From Publishers Weekly
The virtuoso 55th installment in McBain's 87th Precinct series. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
In the newest 87th Precinct novel "the deaf man" stalks the city once again, playing cat and mouse with Detective Steve Carella. The action includes rap and rock concerts, sanitation workers, anti-abortion and pro-choice activists, and a host of the usual, unforgettable characters so well drawn and written by McBain. Colacci's timber and resonant voice exactly match what I think the 87th Precinct guys should sound like. He even manages the women well. This is a very good recording of a very sound police procedural. E.F. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
McBain's 45th novel of the 87th Precinct--and you can see that practice has made this latest not perfect but perfectly easy to enjoy, with--per the formula--several parallel plots, fueled not by their modest inventiveness but by the author's confident prose: McBain knows these cops and their city of Isola like Satan knows sin, and it shows. Even the chief villain is familiar: the Deaf Man, resurrected from Eight Black Horses (1985), etc., and up to his old trick of laying tantalizing clues to a big crime--here, excerpts from a scholarly work on crowd behavior mailed to arch-nemesis cop Steve Carella as the Deaf Man plans unspecified mayhem connected to an upcoming free outdoor rap concert. (In addition to tracing the Deaf Man's elaborate planning--including tinkering with the concert's sound system and stealing a garbage truck--McBain follows one rap group's prep for the concert, which flowers into a touching romance between a singer and a composer's widow.) Also on the precinct's plate is a series of murders of graffiti artists--with one of the victims being not the expected inner-city rebel but the respected attorney in whose closet the cops find a stash of spray-paint cans. And then there's the rash of ``dumpings'' around Isola of Alzheimer's sufferers, with all identifying tags ripped from their clothing. Several subplots--a hostage crisis; a clash of pro-lifers and pro-choicers that sees Carella's deaf-mute wife drenched in blood--add further gritty big-city texture, and McBain closes out the three major cases in clever, though not inspired, fashion: most gripping is the aftermath of the Deaf Man's big caper, a noir-style fadeout in a hot-sheets motel. Not up to the series' best but still steadily engrossing cop- fare from an old hand. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

ANNOTATION

Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "Dazzling, " Mischief continues McBain's bestselling 87th Precinct series with the return of his most infamous villian--the Deaf Man. Now available in paperback, this title follows McBain's New York Times bestseller, Kiss.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Deaf Man is back! In his first appearance since Eight Black Horses in 1985, the nemesis of the 87th returns with a vengeance. Zeroing in on Steve Carella, his favorite foil, he bombards the squadroom with directives that seem to describe in detail exactly what he's up to this time - but not quite. What he's planning is his most devilish million-dollar caper to date. In the squadroom, an otherwise slow March night is enlivened by the murder of a graffiti writer under a highway bridge. Over the course of several weeks, more of the city's outlaw artists are killed under mysterious circumstances, and a team run by Detective Parker begins to put the pieces together. Meanwhile, a new criminal activity surfaces: Someone is abandoning helpless elderly men and women at different locations around the city. As if all this weren't enough, racial tensions in the city are at an all-time high. While pressure mounts on various fronts, the city announces a free rap concert in the park, set for a day in the very near future. As the shattering finale of Mischief looms, seemingly unrelated developments intertwine in an ending that sets a new standard even for McBain's most discerning fans. It's been said that "nobody writes the police procedural as well as Ed McBain" (San Diego Union). And in his latest tale of the 87th Precinct, Mischief McBain proves his mastery of the genre beyond reasonable doubt.

FROM THE CRITICS

Newsweek

A master. [McBain] is a superior stylist, a spinner of artfully designed and sometimes macabre plots.

New York Times Book Review

Dazzling.

Washington Post Book World

Simply the best.

San Diego Union Tibune

Ingenious...richly satisfying.

Publishers Weekly