Customer Reviews

Mcbain Ed : Cop Hater (Signet)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First published in 1956, "Cop Hater" was Ed McBain's first novel in the long-running 87th Precint series, and it's lost none of its freshness or edge. The 87th Precint series is unique in its ability to deftly combine the police procedural narrative technique with excellent characterization. While there is not a disappointing entry in the series, this one is in the top five. While later novels tend to be more introspective and more indepth, the first several were lean, tough, and hard-hitting.

This novel introduces Det. Steve Carella and his fellow detectives at the squad as they try to find out who is murdering fellow cops and why. Although these characters will grow and expand in later novels, McBain ably sets the stage here, and truly hits the ground running. There is no awkwardness or hesitation as seen in other debut novels. As always, the strongest supporting character is McBain's fictional city of Isola which combines the best and worst qualities of several major U.S. cities, especially New York. McBain describes his city and its citizens with a palpable rhythm that stays with you after you're done reading. With such a diverse and fascinating backdrop to work from, 87th Precint novels will never drag. Truly a masterwork.

This is a reissue of the very first 87th Precinct novel written in 1956. It deals with three members of the 87th detective squad being gunned down for no apparent reason and how the rest of the 87th goes about finding the killer.

Crime novels in those days were less introspective and more lean so McBain wastes no time getting to the heart of the matter with the first corpse occurring rather quickly. However, as with all Ed McBain novels, the writing is crisp, the dialogue snappy, and though the page-count of these earlier novels was less than it is today he still manages to flesh out his characters and make them interesting.

Just as interesting is the forward where Mr. McBain discusses how the series came into being and how it evolved to its present form.

If you've never read this installment of the 87th, or just haven't read it in a long time, I urge you to pick it up. Ed McBain truly is a good writer whether he's writing crime novels under the Ed McBain alias or "serious" novels under his own name, Evan Hunter.

I picked this up for a delayed flight. I have not read any of the other (50+? ) in the series and this caught my eye. It's interesting because it is the first of a very successful series set in the same 87th precinct in a fictional city AND because it was written in the 50s. Very atmospheric, 'book noir' feel to it. Read it all in one flight.

This is not only the first of the 87th Precinct police procedurals, it's also one of the best. You get to meet Teddy when she was still Miss Franklin. You get to meet some detectives who don't appear in any other books (guess why!). Most importantly, you get to see McBain's genius when it was raw. There are a few clanking sentences in this one, and a few little mistakes that would never appear in his more recently written, more polished books. For instance: "The room smelled badly." Even so, this is great fun and highly recommended. If you want to order more than one McBain, the best is "Ice," with "Vespers" second and the books about the DEAF MAN also high on the list.

I have never read any of McBain's books and thought the best place to start was with the first of this series. I thought it was quite good and it kept me interested from page one. It is a short book but McBain doesn't waste words and every page relates to the story at hand; there is no "small talk." I enjoyed the book and highly recommend it to anyone not familiar with McBain's 87th Precinct.

"From the river bounding the city on the north, you saw only the magnificent skyline. You stared up at it in something like awe, and sometimes you caught your breath because the view was one of majestic splendor..."

Thus in 1955 Ed McBain begins his first-ever 87th Precinct crime novel, "Cop Hater." But before you start worrying if he's turning into Walt Whitman, he breaks off his rumination of urban beauty with this kicker: "There was garbage in the streets."

And thank goodness for the garbage, or else we wouldn't need the bulls of the 87th Precinct to clean it up.

"Cop Hater" reads like pulp fiction, perhaps because that was the genre Evan Hunter, the real-life writer responsible for the McBain pseudonym, worked in. "Cop Hater" was a unique sort of novel all the same, because as Hunter writes in his new introduction, it presented as a protagonist/hero not so much a central character (though here as elsewhere in the series, Det. Steve Carella is the main figure on the case) as a police squad room. McBain spends a lot of time depicting the squad room in this book, dwelling on physical details that he would gloss over in future volumes. This time at least, he and his readers were venturing into unusual territory.

For those familiar with the 87th Precinct stories, there are plenty of recognizable signposts: Carella's slanting eyes, long and ominous descriptions of the weather, McBain's obsession with the ethnic make-up of his characters and the WASPy prejudices of others (one witness tells Carella she would prefer to tell her story to an "American" detective after realizing he's of Italian ancestry.) You can see the mainstay elements taking shape, which makes this a must-read for fans.

The bare bones nature of the crime itself (a series of killings targeting 87th Precinct detectives) may leave readers used to juicier 87th Precinct plotlines wanting more. The language of the streets is considerably cleaner and less realistic than later volumes. Bert Kling is not a detective yet. Andy Parker and Meyer Meyer have yet to arrive.

