Customer Reviews

Killer's Choice

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I have really liked all the 87th Precinct books I have read. This one is really two stories in one. Meyer Meyer, yes, that is his name, Bert Kling, Steve Carella and newcomer Cotton Hawes are after who ever killed a young lady at a liquor store and also who ever killed a cop. They are two different people and the work takes two different paths. McBain writes so it holds your attention. You feel like you are part of the investigation. The book is short and reads quickly. It is hard to put down.

This annal in the history of the 87 police detectives will keep you rivited from page one thru the end. Its smart and well done, and you really care about the characters. Cotton Hawes comes to life in this book and grows with us through out the years in succeeding stories. Like all his books, this is a quick read and roller coaster ride.

Inside a liquor store, a girl is shot to death with a Colt .25 automatic. The detectives of the 87th Precinct are faced with two mysteries: Who was the killer and who, really, was the victim?

Add to that a separate case involving a slain 87th Precinct detective and a new guy on the beat named Cotton Hawes who wants to prove himself, and you have the recipe for a top-notch Ed McBain mystery. Pity the cook brought this to boil a bit fast.

Published in 1958, just five books into his signature series of police procedurals, McBain (or alter ego Evan Hunter) was still easing into things, figuring out what the mythical city of Isola and the detectives of the 87th were all about. As usual, Steve Carella is the main detective here, but Meyer Meyer and Bert Kling (introduced as a uniform cop in "The Mugger" and described at one point as young-looking as Elvis Presley - golly, this is an older McBain!) put in some quality time as well.

There's also Hawes, a series regular for the next five decades who debuts here, a transfer from a more genteel Isola precinct who doesn't understand that harder rules apply, i.e. don't bother knocking at a suspect's door. "Politeness is something you have to be careful about," is how Meyer puts it to his wife later.

The central mystery develops quickly and well, as the murdered woman is described in different ways by the people who knew her. Her ex-husband says she outgrew him, while her own mother seems to think otherwise. One boyfriend recalls a good-time girl who knew her way around a pool cue, another describes her as meek and mild. Only the liquor store owner seems to have no opinion of his dead employee, at least at first.

This "many faces of Eve" angle promises more than it delivers, especially as it has less bearing on the mystery's resolution than you expect. McBain was still sorting out the 87th Precinct and the demands of writing mysteries that worked both as whodunits and "whydunits," the latter a term coined by McBain critics as his mysteries deepened in complexity and reader involvement.

Series fans will enjoy this for the introduction of Hawes and the chance to see a younger, more innocent version of the 87th Precinct, before McBain's dark and gritty imagination really took off. But those wanting early McBain stories that hold together as mysteries and as stories will more enjoy checking out his classic debut "Cop Hater" and even better "Mugger."

This edition is particularly enjoyable as it includes an introduction by the author talking about introducing Hawes to the series. Reading the 87th precinct books is always a delight; tight plots, crisp dialogue, well-drawn characters, good humor and excellent sense of place and time; all in fewer than 200 pages. McBain's books are truly a master class in detective fiction.

Killer's Choice is a classic western tale by one of my facvorite western writers, Jack Bickham, aka Jeff Clinton. (Most of his westerns were published under the Clinton name)


The protagonist, a man with gunsmoke in his distant past, is a small but respected rancher with a wife (who abhors violent men) and a son. When a range war breaks out tht takes the life of his best friend, he is torn between his duty to his friend, his need to keep his past a secret, and his fear that his wife will reject him if he straps on a gun. And when it becomes clear to him that the killer is a professional gunman that only he has the skills to defeat, the conflict intensifies.

Add to that an element of mystery.... was the killer hired by the logical suspect, or are there more dimensions than appeat?

Clinton is a good writer and a master plotter.

If you like Westerns, this is well worth your time.