Customer Reviews

Calypso

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A really exciting, page turner book, till the end which was very unhappy and rather disturbing. The motive of mentally sick woman, and the crime she committed before she was admitted to the asylum , however imaginary, is very chilling and caused a 'riot' in me. As usual 87th presinct team make the questioning appear very exciting, Stephen Carella and others are brilliant. Buy a second hand copy as soon as you see it. The best amongst the books by McBain I have read.

I have read all of the 87th precinct books up to this point and I think this one is in the top tier. It starts off with the murder of a Calypso musician and his Manager barely survives.A prostitute is then found murdered in a similar fashion and Detectives Carella and Meyer are tracking down leads.Not to give away the story but their investigation leads to a chilling finale. One which I guarantee you will not soon forget. 5 stars.

"Calypso" is definitely an offbeat detour for Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series, pulling the reader away from the traditional environs of Isola and into a pair of unrelated homicides that merge into a race against time. But the story lacks the veracity and vitality of other entries.

A calypso musician and his manager are gunned down by a mysterious assailant in 87th Precinct territory, the musician fatally. Not long after, uptown, a prostitute is also murdered with the same gun. Finding the connection becomes the focus for Dets. Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer.

"There is nothing cops like better than continuity, even if it takes a couple of corpses to provide it," McBain writes.

The most interesting thing about "Calypso" for 87th fans is the chance to see one of the Precinct mysteries stretch well beyond its usual geographic confines to take in the greater metropolis of Isola, which McBain modeled on New York City. In this vein, McBain's description of Isola's layout is amusing, with its five boroughs and a long island unconnected officially to the city itself but serving as a kind of suburb, here called "Sands Spit".

Less entertaining is the story itself. The title is an odd one, without the usual 87th play on words (an orchid with the Latin name "Calypso" becomes a clue, but its a bit of a stretch this time). The humor feels tired, like when a prostitute confuses the words "minyan" and "million". Sleuthing is replaced by an overreliance on sex and violence, a sign of flagging imagination. The ending is abruptly jarring. McBain even makes a crack about "all the pieces in place, just like a phony bleeping mystery novel."

Published in 1979, "Calypso" came out the same year Evan Hunter - who wrote under the McBain pseudonym - saw his non-mysteries "Walk Proud" and "The Chisholms" make it onto movie and television screens, Hunter writing both adaptations. Whether that had anything to do with it, the mystery elements of this story feel undernourished. The identity of the killer is revealed too early and feels both implausible and uninspired.

On the plus side, McBain does keep the story moving even as it goes off the rails. There's the usual assortment of colorful characters; and amusing, welcome cameos by non-precinct stalwarts Monroe, Monoghan, and Fat Ollie Weeks, for whom this is one of his first appearances.

It's just that "Calypso" isn't the kind of 87th Precinct novel I'd give someone asking about those McBain books. It's atypicality is interesting, but a lack of focus makes for an unpleasant and labored read.

I agree with the other reviewer. This is one of the McBain novels that I still think about 20 years after reading it. I was literally shaking when I finished it.