Customer Reviews

Hail to the Chief

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Ed McBain gets metaphorical in this 1973 edition of his 87th Precinct crime series, taking on then-President Nixon in the person of Randy M. Nesbitt, leader of a gang on a killing spree.

As a time capsule, "Hail To The Chief" is a sometimes interesting read. As a police procedural, it's weak. The leader of the "Yankee Rebels" (one of many symbolic nods to Nixon perfidy) Nesbitt is presented to us as a guy elected to his second term in office, fighting a war he inherited without much enthusiasm but that he is intends to finish because, as he piously insists, he is a man of peace. "I pray to God every night that I'll always do the right thing," Nesbitt insists.

McBain has at Nixon both in terms of Watergate, then blowing up but still a year away from its final resolution with Nixon's resignation, and particularly with U.S. troops in Vietnam, just then being brought back home. The opening scene, of men, women, and an infant lying in a ditch, deliberately conjures up the My Lai massacre and similar atrocities which Nixon was seen by many to be complicit in, even though My Lai took place during the previous administration. You keep waiting for Nesbitt to tell someone he is not a crook. He doesn't, but that's about the only button McBain misses.

Subtlety is not his goal here, nor is humor. Both are missed. While McBain criminals can be quite deep and multi-faceted (more than the cops often) it quickly becomes clear to anyone reading this novel that Nesbitt is a knuckle-dragging moral leper, a boil on the face of humanity, unable to see beyond his own colossal egotism. When he condemns his fellow gang member's girlfriend (a character named Midge, based on the wife of John Mitchell who talked to reporters during the height of the Watergate investigation) to what becomes her doom, he insists that there is no blood on his hands. He only gave the orders. [Cue the Nazi marching music here.]

As a polemic, McBain offers meat to chew on. But "Hail To The Chief" is a police procedural featuring the 87th Precinct, and it's an ill-fit seeing the familiar environs of Isola playing host to a doctrinaire political parable. McBain had been writing about gang violence since the first 87th Precinct novel two decades before, and before that, under his real name Evan Hunter in the classic "Blackboard Jungle." Maybe he wanted to jazz up the old formula. But the Yankee Rebels can't work as satire if they don't work in the reader's mind as a real gang, and they don't. For example, how Nesbitt, a pious, paranoid blowhard with a marked aversion to obscenities, sex, and drugs, got to command a street gang is never explained.

It's sometimes fun to pick up on the Nixon references. Nesbitt has a bug installed in one of his rivals' headquarters, known as "Gateside" rather than "Watergate." His chief negotiator is called "Doc," (i.e. Dr. Kissinger) and he works on a policy of triangulation against two rival gangs much like China and the Soviet Union. In the end, Nesbitt is done in by his own paranoia, and it's something of a credit to McBain he seems to beat Woodward and Bernstein to Watergate's conclusion.

But the book just doesn't work as crime fiction. There is no mystery to solve here, just dead bodies lying around and a gang too drunk on bloodletting to cover its tracks. By the time Nesbitt explains how his "second term as president" was his mandate for seeking peace through strength, we got the point long ago. One good thing about Nixon resigning the next year - it meant McBain had to go back to writing about real crime.

This police procedural finds the boys of the 87th Precinct investigating the deaths of a group of young people and a baby found shot and dumped at a construction site.

In this book, McBain switches off between the crime investigation and the thoughts of "The Chief," who turns out to be a teenage gang leader absolutely convinced that he must kill off his enemies to bring peace to his turf. The juxtaposition of the alternate realities is very well done. In addition, McBain's characterization of the cops is particularly well-drawn and compassionate in this book.

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

The late Ed McBain wrote the book on the police procedural novel. HAIL TO THE CHIEF is an exceptional example. The narrative is sparse, crisp, and shocking. The style of telling the story of the police work interwoven with the "confession" of the deranged gang leader brings two points-of-view to the reader.
Steve Carella and Bertram Kling are called to a grisly murder scene in the dead of night. Five people have been shot, stripped, and dumped in an open utilities ditch. Their work begins without clues as they stumble into the streets of the city to stop waring gangs from exterminating themselves.
A good classic read.
Nash Black, author of SINS OF THE FATHERS.

McBain does a competent job of writing crime thrillers, so this is a safe book to buy to kill a few hours with some decent reading.

I think he really shines at injecting bits of humor into the story line, moreso than any other writer that I've read in the genre (eg compared to Grisham). (At least I get 3 or 4 really good laughs out of each book, so I think the humor is funny; you might not...)

This book is very close to my heart because it was the first 87th Precint novel that i have read. And only from the first few pages I was absolutely hooked and laughing my self silly. Mcbain like in his other 87th Precint Novel 'SEE THEM DIE' tackles uncompromisingly the gang scene. The many colorful and gritty characters in this book keep us spellbinded. From the hookers to the dope fiends, from the gangsters who promise to reek havoc to the detectives who swear to protect, from all the small aspects of street life to the major issues of love and honour, if you haven't read a Mcbain novel, this one will not dissapoint. It's a feast to wallow in. Just enjoy.

Gang warfare amongst teanage gangs. Interspaced with stages of the investigation of 6 gang murders (plus a whole lot more murders by the end of the book) are excerpts of the confession of gang president Randall Nesbitt (who instigated all of the murders) and his justifications that he was trying to bring peace to the neighbourhood. Brilliant as a gang warfare novel and as an allegory of the Vietnam war.