King's Ransom

An 87th Precinct Novel, Book 10

By: Ed McBain

Narrated by: Dick Hill

The book behind the major motion picture High and Low, King's Ransom is the 10th book in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series. Here, McBain delivers the full-throttle action and suspense we have come to expect. When a wealthy businessman is faced with a kidnapping, the ransom could ruin his biggest deal ever—unless Detective Steve Carella can find the culprits before the kidnapping turns to murder.

©2011 Ed McBain (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“McBain has the ability to make every character believable—which few writers these days can do.” (Associated Press)

“McBain forces us to think twice about every character we meet… even those we thought we already knew." (The New York Times Book Review)

Dick Hill is simply the best

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend any book read by Dick Hill, this one is extra great because it is one of Ed McBain's better stories.

What did you like best about this story?

The terrific dialogue, excellent pacing and plotting.

What does Dick Hill bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Dick Hill is one of the two best narrators working, in my opinion. When he used to read Connelly's Harry Bosch books - he WAS Harry Bosch. No one since has come close to nailing the character and stories like Hill did.

I will buy any book or series that Hill reads. He is that good. He knows when to go big, pull it back; he understands the story he is telling - he's not there just to read a book and pick up a check. He is completely invested in every character and storyline.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. Absolutely.

1950s-60s Police Detectives

While out of date in dialogue and setting, this Ed McBain series tells human crime stories with creative twists.

Missed badly for me

While I have enjoyed all of the series I have listened too thus far, this story and the narration were just annoying

Seriously off

I'd previously read a couple of these 87th Precinct books that I thought were clever and entertaining (Fat Ollie's Book and Fiddlers). This one, though, is really awful. It seemed like nobody could think of a plan to deal with solving a kidnapping except by shaming a wealthy man into paying the ransom for another man's child. The police didn't seem to be doing anything other than abetting the kidnappers in collecting the ransom; not a stitch of actual police work or detection. The only suspense was whether the idiot police could manage to follow the kidnappers' instructions well enough to get the kid back. Fortunately the civilians took care of that matter themselves. Couple of cute twists in the end, but not worth wading through the muck to get there. I guess a lot of people liked the movie that was based on this, but I can only assume they had a bunch of really cute actors.

After decades I’m returning

Going through these again is like the first time and until this story most entertaining. Two of the principal non police characters are odious with no humor. Dick Hill is one of the best narrators. His presentation of these two was such that given the somewhat drawn out passages of these two I found myself forwarding through them. I’ll continue with the series because it’s great but unless you just want to say you’ve covered them all I’d skip this one.