Customer Reviews

Fuzz

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

 

 

Fuzz is a five, to me anyway. There are really three stores going on at the same time. One is: someone is throwing gasoline on bums as they sleep and setting them on fire. Carella goes undercover for this one and gets burned himself. Another is: who is after John the Taylor? He is to be robbed but different people show up at the time of the robbery. The other story is the main one.A commissioner is killed after a threat. The Deputy Mayor is killed after a threat. The Mayor is to be next. The squad figures it is the "deaf man" again. All the 87th precinct people work on this. Carella considers him to be a "master criminal"--can he be caught???????? Read as the entire group try to bring this man to justice. As usual McBain writes so you can believe you are there.You get to where you have feelings for each officer and really think you know them. This is the 22nd book I have read by McBain and I think there was only one I did not like. The odds are pretty good you will like this one also.

Each of McBain's 87th Precinct novels has a little twist of its' own. This one has another appearance by 'the deaf-man'; whose only hard of hearing but hard to kill. Like all of his stories, there are actually three crimes being followed. The one with the deaf-man has to do with him killing politicians and then extorting money from wealthy men.

Story number two has to do with a robbery that is set-up by two of the dumbest criminals who ever lived, and were overheard planning the robbery in a luncheonette. Someone overheard them and wants a piece of the action, ends up getting caught by the police and he rats on the guys.

Story three is about two young guys who have been poring gasoline on bums and then setting them on fire. One of the bums has died. Steve Carella goes undercover as a derelict to try and catch them. But Steve gets beat up twice for his troubles. Who ever heard of a police undercover action without back-up?! Going by himself Carella deserved to get beaten up.
The ending is just too ridiculous to be believed, it piles coincidence on top of remarkable luck and plain stupidity. Totally unbelievable.

Ed McBain's 1968 "Fuzz" is a terrific read and a lot of fun from a great writer. Notable mostly for the second appearance of the Deaf Man, whom the reader learns more about his brilliance, and the 87th Precinct detectives who try to thwart his every move. Unfortunately, the Deaf Man will try to stop the detectives by making them look stupid and incompetent in the process.

I loved this book. The more I learn about the Deaf Man, the more I want to know. Congratulations to Mr. Ed McBain, the master, for creating such a terrific character. Maybe I could learn a few things or two from the Deaf Man about being a criminal genius.

I also enjoyed the background story about the squad room painters and the Tailor Shop. As for the reader from Minneapolis, MN, did it ever occur to you that not all cops are corrupt and rascist? Even then, remember reading about Detective Andy Parker? Next time, try reading the book before writing a bad review and insulting a great writer.

This was a wondrous book, funny, complex, ironic, completely satisfying.

It is a police drama featuring several complex and well developed characters. Each reader will have their own favorite to lament over or cheer on.

The book is so good you will want to reread the last 100 pages; I did, just to savor it in my mind.

I have only recently been introduced to Ed McBain. This is the book that anchors his other police books about the 87th Precinct. Many of them are well written but one are dimensional straight ahead stories. Yet they become more fascinating after reading this one, as the characters are well developed and made "real" in Fuzz.

The villain is superb, by the way. You will be half cheering for him. For example, he calls the police and makes an extortion threat. The police officer expresses disbelief, saying "do you know what the penalties for extortion are?". The bad guy promptly hangs up, only to call a few minutes later saying "yeah, it's 15 years in prison" and then goes on with his threats.

This is one of McBain's best, and they are all excellent.

Melvin Morse

Mysterious death threats against city officials seem like a joke at first. Then the bullets and the bombs come out, and the boys of the 87th Precinct realize that they're dealing with another caper by their old nemesis, the Deaf Man.

This is an exceptionally well-crafted police procedural. The characterizations of Carella, Meyer, and Cotton Hawes are like being reunited with old friends, and the subplots all dovetail to support the main plot. Another great book by McBain -- fun, interesting, and absorbing.

Reviewer: Liz Clare, co-author of the historical novel "To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis and Clark"

Ed McBain's long-running series of mystery novels spanned fifty years and over fifty books. Based in the fictional city of Isola (with its eerie similarities to New York), McBain's conscientious cops spent thousands of pages chasing down every sort of villainous behaviour. From 1956 to 2005, readers were introduced to serial killers, money laundering, granny dumping and more.

In Fuzz, McBain's recurring villain, the Deaf Man, returns - but so does everyone and everything else. McBain takes the entire cast out of the box and dusts them off in this one.

While the Deaf Man begins another reign of terror, the precinct also investigates a robbery and a series of attacks on the city's homeless population. The ending (in which all three plot threads combine) is slightly contrived, but the book as a whole is one of the most exciting, with something happening on every page. (Also, per usual, Something Awful happens to the unfortunate Detective Steve Carella).

Once again, McBain gathers the detectives of the 87th Precinct to solve a crime *before* it happens. Forget the ancient movie with Burt Reynolds [actually a good choice; he *does* fit the ddescription to a T] and Raquel Welch. This book is enjoyable and worth the reading...

Poor long-suffering overworked underpaid cops of the mythical 87th precinct ... none of them corrupt, none of them racist, all of them clever conversationalists. Here they again confront McBain's evil genius, the deaf man. Never occurs to anyone that witnesses that could identify him might need protecting. Also no one seems to think it might be a good idea to put his threatened victims in hiding, even after two of them are murdered. McBain presents the deaf man's harebrained scheme as plausible. What little good his beloved cops actually accomplish is by just plain dumb luck and bizarre coincidence.

Was everybody really this dimwitted back in the 60s? How did this sloppy, uncritical, naive writer ever get his great reputation?