Cop Hater (Crime Essentials) [Paperback]

ed Mcbain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2003 | Series: Crime Essentials

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 ...

Editorial Reviews

Review

Publishers Weekly McBain is so good he ought to be arrested. -- Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Ed McBain (1926-2005) was born Salvatore Lambino in New York. He changed his name to Evan Hunter and under that name is known as the author of The Blackboard Jungle and as the writer of the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The 87th Precinct series numbers over fifty novels. McBain was a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and was one of three American writers to be awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Orion Paperbacks (July 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752857916
• ISBN-13: 978-0752857916
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 0.7 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,331,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ed McBain was one of the many pen names of the successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926 - 2005). Born Salvatore Lambino in New York, McBain served aboard a destroyer in the US Navy during World War II and then earned a degree from Hunter College in English and Psychology. After a short stint teaching in a high school, McBain went to work for a literary agency in New York, working with authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and P.G. Wodehouse all the while working on his own writing on nights and weekends. He had his first breakthrough in 1954 with the novel The Blackboard Jungle, which was published under his newly legal name Evan Hunter and based on his time teaching in the Bronx.

Perhaps his most popular work, the 87th Precinct series (released mainly under the name Ed McBain) is one of the longest running crime series ever published, debuting in 1956 with Cop Hater and featuring over fifty novels. The series is set in a fictional locale called Isola and features a wide cast of detectives including the prevalent Detective Steve Carella.

McBain was also known as a screenwriter. Most famously he adapted a short story from Daphne Du Maurier into the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). In addition to writing for the silver screen, he wrote for many television series, including Columbo and the NBC series 87th Precinct (1961-1962), based on his popular novels.

McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. He passed away in 2005 in his home in Connecticut after a battle with larynx cancer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first and still one of the best in the series., December 21, 1999

By 

Joseph T. Reeves - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cop Hater (87th Precinct Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

First published in 1956, "Cop Hater" was Ed McBain's first novel in the long-running 87th Precint series, and it's lost none of its freshness or edge. The 87th Precint series is unique in its ability to deftly combine the police procedural narrative technique with excellent characterization. While there is not a disappointing entry in the series, this one is in the top five. While later novels tend to be more introspective and more indepth, the first several were lean, tough, and hard-hitting.

This novel introduces Det. Steve Carella and his fellow detectives at the squad as they try to find out who is murdering fellow cops and why. Although these characters will grow and expand in later novels, McBain ably sets the stage here, and truly hits the ground running. There is no awkwardness or hesitation as seen in other debut novels. As always, the strongest supporting character is McBain's fictional city of Isola which combines the best and worst qualities of several major U.S. cities, especially New York. McBain describes his city and its citizens with a palpable rhythm that stays with you after you're done reading. With such a diverse and fascinating backdrop to work from, 87th Precint novels will never drag. Truly a masterwork.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that aged well, March 30, 2000

By 

Old Fisherman "Jim" (Orange, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cop Hater (87th Precinct Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a reissue of the very first 87th Precinct novel written in 1956. It deals with three members of the 87th detective squad being gunned down for no apparent reason and how the rest of the 87th goes about finding the killer.

Crime novels in those days were less introspective and more lean so McBain wastes no time getting to the heart of the matter with the first corpse occurring rather quickly. However, as with all Ed McBain novels, the writing is crisp, the dialogue snappy, and though the page-count of these earlier novels was less than it is today he still manages to flesh out his characters and make them interesting.

Just as interesting is the forward where Mr. McBain discusses how the series came into being and how it evolved to its present form.

If you've never read this installment of the 87th, or just haven't read it in a long time, I urge you to pick it up. Ed McBain truly is a good writer whether he's writing crime novels under the Ed McBain alias or "serious" novels under his own name, Evan Hunter.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great airport read, December 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cop Hater (87th Precinct Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

I picked this up for a delayed flight. I have not read any of the other (50+? ) in the series and this caught my eye. It's interesting because it is the first of a very successful series set in the same 87th precinct in a fictional city AND because it was written in the 50s. Very atmospheric, 'book noir' feel to it. Read it all in one flight.