Showing results by author "Ed McBain" in All Categories

At midnight, one day dies as another comes to life. For the men of the 87th Precinct, they all bleed together in a never-ending cycle of crime and punishment. But every now and then, a day stands out as more unusual than the others. This is one of those days. Carella and Hawes investigate a murder; Kling delves into a store-front church bombing; Meyer checks out a house haunted by larcenous ghosts; Willis and Genero look into a naked hippie’s four-story death fall; Delgado takes an assault case in the Puerto Rican barrio; and Kapek hunts a man and woman mugging team.

Christmas is coming. But erudite attorney Gerry Fletcher got his present early: His wife’s body with a knife buried in it. Though he shamelessly cops to being happy she’s dead, his alibi is airtight and all signs point to a burglary gone bad. But even when detectives Steve Carella and Bert Kling follow the clues to a junky punk and get a full confession, Carella can’t quit thinking there’s something about the case that’s as phony as a sidewalk Santa’s beard.

Two perps - one a serial killer and the other a rapist who revisits his victims - test the limits of the 87th Precinct’s detectives as they race to catch these maniacs loose on the city’s streets.

With his private-detective friend murdered and two Cubans leaving a bloody trail in their search for a mysterious woman, Matthew Hope must decipher the clues to save her - and put his friend’s memory to rest.

It’s bad enough when a warehouse goes up in flames, but when it leads to multiple murders and a slum redevelopment deal that has deadly ties running through the city’s underbelly, the 87th Precinct is back to work.

“Kill me if you can.” Local thug Pepe Miranda’s open challenge to the police has pushed July’s heat to a boiling point. His latest crime elevated him to the top of the 87th Precinct’s most wanted list, and now his dare is earning him street cred as well. With the city’s most dangerous gangs mobilized for an epic showdown, the fate of the precinct hangs in the balance. But Lieutenant Peter Byrnes and his detectives are ready for anything. They aren’t going to let a challenge like that lie - not from Miranda.

Selected Shorts is an award-winning, one-hour program featuring readings of classic and new short fiction, recorded live at New York's Symphony Space. One of the most popular series on the airwaves, this unique show is hosted by Isaiah Sheffer and produced for radio by Symphony Space and WNYC Radio.

Ed McBain's latest installment in the 87th Precinct series finds the detectives stumped by a serial killer who doesn't fit the profile. 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. 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.

He dresses in black and stalks the streets of the 87th Precinct. He is a shadow, always searching for his next victim. And when he finds it, all that will be left is a severed hand. For Detectives Carella and Hawes, this new killer is an enigma. He leaves no trace of his crime—no evidence at all. Even the severed hands have had their fingertips sheared off. With nothing much to go on, the detectives work off the hunch that the black-clad killer has a grudge against the 87th.

Detective Matt Cordell was happily married once, and gainfully employed, and sober. But that was before he caught his wife cheating on him with one of his operatives. Now Matt makes his home on the streets of New York and his only companions are the city's bartenders. But trouble still knows how to find him, and when Johnny Bridges shows up from the old neighborhood, begging for Matt's help, Cordell finds himself drawn into a case full of beautiful women and bloody murder.

A babysitter and the child she is watching are murdered on New Year’s Eve — just as a gang war over drug trafficking erupts and puts one of the detectives of the 87th Precinct in mortal danger.

A man armed with a shotgun is loose in the city, killing married couples. It’s up to Detectives Carella and Kling to find him before he ends the next marriage.

Murder is in season as a brutal winter grips the city. The detectives of the 87th Precinct must fight the elements and turn up the heat to find a ruthless killer.

When a bodyguard is hired to protect a successful businessman’s wife, the detectives of the 87th Precinct are brought in to investigate why she has two near-fatal accidents on his watch.

Finding a dead body was not unusual for an autumn night in the 87th Precinct. But this young woman's body was naked - and potentially related to the series of odd missives received at the station house. All signs point to the Deaf Man's return, this time with a plot more diabolical than even the jaded policemen could imagine. He's been sending them mysterious pictures of police equipment: nightsticks, helmets, black horses, and more. But what did they mean?

There’s a lot going on in the 87th Precinct this spring, and none of it is good. Jumpers on building ledges, a salesman torn apart by an explosion, and to cap it all off, they find the dead, half-naked bodies of Irene Thayer and Tommy Barlow in bed together. It has all the earmarks of a double suicide: a note, empty liquor bottles, closed windows, and the gas on the stove turned up. At least this one’s open and shut. Or is it?

I'm a Fathead, Men! I Am the Deaf Man! Unscrambling the cryptic messages -- anagrams, Detective Carella called them -- delivered to the 87th Precinct confirmed that the master criminal who has eluded them time and again is not only alive and well, but may or may not be behind a deadly revenge...

When Detective Kling’s blushing bride is nabbed from their honeymoon suite, the men of the 87th Precinct are out to help one of their own.

When three immigrants are found dead in a grisly tableau, a Florida attorney defends the man who insists he’s innocent…though he’s thrilled to see the trio slaughtered.

One brother lies dead while another brother sits in jail, accused of the murder. Only attorney Matthew Hope believes in his innocence - and he’ll have to rely on faith over facts to prove it.