Money, Money, Money : A Novel of the 87th Precinct [Hardcover]

Ed McBain (Author)

Book Description

Series: 87th Precinct Mysteries | Publication Date: August 28, 2001

It is Christmas in the city, but it isn't the giving season. A retired Gulf War pilot, a careless second-story man, a pair of angry Mexicans, and an equally shady pair of Secret Service agents are in town after a large stash of money, and no one is interested in sharing.

The detectives at the 87th are already busy for the holidays. Steve Carella and Fat Ollie Weeks catch the squeal when the lions in the city zoo get an unauthorized feeding of a young woman's body. And then there's a trash can stuffed with a book salesman carrying a P-38 Walther and a wad of big bills.

The bad bills and the dead book salesman lead to the offices of a respected publisher, Wadsworth and Dodds. This is good news for Fat Ollie, because he's working on a police novel -- one written by a real cop -- and he's sure it's going to be a bestseller.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, and Fat Ollie Weeks having been working the 87th Precinct for more than 40 years, but they're still the top dicks in town for devotees of Ed McBain's absorbing police procedurals.

When a pretty, red-haired, ex-military pilot is killed, the boys in blue blunder around for a few chapters before they unmask her secret life as a drug courier. By then the burglar who broke into Cass Ridley's apartment and stole the "tip" she got for her last run has already tried to spend one of the $100 bills from her stash, attracting the attention of the Secret Service. The "superbill" is phony, and by the time Carella and his crew uncover the international counterfeit ring behind it, McBain has notched up the action with a terrorist plot to bomb Clarendon (read Carnegie) Hall, where an eminent Israeli violinist is performing. There's also a conspiracy involving a publishing company whose sales reps are so venal and violent you might think they were the creation of a writer who blamed them when his last book failed to sell. Not so McBain, who can't have too many complaints in that department. His publisher's reps have been living well for decades on the commissions earned on McBain's books (including those of Evan Hunter, his alter ego).

That he has kept this series going for so long without tricking up the plots, turning his characters into stereotypes, or sacrificing their humanity is a tribute to his authorial gifts: expert pacing, sharp-edged dialogue, authenticity, wit, and confidence. There's only thing getting old in this, his 51st book in an evergreen series: the fictional convention that locates the 87th in a place called Isola instead of midtown Manhattan, where it so clearly is set. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Evan Hunter has passed the century mark in books published and, writing as Ed McBain, has started on his second half-century (this is the 51st in the series) with the 87th Precinct. One of the most recognizable and reliable brand names in the mystery field, he's the only American author to be elected a Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster and to win Britain's Diamond Dagger award. Yet like Steve Carella, who has reached only the age of 40 despite his 45 years as an adult character, McBain's writing remains young, vigorous, sharp and entertaining. Christmas season in Isola is no holiday for the cops of the 87th, and a dizzying collection of small-time crooks, terrorists, drug runners, hit men and feds collide on the territory shared by the 87th and the 88th precincts. Fittingly, it is Carella, introduced in the very first 87th Precinct novel (Cop Hater, 1956), who takes the lead in this case. He gets an unlikely assist from the 88th's Fat Ollie Weeks, who plays both (expected) comic foil and (unexpected) hero. The minor characters are sketched as vividly as a Hirschfeld drawing, and McBain's mordant humor keeps the violence somewhat balanced. In addition to the bullets, which fly rather freely, lions, bombs, cattle prods and ice picks all play a role. Adroit scene-setting, the pitch-perfect dialogue for which he is famous and streamlined presentation of a Byzantine plot make the pages turn quickly. McBain's Money is a sure bet. Agent, Jane Gelfman.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (August 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743202694
• ISBN-13: 978-0743202695
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,224,856 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

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nearly Fifty Years of Policing in Isola, August 30, 2001

By 

Kent Braithwaite (Palm Desert, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Money, Money, Money : A Novel of the 87th Precinct (Hardcover)

