Customer Reviews

Alice in Jeopardy

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is the story of six days in the life of Alice Glendenning, a thirty-four year widow who has tried to maintain a veneer of normalcy in her life since her husband Eddie disappeared nine months ago while alone in a small boat during rough weather off the coast of Florida. In order to support herself and her two children, Alice has taken a job as a real estate agent until Eddie is officially declared dead and she receives the proceeds of his double indemnity life insurance policy. While Alice is understandably still griefstricken over Eddie's death, she is attempting to move on with her life for the sake of the two kids, Ashley, her ten year old daughter, and Jamie, her eight year old son who has refused to speak since his father's death.

Suddenly on Wednesday, May 12th, ALICE finds herself IN JEOPARDY when she is hit by a car driven by Jennifer Redding while she is crossing Founders Boulevard to have lunch after showing several homes to Reginald (Webb) Webster, a prospective client who she hopes will finally be the source of her first commissions since joining Lane Realty. After having her broken ankle put in a cast at the local emergency room, she returns home only to be greeted by her part-time housekeeper, Rosie Garrity, with the news that her kids were not on the school bus that usually brings them home. As Alice is trying to locate them, the telephone rings and a woman's voice says "I have your children. Don't call the police, or they'll die." Suddenly, it appears that ALICE's remaining hope for happiness in her future and perhaps even the children's lives are IN JEOPARDY.

At this point the storyline could be expected to follow the standard Ed McBain police procedural template, but in fact it heads off in a completely different direction. First, it is not an 87th Precinct story with Carella, fat Ollie, and all the other crime hardened detectives from THE BIG, BAD CITY, rather it occurs in Port October, a small waterfront Florida town with a small town police department typified by detective Wilbur Sloate and his partner Marcia Di Luca, whose efforts to find the kidnappers are initially thwarted by Alice's fears that her cooperation with the police will further endanger her children's lives. But more than the venue is different; the story is told from the various perspectives of several of the participants, often with long segments of stream of consciousness narrative to provide the historical background on the relationship between many of the characters. Furthermore, the characters keep proliferating. There is Charlie Hobbs, one of the few friends Alice can turn to in this time of crisis. Soon Detective Sloate and his partner Di Luca in a juridictional dispute with FBI Agent Sally (Balloons) Bellew and her partner, Felix Forbes. Alice's ex-con brother-in-law and long haul truck driver Rafe unexpectedly stops by and soon her sister Carol is on her way from Atlanta. Then, Alice is distracted by a threat during a meeting with Rudy Angelet and David Holmes, who claim they have Eddie's markers for a large gambling debt. Of course, on a parallel track we are watching the activities of the blond woman who picked up the kids in a blue Impala and her black female accomplice. In addition, there are much more detailed and explicit scenes of seduction and bedroom escapades than are usual in the author's work.

The surprise is that rather than being written as a straight kidnapping mystery - tense and deadly serious - this written as a parody, the police efforts almost seem like the Keystone Kops at times. The reader soon understands that it will be up to Alice to solve the mystery and rescue her children; thus the story's perspective is really that of a victim procedural. Furthermore, most readers will have figured out the kidnapper's identity well before it is revealed three quarters of the way through the story. And in another surprise from McBain, the reader becomes increasingly hopeful that rather than this story simply involving the solution of another case and the capture of the perps, it might somehow manage to conclude with at least some semblance of a happy ending for Alice and her family.

My decision to round my rating up to four stars was based on the fact that I believe that the author achieved his objectives and that the book was enjoyable on its own terms. The story was engaging, it was a very easy, fast paced read, and it contained abundant examples of McBain's insightful observations about the fragility of human relationships and attention to details during his terse descriptions of people, places and events. Despite my enjoyment of this story once my preconceptions were put aside about thirty pages into the book, I certainly hope that his next novel is a police procedural involving our old friends, the detectives of the 87th Precinct. Thus, if he feels that it is necessary to experiment with his successful formula developed in the almost fifty years since the publication of COP HATER, whether it is to provide a fresh perspective for his readers or to keep himself interested, I hope that he returns to the type of very interesting approaches that he pursued in his recent novels FAT OLLIE'S BOOK (review 1/20/2003) or the truly enjoyable and creative (if depressing) THE FRUMIOUS BANDERSNATCH (review 12/26/2003).

Tucker Andersen

I'll call it 3 1/2 stars on a fairly demanding personal scale.

