87th Precinct

1 primary work • 48 total works

Cop Hater

by Ed McBain

Published 25 June 1970

The heroes of the city's streets are becoming the hunted. When Detective Reardon is found dead, motive is a big question mark. But when his partner becomes victim number two, it looks like open-and-shut grudge killings. That is, until a third detective is killed. Swift, silent and deadly, someone is picking off the 87th Precinct's finest, one by one. The how of the killings is obvious: three .45 shots from the dark add up to three very dead detectives. The why and the who are the Precinct's big headaches now. With one meagre clue, Detective Steve Carella begins his grim search for the killer, a search that takes him into the city's underworld to a notorious brothel, to the apartment of a beautiful and dangerous widow, and finally to a .45 automatic aimed straight at his head ...

Widows

by Ed McBain

Published 25 February 1991

Give the Boys a Great Big Hand

by Ed McBain

Published 2 September 1975

All over town, phones were ringing. Shopkeepers and merchants were being threatened by anonymous cranks. And the threats were getting more and more serious. When the angry victims started yelling to the local cops for help, Steve Carella and the boys of the 87th Precinct didn't know what to make of the whole thing. Were they facing a plague of harmless pranksters - or the danger of a city-wide wave of violence? All they had to go on were the constant attention of "the deaf man" and the knowledge that if they didn't catch their cold-blooded callers before the end of the month, the prophecies of murder and mayhem might prove all too true.

The Empty Hours

by Ed McBain

Published 4 January 1977

She was young, wealthy - and dead. Strangled to death in a slum apartment. All they had to go on was her name and some cancelled cheques. As Steve Carella said, 'Those cheques are the diary of her life. We'll find the answer there.' But how was he to know that they would reveal something much stranger than murder? On Passover the rabbi bled to death. Someone had brutally stabbed him and painted a J on the synagogue wall. Everyone knew who the killer was - it had to be Finch, the Jew-hater. Or did it...? The snow was pure white except where Cotton Hawes stared down at the bright red pool of blood spreading away from the dead girl's body. Hawes was supposed to be on a skiing holiday, but he couldn't just stand by and watch the local cops make a mess of the case. He had to catch the ski-slope slayer before he killed again.

The Pusher

by Ed McBain

Published 25 June 1970

Two a.m. in the bitter cold of winter: the young Hispanic man's body is found in a tenement basement. The rope around his neck suggests a clear case of suicide - until the autopsy reveals he'd overdosed on heroin. He was a pusher, and now a thousand questions press down on the detectives of the 87th Precinct. Who set up the phony hanging? Whose fingerprints were on the syringe found at the scene? Who was making threatening phone calls, attempting to implicate Lieutenant Byrnes' teenage son? Somebody is pushing the 87th Precinct hard, and Detective Steve Carella and Lieutenant Pete Byrnes have to push back harder - before a frightening and deadly chain tightens its trip.

The Con Man

by Ed McBain

Published December 1963

A trickster taking money from an old woman for his own private charity. A cheater fleecing the businessmen of their thousands with the oldest gimmick in town. A lady-killer after the ladies' dollars with just a little bit of love...The guys of the 87th Precinct thought they knew every trick in the book - so why are there bodies still washing up on the shore? The Con Man: handsome, charming - and deadly.

Ghosts

by Ed McBain

Published 9 May 1980

Shotgun

by Ed McBain

Published 1 August 1970

A psycho has butchered a nice young couple and he's loose somewhere in the 87th Precinct. He has a name, an address and an identity. Walter Damascus is a third-rate lothario who likes his women well off, well built and dead, along with their husbands. Sooner or later he will surface.

Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man

by Ed McBain

Published 5 February 1974

Lady Killer

by Ed McBain

Published 3 September 1974

"I WILL KILL THE LADY TONIGHT AT 8. WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?" That's what the letter read. Was she that new hooker in town, the one who let her clients rape her like a lady? Or Lady Jay Astor, the sensual, bawdy songstress, who belted out the porno in extremely good taste? Or Mrs Bannister, a socialite mother who kept the purse strings too tight? Twelve hours to find a crank or stop a killer. And there would be no second chances for 'The Lady' if the boys of the 87th didn't guess right...

Lullaby

by Ed McBain

Published 25 May 1989

The Big Bad City

by Ed McBain

Published 15 December 1998

There's the murdered woman whose outstanding physical characteristic is her breast implants. Which doesn't surprise anyone in a big bad city like Isola - until they find out that she's a nun . . .

There's the nagging problem of The Cookie Boy, a burglar with a taste for chocolate chip cookies.

And there's Detective Steve Carella's own, personal little quandry. The man who murdered Carella's father - and got away with it - is back in Isola. And he's decided that the best way to secure his future freedom is to murder Carella too.

The master of the police procedural is back, with another masterpiece of crime, punishment and brilliantly observed mayhem.

Kiss

by Ed McBain

Published 1 February 1992

Money, Money, Money

by Ed McBain

Published 28 August 2001

Cassandra Lee Ridley is an ex-air force pilot who now scrapes a living flying low-level contraband over the border to Mexico. But, Cassandra has a taste for the better things in life and when she gets offered a $200,000 contract to fly what she assumes are drugs, she takes a deep breath and agrees to do it. The job goes perfectly, the deliveries are made and the money paid to the Mexican drug lords. One problem though. All $1.9 million dollars of the payment are fake - and printed in Teheran, of all places. The Mexicans soon want their money - and Cassandra is their first stop and first fatality. And when her naked body is thrown to the lions in a zoo in the 87th Precinct, New York, it becomes Detective Steve Carella's problem. Soon, the whole world has gone mad, the Mexicans are on the rampage, two beautiful blond girls are killing to their own agenda, a New York drugs dealer gets sucked in - and spat out - and even Arab terrorists make their own play...

Bread

by Ed McBain

Published 4 November 1975

It's the heart of the summer. Kids are playing in open hydrants. The water pressure is sinking, and tempers are rising. The cops of the 87th Precinct know that someone out there is fighting fire with fire. And as usual, its all about...

The Heckler

by Ed McBain

Published 25 June 1970

Eighty Million Eyes

by Ed McBain

Published 7 August 1970

Another installment in the enormously popular series of police procedurals set in the 87th Precinct finds detectives Meyer and Carella on the case of the televised death of a beloved television comedian. Reprint. NYT.

Poison

by Ed McBain

Published 1 May 1987

Detective Hal Willis is on a case with two dead men, a beautiful suspect and the risk of becoming her next victim.

Like Love

by Ed McBain

Published 13 August 1976

A classic 87th Precinct novel from "the undisputed master" (The Mirror)

A young girl jumps to her death. A salesman gets blown apart. Two semi-naked bodies are found dead on a bed with all the hallmarks of a love pact...

Spring really was here for the 87th Precinct.

Steve Carella and Cotton Hawes thought the double suicide stank of homicide, but they just couldn't get a break. Fortunately Hawes has something else going on in his life at the moment - something like love.

Killer's Payoff

by Ed McBain

Published April 1964

Sy Kramer was handsome, well-dressed, well-heeled - and dead. A blackmailer who'd pushed one of his victims too far, Kramer had earned his last payoff: a bullet in the head. Which of Kramer's pigeons had so much at stake that murder seemed like the best bet? Was it the politician's wife, anxious to conceal her shadowy past? Or the soft drinks king? Or was it that unknown victim who had fattened Kramer's bankroll by the thousands? Or perhaps another blackmailer muscling in on Kramer's territory? The boys of the 87th have a tough case to crack. They must catch the desperate killer before he or she strikes again, and Kramer's blackmail victims are decidedly unwilling to cooperate.