Hark! - Ed McBain

Sadly, I appear to have read an entirely different book to most of the other people who've reviewed it online. I say sadly, because I thought it was terrible. In fact, I even thought the back page was dreadful. The opening line informed me that 'Gloria Stanford was very sexy, very rich and very, very dead.' I'm not even sure why I found that off-putting, apart from the unnecessary prevalence of 'very', but it irritated me before I even began reading. (Why did I read it? Because I'm a member of a crime fiction reading group and I always try to read the books they select, even when I don't really like the look of them. Yes, I do think there are probably better ways to ...  Read the complete review

Hark is one of the final novels written by the late Ed McBain shortly before his untimely death a few years ago. McBain, as well as writing several books under his real name of Evan Hunter, was perhaps best known for the creation of not one but two groundbreaking crime series; his Matthew Hope novels followed the career of a highly succesful lawyer and dealt with the American Judicial system very much in the style of the Perry Mason thrillers whilst his 87th Precint novels defined the way that Police Procedurals would go on to be written by many of the authors who followed in his wake and tried in vain to copy his success. Of the two, it was the 87th Precint novels that ...  Read the complete review

PADLOCKED PRECINCT When I was on Majorca in May, I had problems with my reading matter, I had finished the first book too quickly and realised after some pages that the other book I had with me didn’t appeal to me. Panic! The resort was too small for a bookshop but some supermarkets had German and English books on offer and I spotted the paperback edition of ‘Hark!’ by Ed McBain, fresh out of the printing room. Relief! I knew what I’d to expect and I also knew that I wouldn’t be disappointed. How come? I can’t remember exactly when I got to know the author Ed McBain, I think it was in the 1960s or 70s; although it has always been my habit to swap ...  Read the complete review