The Mugger [Paperback]

Ed Mcbain (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 153 pages
• Publisher: AVON BOOKS; 3rd Printing edition (May 1986)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000V8ASB2
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,446,563 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

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clifford Thanks You, May 6, 2004

By 

Bill Slocum (Norwalk, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mugger (Audio Cassette)

And you will thank Clifford back for this exciting, fast-paced early entry in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series of police thrillers.

A mugger is brutalizing the women of the 87th Precinct, stealing their purse, punching them up, and taking his leave with a dandyesque bow and the immortal words: "Clifford thanks you." The detectives of the 87th have no sense of humor where this sort of thing is concerned, especially when one apparent victim is found lying dead on a riverside embankment.

While the series actually began with "Cop Hater," this second book, published in 1956, is where the series, and its mythical city of Isola, begins to take shape. McBain takes time out to describe the demographics of the 87th, the dance clubs, the stay-at-home wives who rake each other over in their washing-line gossip sessions like so many Mesdames Defarge.

Some nice time-outs, too, like one early on about the essence of urban loneliness. "Loneliness doesn't respect the calendar," he writes. "Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, Thursday - they're all the same, and they're all grey."

Steve Carella, the de facto hero of the 87th series, is away on his honeymoon for this one, and the reins are taken, for maybe the only time in the series, by a patrolman rather than a detective. Bert Kling is still nursing his injury from "Cop Hater" when an old friend pays him a visit, asking him to talk to his sister-in-law. That he does, and when the sister-in-law turns up dead the next day, he finds himself investigating the mysterious circumstances of her life. Why was a beautiful woman so sad, why did she visit a strange dance club and sit zombielike on the sidelines despite the many invitations to dance, why did she turn up a corpse on the other side of the city?

Since Kling is just a beat cop, he is limited in what he can do, but he does manage to meet one woman who may have some answers, particularly for his own lonelyheart condition. Claire Townsend is one of several recurring characters to make her first appearance here, along with Dets. Meyer Meyer and Eileen Burke and two favorites of mine, the clueless Homicide dicks Monoghan and Monroe.

The mystery moves along at McBain's signature pace, with the detectives setting up dragnets and working around the clock. There is plenty of action, and nice detours like with a sunglasses manufacturer who explains the intricacies of his trade, and the difference between "fronts" and "temples." As with so many of his books, McBain makes you feel less like a bookreader and more of an eavesdropper on a world every bit as vibrant and lived-in, if not more so, than your own.

It's a quick read, but if it's your first 87th book, five will get you ten it won't be your last.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Procedural from '56, August 25, 2000

By 

Larry Eischen - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mugger (Mass Market Paperback)

This entry in the 87th series spotlights Bert Kling before his promotion to detective. A mugger wearing cheap sunglasses has been targeting women in the precinct. When the sister of a friend is found murdered with all clues pointing to the mugger, Kling investigates and gets embroiled in the hunt for the purse snatcher. Noticeably absent in this novel is Steve Carella, who is usually McBain's focal point.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A GREAT READ!!!!!, January 5, 2002

By 

Mac Blair "Mac Blair" (Huntingdon, TN USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Mugger (Mass Market Paperback)

This is only the second McBain book I have read. It is very , very good. I am going to try to find them to read in order. Have a long way to go I know. The Mugger is about Bert Kling, who is a partolman. He is searching for a mugger named Clifford. He is doing this in his off duty time. Then a young girl Kling has met is killed, was it by the mugger or not????? The ending is great is all I will say about that. The book is fairly short, easy to read and will hold you attention. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good mystery.