Sadie When She Died (Gemstar) [Import] [Hardcover]

Ed McBain (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Oxmoor House (January 2001)
• ISBN-10: 0759500770
• ISBN-13: 978-0759500778
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars McBain Satisfies, As Always!, September 30, 1999

By 

Maria E. Dublin (Novi, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sadie When She Died (87th Precinct Mystery) (Paperback)

This is early McBain, from 1972, and all the boys from the 87th precinct are here in top form! (Why can't I meet a guy like Steve Carella?!) Like all of his police procedurals, it's a very entertaining and breezy read. Suspense, humor, and crackling dialogue are all served up in equal doses. The book's jacket says, "What could be easier? He had a confessed killer, clear fingerprints, and a witness. Everything was sewed-up tight. Or was it?" Bad vibes and his keen cop's instinct sends Detective Carella on a mission to prove promiscuous Sadie wasn't killed by the number one suspect, but by somebody very close to her. YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH MCBAIN! I've loved him for years -- and his books written under his real name -- Evan Hunter -- are also wonderful.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 8-7 Scores a Perfect 1o, March 5, 2004

By 

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

This review is from: Sadie When She Died (87th Precinct Mystery) (Paperback)

I've read most of the 87th Precinct series, and while the worst ones are always at least above-average, the best ones are a rare excursion into perfection (esepcially for the crime/mystery genre, which, although I love it, is vulnerable to substandard, schlocky stuff). "Sadie" is the best of the best, McBain's most taut, surprising, and intricate little gem. Read it, if only to understand its cryptic title.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Someone Please Kill the Narrator, April 10, 2008

By 

Grey Wolffe "Zeb Kantrowitz" (North Waltham, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sadie When She Died (87th Precinct Mystery) (Paperback)

This is the fifteen book in the series that I have read, and except for "Lady, I Did It" I've like and enjoyed McBain's books. But, this was about as dull a story that I have ever read. The people in it, especially the ponderous narration, seemed as if everyone was forced at gunpoint to be in this novel. What I mean is that even the characters didn't want to be there.

The story itself just plods along, with so much unnecessary fluff and fill (especially the side story with Kling) that you get the feeling (or I did) that McBain had a book to deliver and he was gonna get it done no matter what. The problem is that there is no life in the book, it lays there like a fish washed up on the shore gasping for breath.

Every good series, has it's ups and downs; hopefully this is as down as the series gets.