A collection of twenty short stories from the legendary crime author and creator of the 87th Precinct series.Ed McBain was one of the most admired and prolific crime writers of the twentieth century. His long-running 87th Precinct series helped define the gritty police procedural. In The McBain Brief, he presents a series of short stories where desperation, greed, and violence lead to bad ends.A collector who loves his porcelain more than his daughte...

A "gripping" collection of crime stories from the author of the acclaimed 87th Precinct novels ( People).Ed McBain's 87th Precinct is "perhaps the finest police procedural series of all time" ( Publishers Weekly). But before he turned to novels, McBain wrote short crime fiction under various names, for pulp magazines including Manhunt and Argosy. Collected in this anthology are twenty-five of these early stories, organized under ...

A police detective hunts for a pattern in a puzzling murder spree in this mystery by "a master" ( Time).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 walking her dog. These are the seemingly random targets, all shot twice in the face. But most serial killers don't use guns. Most serial kil...

Police hunt for a perp who's picking off politicians in this "triumph" ( Chicago Sun-Times).The detectives of the 87th Precinct have gotten a call threatening the life of the city's parks commissioner unless a five-thousand-dollar ransom is paid. It seems like an obvious crank call. The deadline soon passes—and the parks commissioner is shot in the head as he leaves a concert.Soon, another anonymous warning follows and the deputy mayor is blown up ...

It should have been the night that launched a new pop idol. Tamar Valparaiso is young and beautiful, with the body and voice of an angel, and the stage is set for her to launch her debut album, Bandersnatch, on a luxury yacht in the heart of the city. But halfway through her performance, while the partygoers look on helplessly, masked men drag Tamar off the stage and into a waiting speedboat.Detective Steve Carella is just showing up for the graveyard shift...

This lively novel—the fifty-second in the award-winning 87th Precinct series—follows the exploits of Ed McBain's most beloved and foul-mouthed detective, Fat Ollie Weeks.All at once, Fat Ollie Weeks had a truly brilliant idea...But as any real writer could tell you, that's how inspiration strikes -- with the sudden force of a violent crime. Known more for his foul mouth and short temper than his way with words, Detective Weeks has written a novel. ...

Ed McBain concocts a brilliant and intricate thriller about a master criminal who haunts the city with cryptic passages from Shakespeare, directing the detectives of the 87th Precinct to a future crime -- if only they can figure out what he means.The 87th Precinct gets a visit from one of the city's most accomplished criminals -- a thief known as the Deaf Man. Because he might be deaf. Or he might not. So little is known about the man who is harassing Detective Stev...

It's not a mystery, it's a story of survival and triumph. That's what some people say about Romance, a would-be hit play about an actress pursued by a knife-wielding stalker. But isn't it romantic! Before the show can open, the leading lady is really attacked, outside the theater. And before the detectives of the 87th can solve that crime, the same actress is stabbed again. This time for keeps. A.D.A. Nellie Brand moves in for a murder conviction, but Detective Steve Carella is sure she's ...

It is Christmas in the city, but it isn't the giving season. A retired Gulf War pilot, a careless second-story man, a pair of angry Mexicans, and an equally shady pair of Secret Service agents are in town after a large stash of money, and no one is interested in sharing.The detectives at the 87th are already busy for the holidays. Steve Carella and Fat Ollie Weeks catch the squeal when the lions in the city zoo get an unauthorized feeding of a young woman's body. And then there's a ...

In the 1960s the masters of crime fiction expanded the genre’s literary and psychological possibilities with audacious new themes, forms, and subject matter—here are four of their finest worksThis is the second of two volumes gathering the best American crime fiction of the 1960s, nine novels of astonishing variety and inventiveness that pulse with the energies of that turbulent, transformative decade.In Margaret Millar’s The Fiend...

A jazz musician wakes up from a drug-fueled blackout to find a beautiful woman dead beside him—nude and shot with his own gun. In So Nude, So Dead, master of crime fiction Ed McBain (writing under the pseudonym Richard Marsten) delivers a lean, suspenseful noir full of desperation, paranoia, and the dark seduction of addiction. Framed for murder and hunted by the police, Ray Stone must unravel the truth before his past—and his habit—destroy him completely. Originally published in the 1950s...

A former PI returns to the field in this noir gem full of murder, deceit, and femme fatales—from the crime fiction legend whose 87th Precinct series set the benchmark for police procedurals.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 and took it out on the man with the butt end of a .45.Now Matt makes his home on the streets of New York a...