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The Empty Hours

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"The Empty Hours" by Ed McBain is a mystery that contains 3 short novels of the 87th Precinct. In "The Empty Hours" Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer investigate the death of Claudia Davis, a wealthy young woman found dead in a slum apartment. In "J" rabbi Jacob Solomon is stabbed to death in an alley behind the synagogue on Passover. Carella and Meyer investigate. In "Storm: Cotton Hawes helps local police investigate the death of ski instructor Helga Nilson who was stabbed to death with a ski pole. All 3 of these early 87th Precinct novels are excellent. Ed McBain is the master of the police procedural.

As I ordered this book I did not know it is really three stores in one book until I received it. As McBain books are, to me, the three are good. The first one is "The Empty Hours" about a young wealthy woman who is found dead. Who is she and is she who you think she is? Why was she killed? Carella and friends run down clues until they find out. You will be surprised. The second one is simply "J". A Rabbi is found killed. Who would want to kill a Rabbi? There is a Jew-hater, was it him? Meyer Meyer leds the search to find the killer and finds something out about himself while doing. Again a surprise. The last one is "Storm". This one features Cotton Hawes and his sweetie going to a ski resort and an instructor ending up dead. Cotton is afraid the local police will mess up the investigation and trys to get involved. The locals resent him being there. He still gets involved and the killer is finally found. As three are three stories in one book they are all pretty short so it make for each one to ba a quick read. McBain will hold your attention and you won't want to put the book down.

"The Empty Hours" by Ed McBain is a mystery that contains 3 short novels of the 87th Precinct. In "The Empty Hours" Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer investigate the death of Claudia Davis, a wealthy young woman found dead in a slum apartment. In "J" rabbi Jacob Solomon is stabbed to death in an alley behind the synagogue on Passover. Carella and Meyer investigate. In "Storm: Cotton Hawes helps local police investigate the death of ski instructor Helga Nilson who was stabbed to death with a ski pole. All 3 of these early 87th Precinct novels are excellent. Ed McBain is the master of the police procedural.

Unlike any of the previous books in the 87th Precinct series, Ed McBain's "The Empty Hours" is a collection of three novellas. The book takes its overall title from the first of these, concerning Detective Steve Carella's investigation of the murder of a young woman a few months after the death of her cousin in a boating accident. The problem with this story is that it contains too many clues which fit together too neatly; it would be an obtuse reader indeed who failed to solve the entire mystery several chapters before the cops of the 87th do so.

The second story, "J", is something rather more special. The murder of a young rabbi outside his synagogue during Passover becomes an unusually personal case for Detective Meyer Meyer. This potentially controversial story is by far the strongest of the book's three segments.

"Storm" is another reasonably predictable story, but is novel in that it features only Detective Cotton Hawes out of McBain's usual ensemble cast. Hawes' ski weekend with an attractive blonde dancer is interrupted by a gruesome murder on the slopes. Although the killer's identity is fairly obvious, this story does succeed in conveying the sickening horror and unfairness of violent death, something to which many mystery readers may usually feel hardened.

"The Empty Hours" may not be McBain at his best, but is still very good indeed.