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Amazon.com (ISBN 0684855127, Hardcover)Ed McBain is the only American winner of the coveted Diamond Dagger Award, and he is also a past recipient of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award. So, when a reader picks up the latest installment of McBain's 87th Precinct series, the bar is set pretty high. But with The Big Bad City, McBain meets expectations.In the opening pages, Steve Carella and Artie Brown return to the department with 9 basketball players (the 10th player was murdered) only to discover a knife fight erupting in a holding cell. It's a steamy August night, and Carella and Detective Parker end up having to shoot one of the fighters to cool things down. Then Meyer and Kling enter the scene; they're hot in pursuit of the Cookie Boy, a thief who leaves chocolate-chip cookies at every crime sight. Before the interminable day is done, Carella and Brown are called out to Grover Park to investigate a homicide. A nun has been strangled to death, but she's no ordinary Sister. She's got signs of a breast augmentation operation that hint at a sordid past. Finally, readers are privy to a conversation between Juju and Sonny. Sonny killed a cop's dad, and Juju is convinced that the police will bend the rules to see that Sonny winds up dead. Juju insists that the only way out of the death trap is to kill the cop first. The officer's name is Steve Carella. And all of this happens in the first 15 pages. McBain is one of the artists of the police procedural. Though his city is fictional, it breathes with the darkness and gritty reality of many American cities. He enters the minds and hearts of his characters to uncover the daily insecurities that accompany the work of policemen. Readers new to the 87th Precinct will want to venture back to such tales as 1956's Cop Hater, 1964's Ax, and 1965's Doll, among the 47 installments in this series. Those who've been along for the ride will be happy they did not give up their seat. --Patrick O'Kelley Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0671034731, Paperback)You don't kill a nun in the 87th... not and get away with it.One thing you have to understand about this city is: it's dangerous. Never mind the reassuring bulletins from the mayor's office. Just watch the first ten minutes of the 11:00 o'clock news every night and you'll learn in the wink of an eye exactly what the people of this city are capable of doing to each other. And 11:00 is when the city learned about a nun strangled in the park.Detectives Carella and Brown of the 87th Precinct catch the case. Who'd kill a nun? Why? Their search for answers will lead them far from the big bad city, into the South, into the past --- into a dark moment in the nun's life when she wasn't Sister Mary Vincent. It was a moment when she bore witness to evil.But Sister Mary's murder isn't the only think concerning the men of the 87th. They're also hunting for the Cookie Boy, a burglar who may have graduated from taking people's property to taking their lives. And sliding through the city's shadows is Sonny Cole, a thug with murder on his hands and the murder of detective Stephen Louis Carella on his mind. Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0671025694, Mass Market Paperback)In this city, you have to pay attention. In this city, things are happening all the time, all over the place, and you don't have to be a detective to smell evil in the wind.Take this week's tabloids: the face of a dead girl is splashed across the front page. She was found sprawled near a park bench not seven blocks from the police station. Detectives Carella and Brown soon discover the girl has a most unusual past. Meanwhile, the late-night news tracks the exploits of The Cookie Boy, a professional thief who leaves his calling card -- a box of chocolate chip cookies -- at the scene of each score. And while the detectives of the 87th Precinct are investigating these cases, one of them is being stalked by the man who killed his father. Welcome to the Big Bad City. (hämtat från Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:17 -0400) |
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