But it's a nice introduction to the 87th Precinct, a tough, merciless world of bad people, good people, and lots of grey in-betweeners. The cast of detectives at the Eight-Seven include a few who aren't around later, like Carella's first partner, who has some issues at home that seem to be distracting his work effort. Another is the precinct commander, an out-of-it old-timer named Frick who "was a tired man when he was 20" and shrugs his way through the violence around him. There's a nosy, unscrupulous reporter named Savage who makes trouble pestering gang members but insists he serves the community. McBain works in a resonant feeling of the times, the mid-1950s where open windows were the most common form of tenement air conditioning and the most dangerous juvenile weaponry were homemade "zip guns."

One of the good things about "Cop Hater" is the center story is simple and resolved in a satisfying manner. Another is that the story leaves you wanting more. Just how much more no one could have predicted in 1955, but considering there's now been 53 87th Precinct novels, "Cop Hater" probably wasn't a bad idea for a book.

This is the novel that started the 87th Precinct series. It introduces Carella, Kling, Teddy, and others in the series during the hunt for a cop killer. As always, the dialogue is crisp with no padding, the descriptions are atmospheric, like the 50s Noir Hollywood was putting out. You know you're seeing everyday people at work, not some super-idiosyncratic armchair wonder. It sets the tone for a series that will (hopefully soon) see it 50th entry. When this was written in 56, Carella was in his 20s. With #49(Big Bad City), he's contemplating the threat of turning 40. Ahh, the joys of being able to control the passage of time!

The very first book in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series.

Detectives Steve Carella and Hank Bush are out trying to find clues as to the identity of whoever killed a fellow detective, Mike Reardon. They figure the killing to be a random thing...until it happens again. Another cop is slain in cold blood, this time, Reardon's partner. With both men dead, Carella decides the murders were grudge killings. However, careful attention into the dead men's past comes up with nothing. Finally, a third detective winds up murdered in the streets. Now, it is of no question to Carella. Somewhere out there in the streets is a cop hater. With this Cop Hater running rampart, will his next victim be Steve Carella? Or will Carella and the other members of the 87th precinct use their skills as detectives to bring the killer to justice?
The very first of over 50 books in McBain's very popular 87th Precinct series. A short, fast paced read which will leave you wanting more. Fun and highly enjoyable. Highly recommended.

If you LIKE this one , you're gone LOVE almost all of the sequels: more than 50 by now and continuing the series with style and fun.
I started with this first novel in 1963 and got hooked from the first page on.....
The 87th-precinct guys are part of the family.
(And thanks to AMAZON, i have now also the audio's).

I've never been a fan of police procedurals. The majority of them tend to be more concerned with showing off the author's knowledge of obscure investigation technique trivia than telling any kind of cohesive, let alone down to earth, story. With this in mind, the only reason I offer for loving the 87the Precinct series, written by the man who practically invented the genre, is that he writes it better than anyone else. If you're sick and tied of the Law & Order clones, maybe you should take a step back and check out the series that defined the genre and has yet to be surpassed. And if you've never visited McBain's series, then there is no better place to start than the beginning.

Cop Hater is an able and worthy introduction to the world of the 87th Precinct's Homicide Division, walking the beat of its fictional city for over fifty years, right up until the author's death last year. Many book series suffer from weak openings and fluctuations in quality and style that often leave fans recommending later entries as a starting point for new readers. The 87th never felt any such growing pains, and Cop Hater still stands as strong as the 53 that soon followed.

Detective Carella, the anchor of the series, is introduced in this initial outing, along with other long-term cast members including his love interest and future wife Teddy, stoolie Danny the Gimp, Lt. Byrnes, hack journalist Savage, Bert Kling (still a patrolman before earning his detective's badge in The Mugger), angry bull Roger Havilland, and the diminutive but dangerous Hal Willis.

Cop Hater is one of McBain's more direct titles, and covers the plot simply. Someone is killing cops out of the 87th Precinct. A dead cop is always taken seriously by other cops, but things become personal for Carella when the third officer gunned down in cold bloody is his partner Bush, and even more so when newspaper reporter Savage turns his deaf girlfriend Teddy into a prospective target. With nothing more to go on than the killer's motive as a Cop Hater, the race is on to catch the killer before he kills anyone else that Carella cares for, or for that matter. Carella himself.

Many police procedural series try to over-the-top with spectacular crimes or completely outrageous twists and turns, and mind-numbingly technical procedure descriptions. This is territory that where the 87th Precinct never strays into. While McBain does take the time to explain how and why certain aspects of the job are undertaken, he does so not to flog the reader with facts, but to help them understand exactly what the bulls of the 87th are up against. The crimes and characters of the 87th are always believable, interesting, and never fail to ring with a truth and honesty that makes it seem as real as crime in your local papers. Cop Hater embodies this truth as much as any of the other books, despite being written over fifty years ago. The procedures may change over time, but the criminals are cops are still driven by the same beliefs.