As a mystery author with my debut novel in its initial release, I am amazed that Ed McBain (AKA Evan Hunter)has been writing 87th Precinct police procedurals for nearly fifty years. I doubt if I'll be writing my series in a half a century, but I'm glad McBain is still writing his. Astonishingly, each 87th Precinct novel seems fresh and inventive. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY is no exception. Steve Carella and the boys (as well as the girls) remain as vibrant as they did when this series first began back when Eisenhower was president. In this fifty-first 87th Precint novel, a woman is found dead in the Grover Park Zoo. She turns out to be an ex-military flygirl who has found herself a fulfilling civilian career as a drug pilot. Steve and his associates (mainly Fat Ollie Weeks) follow the money, and McBain's plot spins upward from there. There's a secondary plot involving a terrorist plot, and, of course, the personal problems and concerns of the series characters also play a major part in the story. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY is a fine fifty-first entry in this series. It is one of the best fifty-first novels in any mystery series ever written. Get this book and read it.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars McBain is Back, and Better than Ever....., March 4, 2002

By 

Roz Levine - See all my reviews

This review is from: Money, Money, Money : A Novel of the 87th Precinct (Hardcover)

"Detective Steve Carella wished that one of the lions hadn't dragged the victim's left leg into the 88th Precinct. That was what brought Fat Ollie Weeks into the case." It's Christmas week in fictional Isola, and despite the holiday, business at the 87th Precinct is brisk. The unfortunate young lady being consumed by lions turned out to be Army Lieutenant Cassandra Jean Ridley, a pilot in the Gulf War. Her death starts a wild chain of events that leads the boys of the detective squad to an unusual assortment of uncooperative characters, including the Secret Service, terrorists, counterfeiters, drug runners and petty criminals. As the body count continues to rise, Carella and Weeks are having a hard time getting a handle on the case, and find it's nearly impossible to tell the good guys from the bad..... It's hard to believe that after 40 some odd years, a series could remain fresh and entertaining, but Ed McBain has beaten the odds, and his latest, Money, Money, Money, doesn't disappoint. This is a fast-paced, intriguing police procedural, full of crisp, spare writing, unrivaled dialogue, vivid scenes, and brilliant characterizations. This is the master at work, and nobody does it better. Mr McBain weaves the varied and seemingly unrelated threads of his fascinating and complex story line, effortlessly, and then ties them all together into a neat, logical and very satisfying package at the end. For those new to Ed McBain and the boys of the 87th Precinct, start with some of his earlier books to get the flavor of this wonderful series. For those who are already fans, Money, Money, Money deserves all the awards it's about to win.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great police procedual, August 28, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Money, Money, Money : A Novel of the 87th Precinct (Hardcover)

It may be Christmas time, but for the cops of the 87th Precinct, crime remains the same year round. The season to be Jolly presents the police officers with the case of drug pilot Cassandra Ridley, found to be a Yuletide snack for the lions living in the Grover Park Zoo. Cassandra was carrying $10,000 all counterfeit. The case crosses precincts since one of her legs was chewed on in the 88th while the brunt of the corpse resided in the 87th. Detectives Steve Carella and Oliver Wendell Weeks share the investigation.

The two cops follow the money trail that apparently is somewhere between 1.7 and 1.9 million. However, other individuals from a less savory side of life also trail the cash including government men and hit women. With their personal problems and desires also at the forefront, the police find this investigation keeps turning screwier as Carella and Weeks get closer to the truth.

For this reviewers money, Ed McBains 87th police procedural novels are the yardsticks that every other sub-genre author strives to match, but few come close. His fifty-first tale in the long running series, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, shows why hes the MAN even though the well written story line requires a stretch to believe in a conspiracy. The cops are human with troubles and desires outside the precinct and a struggle with the case, which is serious yet deftly, includes humor. Anyone, who wants a smooth ride in a police cruiser, Mr. McBains investigative trip is the ticket to enjoyment as it has been since the mid-fifties.