There's a reason McBain has sold more than 100 million books these past 50 years: He's very good. The stand-alone Alice in Jeopardy is a departure from his 87th Precinct series but not really a departure from the kind of novel he normally writes. It has perhaps a few more comedic moments, but all the essentials of a good crime novel remain. Scammers, cops and a streamlined story that never relents from barreling forward page after page after page.

I won't bother recapping the plot (details can be found in the product description and other editorial reviews). McBain has clearly recycled some of his previous research: $250,000 in counterfeit "super" bills figure into the story, just as counterfeit bills figured prominently in Money, Money, Money, his 87th Precinct effort from a few years back. I will say that McBain -- largely through sparkling dialogue -- gets a lot of mileage out of a fairly thin plot and very little violence. The only criticisms I have are that a couple of the characters seem superfluous; the plot isn't nearly as complex as many of McBain's other novels, where parallel storylines come together elegantly in the end; and the identity of the kidnapper (the mastermind, anyway) is hardly a tough puzzle to crack. Also, he takes several cheap shots at the Bush administration, which sounded more to me like author intrusion rather than genuine characterization. Still, like most of his many dozens of previous novels, Alice is a brisk, compelling read.

In my view, McBain's writing peaked from about the early 1980s to the mid-1990s -- the 87th Precinct novels from that period are astonishingly good, and the Matthew Hope books remain terribly underappreciated. I've read about 40 of his novels, and I'd say that in the whole of the five-decade-long McBain canon, Alice ranks somewhere in the middle. Not great, but pretty good.

This book was to be the start of a new series of mysteries by Ed McBain - but, alas, he passed away in 2005 after only completing this volume.

This book studies the crime from the perspective of the victim, Alice Glendenning, who must take charge of her life when her two children are kidnapped and held for ransom. Alice and her sister are well-drawn characters as is her sister's husband, Rafe, a truck driver and ex-convict. The plot is clever and the clues are difficult to spot and the mystery and the ending are very satisfying.

I will miss Ed McBain/Evan Hunter very much.

My father introduced me to Ed McBain's 87th precinct books before I was in junior high, and I have been a fan ever since. My bookselves are filled with more than fifty McBain and a dozen Evan Hunter books. He is one of the most prolific writers of the last half century, working in several genres and multiple series under his own name, Evan Hunter, and his more well known Ed McBain, so one might expect an occasional weak effort, but that is why he remains on the top of my list, he has never faltered, not once. His dialogue is deft, characters ring true and plotting is masterful. Can you ask for more in an entertaining read? Easily the equal of Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen and George Pelecanos. Alice in Jeopardy is admittedly a little different, but that is why it is a five star, McBain doesn't wear a path through the same material, he always moves on to new and maybe better stuff. I hope he continues for another half century, and I will be looking forward to the next, McBain, or Hunter with equal anticipation,

I saw this book on the shelve. It said Ed McBain, it was a new title. I got it. I packed it in my briefcase to take on the plane the next day. On the plane I leaned back, got out the book and was looking forward to see what the crowd at the 87th was up to now. Imagine my surpise when I didn't get immediately transported to New York (the plane didn't go there either).

Instead I went to Cape October, Florida (no the plane didn't go there either). At Cape October I met Alice Glendenning who was not having a good time in her life. Let's see, there's her husband, fallen off of his sailboat and presumed dead; there's the insurance company, not paying her husband's life insurance; there's her ankle, broken; there are her two kids, kidnapped -- and that's just up to page 20.

So what can Alice do but go visit her artist friend Charlie. Then the cops show up, they're the Cape October cops, but they were trained at the Keystone Cops School of Ineptness. Then the FBI (kidnapping is a Federal offense) shows up. They were trained in fighting turf wars.

My disappointment at not having a visit with the guys down at the 87th turned into a very pleasant Florida visit. I suggest you take a 290 page visit there yourself.

Some of the reviews are negative. I'm just a somebody in a small town who really enjoyed this book. Many twists and turns that make it a page turner. A real delight.

Alice Glendenning's husband died tragically in a boating accident eight months ago. She struggles while the insurance company reviews the claim on Eddie's double indemnity policy in the event of an accident. She deals with her grief as she struggles to provide for her two children. Alice has taken on a job as a real estate agent but not seem to have the talent for it. One day her two children do not come home from school. She receives a phone call not to call the police. You can feel the panic and her anger rise as Alice deals with the police, the FBI, her neighbors, reporters, and others. Alice is frustrated by the local police efforts. Mrs. Garrity, her housekeeper seems to speak up at every opportunity to every police and FBI investigator. Her brother in-law Rafe, an ex-con unexpectedly appears on the scene. Jennifer Redding, the woman who ran into Alice with her car seems all too eager to be friends with Alice. Alice receives the shock of a life-time when she discovers who took her children. This is a fast paced, well-written crime novel that will keep your attention to the last page.

