He Who Hesitates [Paperback]

Ed McBain (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Dell Publishing (1968)
• ASIN: B0011WH1JO
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unusual McBain, June 13, 2000

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: He Who Hesitates (87th Precinct) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the most unusual novel in the great 87th Precinct detective series in that instead of being told in the third person like the rest of the books, it is narrated by one of the perpetrators. The perp in question is also one of the more interesting and psychologically tormented of the entire series. This is not the 87th Precinct novel to start with, but if you are a fan of the series, you'll love this one.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars PLEASE HESITATE TO READ THIS BOOK!!!!, August 8, 2002

By 

Mac Blair (Huntingdon, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: He Who Hesitates (Mass Market Paperback)

Trying to read these in order, I have now read 19 of the 87th Precinct book. I think this is the first one I did not give a five star rateing to. There is no police work in this book. No Carella Kling, Hawes, Myers, Willis or any of them doing much of anything. The book is all about Roger Broome who comes to the city, committs a crime and spends the whole book trying to work up enough courage to tell the police about it. Really, that is all the book is about. I would say, SKIP THIS ONE IN THE SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing story told from a new perspective., April 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: He Who Hesitates (87th Precinct) (Mass Market Paperback)

A new and interesting twist to the series of the 87th precinct. It has an originality that only Ed Mcbain can work with, and draw the reader into the minds of the villain, rather than the detectives themselves. It gives a new glimpse into the lives of the detectives as seen by others, and not only from what is read. It keeps you in suspense about what is to happen, and also, what has happened. There is true genius in this piece of work.