven blocks from the 87th precinct house, while the late night news reports on the latest exploits of The Cookie Boy, a professional thief who leaves a box of chocolate chip cookies behind after a score. Behind the scenes, detectives Carella and Brown soon discover that this is not your average dead girl, but one with an unusual past. As they piece together her secrets, detectives Meyer and Kling search Isola's pawnshops for items stolen by The Cookie Boy. While the detectives are investigating their cases, one of them is being stalked by the man who killed his father.

FROM THE CRITICS

Deirdre Donahue

While the plot moves crisply along to a satisfying conclusion, what makes McBain a master is the way he brings characters alive with a few deft details. -- USA Today

Ben Greenman

Big Bad City [is] a worthy addition to the franchise. -- Time Out New York

Chicago Tribune

No one mixes drama, humor, and humanity as convincingly as McBain, who remains the master of the police procedural.

People Magazine

He is by far the best at what he does. Case closed.

Marilyn Stasio - The New York Times Book Review

When it comes to the voices of this city, McBain is the man with the golden ear. Read all 8 "From The Critics" >

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