Showing results by author "Ed McBain"

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.

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.

Shot twice. Plummeted into cardiac arrest. Pulled from the depths of a nasty coma. Attorney Matthew Hope’s had a rough few months. So when a slightly cross-eyed beauty brings him a cushy copyright infringement suit over a similarly cross-eyed teddy bear named Gladly, all signs point to an easy victory. But before Hope can sue, he gets sucked into another case. The charge: Homicide. The main suspect: His lovely, cockeyed client, Lainie Commins.

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.

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.

Her name is Virginia Dodge. And she’s here to kill Detective Steve Carella. An ordinary day at the 87th Precinct is about to take a turn for the worse when Dodge shows up to put a bullet in Carella’s head. And she doesn’t care if she has to take all the men in the 87th with her to do it. Armed with a homemade bomb, a handgun, and a bottle of nitroglycerine hidden in her purse, Virginia holds the entire squad room hostage as she waits for Carella. And no one is leaving until he shows up to meet his maker.

A comedian dies on national television in front of 40 million viewers, and the detectives of the 87th Precinct must solve the puzzle of how he made someone mad enough to murder.

Detective Steve Carella’s sister is getting married but someone wants the groom dead, and Steve has just a few hours to locate the killer before his sister becomes a bride — and a widow — on the same day.

When a sniper begins gunning down cops from the 87th Precinct in cold blood, it’s up to Detective Steve Carella to solve the case. With three cops already dead, Carella delves into the city’s underworld to search for the killer.

Sarah Whittaker is a green-eyed beauty with a love for Danny Kaye and white knights. Lawyer Matthew Hope can see all this clearly, despite the fact that whenever they meet the two are under constant surveillance by the mental institution staff. You see, Sarah’s crazy… or is she? Sarah pleads with Matthew to take her case, claiming that her mother wrongfully had Sarah committed in order to seize her inheritance money.

Murders happen every day in the big bad city. They're not such a big deal, you know. Even when the victim is a city councilman as well-known as Lester Henderson.

But this is the first time Fat Ollie Weeks of the 88th Precinct has written a novel, ah yes. Called Report to the Commissioner, it follows a cunning detective named Olivia Wesley Watts, who, apart from being female and slim, is rather like Fat Ollie himself. While Ollie's responding to the squeal about the dead councilman, his leather dispatch case is stolen from the back of his car....

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.

“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.

With crooks to cuff and pimps to put behind bars, detectives Carella and Meyer of the 87th Precinct simply don’t have the time or patience to deal with a prank caller - even if he has phoned murder threats to two dozen local shop owners. What they fail to realize, however, is they aren’t dealing with a heckler who’s ringing round for kicks but rather a modern-day Moriarty known only as the Deaf Man - and these phone calls are just his first move in a calculated scheme to pull off the bank robbery of the decade.

A beat cop winds up on the trail of a deadly mugger, but when it suddenly gets personal, his own life might be the next thing to be snatched….

Six naked, murdered bodies on a cold January night put Detectives Carella and Kling in the middle of a full-on gang war and in a head-to-head battle with a mysterious criminal mastermind.

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.

>"I will kill the Lady tonight at 8. What can you do about it?" This is the message on a pasted-up letter handed to Desk Sergeant Dave Murchison at 8:00 a.m. The detectives at the 87th Precinct have gotten these types of threats before, but there’s something different about this one. Something ominous. Problem is, the city contains millions of women—finding the right one in 12 hours is like finding a needle in a haystack.

When a young woman’s body is fished out of the 87th Precinct’s river, a street-wise detective is on the clock to find the con man who killed her before he strikes again.

Her former lovers are dying one by one, and beautiful Marilyn Hollis is a top suspect. Smitten Detective Willis tries to believe in her innocence, until he begins to have his doubts.