Long Time No See: Eighty Seventh Precinct Mystery [Paperback]

Ed McBain (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Books (November 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553231308
• ISBN-13: 978-0553231304
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,825,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What the Seeing-Eye Dog Witnessed, October 30, 2007

By 

Acute Observer (N. Jersey Shore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Long Time No See (Mass Market Paperback)

This 1977 book is the 32nd in the "87th Precinct" series. This story is imaginary, the people and places are fictitious. [But you know it is New York city with disguised names.] Jimmy Harris was 20 when he was blinded in the war. He met and married a blind woman. One November evening his seeing-eye dog was chloroformed and he was murdered on the street. Detectives Carella and Myers caught this case. The Homicide detectives got there first; they were supervisors and advisors because they specialized. They could differentiate between a stabbing and an incised wound. Who would kill a blind man on a public street? Carella and Myers begin their investigation. The widow tells them nothing; later she can't. When they return the next morning they find another body and the apartment a mess from a search for something. What will happen to the seeing-eye dog?

"Ed McBain" shows his writing skills in his descriptions of people and places. The police detectives follow their long established techniques. Interview all witnesses; they don't know what they are looking for until they find it. Since the body of Jimmy was discovered right after the murder and rigor mortis had not set in they knew the hour of his death. Can a dream or a nightmare be a clue to a murder (Chapter 8)? Chapter 10 describes an institution found in big cities. Most murders are committed by amateurs, not professional criminals. Can you believe the dramas about mental patients (Chapter 11)? People join gangs for protection in the city (p.188). Carella continues to follow leads. There is a break (Chapter 13). Carella finds a key clue (Chapter 14). There is a solution in the final chapter.

This was a very interesting story, except for the ending. The outburst from the suspect seems out of character. The story of a nightmare seems too psychological for a murder mystery. It reminds me of a TV show where the solution occurs just in time for the last commercial.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Longer, darker, and more complex than his others, March 4, 2004

By 

"jac348" (Athens, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Long Time No See: Eighty Seventh Precinct Mystery (Paperback)

For fans of the 87th Precinct, this one will be a welcome change of pace. The writing is still pure McBain--terse, witty, and in some areas, lyrical. The dialogue sizzles, all of our old boys in blue are back, and things feel like home again--the way they always do when you open one of the tales of the 87th. But home can also be a boring place, and sometimes a chance of pace and a twist here and there will remedy that. Well, twists and turns abound in this book, a departure from the previous 87 novels in its legnth, complexity of backstory, and nifty tidbits of info--from psychoanalysis to the training of the blind--to sustain readers' interests. The ending is classic McBain, blunt, to the point, and supremely satisfying. Not since "Sadie When She Died" has McBain produced so unique a novel in this incredibly durable series.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars NOT the deaf man, and not satisfying, either ..., October 29, 2002

By 

Robert Reardon (Colorado Springs, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Long Time No See (Mass Market Paperback)

This was NOT a return of the deaf man. (What book was he reading??)

I won't give any plot away, as that would spoil the fun. I've read a dozen or more of the 87th precinct books, and this one was rather weak. I get frustrated with books that rely on a gimmick that gets revealed in the last 5 pages. I think that a novel should be rewarding throughout, giving out nuggets of the solution along the way, instead of making it impossible for the reader to figure out until the author pulls back the curtain at the very end.