Someone should notify Ed McBain that Mary Higgins Clark has written a book called ALICE IN JEOPARDY and put his name to it. I couldn't believe while reading it that hardnosed Ed McBain, author of the 87th Precinct series, had written it. The plot is absurd, the character treatment unbelievable, and anyone who reads it through without knowing halfway through who the kidnapper is must be looney. I had to run to the library as quickly as I could, return ALICE, and pick up a good 87th Precinct story to remove this one from my mind.

In Alice in Jeopardy, talented author Ed McBain turns a tried-and-true formula on its head to create an interesting and compelling story. Instead of having a hero cop or PI, use the victim as the heroine . . . after bashing her with all the grief she can possibly take.

Life has been hard for Alice Glendenning. Her husband was swept overboard while sailing alone in a storm, leaving her to raise their two children. After eight months, she's in a bind. She's about out of money, the insurance company is balking about paying, and she hasn't been able to sell any houses since she became a realtor.

Then things get worse. A careless driver breaks Alice's foot. And Alice arrives home to find that her children never arrived home from school. After frantic calls, she's frightened . . . but not as much as she is after a woman calls to demand $250,000 in ransom . . . or her children will be killed. Bring in the police . . . and the same threat is made. Where is Alice to find even $5?

At that point the story makes a sharp turn. It turns into burlesque. "Helpful" friends decide to call the authorities . . . and Alice tries to fend them off. Pretty soon her living room is filled with unwanted "help" who seem to make matters worse. It's like a living nightmare as the kidnappers are soon aware that Alice hasn't followed orders. Will the FBI find her children first?

I found that treating a crime investigation as a spoof detracted from what was a pretty good serious plot. I didn't expect to find Carl Hiaasen in the middle of the book, and the arrival of McBain in that dress didn't always please me.

The book's other problem is that the identity of the kidnappers is a little too easy to figure out. I cannot quite identify why it was so obvious, but I didn't find much suspense in the story as a result. If you can keep an open mind about the kidnapping, you'll enjoy the book at lot more than I did.

If you want to enjoy a satirical story about how a woman saves her family, you could do worse than pick this book.

Alice Glendenning is having a bad life in "Alice in Jeopardy," by Ed McBain. Her husband, Eddie, accidentally drowned eight months earlier while sailing on his boat, leaving his wife with two young kids to support. Alice's son, Jamie, has not spoken a word since his father died. Since Eddie's body was never recovered, the life insurance company has so far refused to pay out the substantial settlement that Alice is expecting. In addition, a woman recently ran over Alice's foot with her car, breaking Alice's ankle. Now, Alice's savings are almost all gone and she is trying to make ends meet by selling houses. Unfortunately, as yet, she hasn't sold a single home. Can things get any worse?

It turns out that they can. One day, instead of going home on the school bus, Alice's kids get into a car with a strange woman. Alice later gets a call from a kidnapper who says that she has the kids, and that she will kill them if Alice doesn't turn over a large ransom. When the police and the FBI come calling, they turn out to be clumsy and ineffectual, and Alice is terrified that her kids will die.

Ed McBain's cynicism and dry sense of humor are on full display in this breezy and fast moving crime novel. The cops resemble the Keystone variety; although they mean well, their ineptitude and bungling may lead to disaster. Alice is a smart woman with good instincts and a fierce love for her children. She correctly concludes that the police are more of a hindrance than a help. Alice's low-life brother in law, Rafe, an ex-con, makes an appearance, and she gets moral support from her friend, Charlie, and her sister, Carol. However, when push comes to shove, Alice feels that she is all alone in the world and she may have to solve this crime herself if she is ever to see her kids again.

"Alice in Jeopardy" is not a great novel. The characters are hastily drawn, the plot has several predictable elements, and the story line has one too many illogical twists and turns. However, McBain can write a decent novel in his sleep, and he manages to keep everything going with witty dialogue, lots of action, and a satirical look at the way that some law enforcement officers and members of the media put their own interests ahead of helping others. I have always suspected that McBain is a bit of a misanthrope, and "Alice in Jeopardy" once again supports McBain's thesis that it is impossible to overestimate people's greed, selfishness, and stupidity.