Snow White and Rose Red [Paperback]

Ed McBain (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books Inc (P) (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446601330
• ISBN-13: 978-0446601337
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #404,904 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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My First Matthew Hope, February 27, 2005

By 

K. Calen (Rome, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Snow White and Rose Red (Hardcover)

I am an avid fan of Stuart Kaminsky, John D. MacDonald, Cornell Woolrich, and Jim Thompson. Ed McBain fits in incredibly nicely with this amazing authors. I had read Ed McBain before - "Cop Hater" and his incredibly delightful retelling of the Christmas Story with the officers of the 87th precinct. As Evan Hunter, Ed McBain soars as the author of "The Blackboard Jungle." If you haven't seen the movie, you should. Anyway, I will digress... my point is that Ed McBain is a wonderful writer and not to be missed.

This book features Matthew Hope, a Florida attorney, who is hired by Sarah Whittaker to get her out of an institution for the insane. The novel goes back and forth with Matthew believing that she is sane and perfectly normal, not to mention incredibly attractive, and utterly crazy. He tends to go toward the idea that she is normal, probably because she not only seems to know what is going on, but also because he would love to be involved romantically with her. Did I mention that she's due to inherit over a billion dollars?

The plot twists and turns over the delusions that Sarah is supposed to possess and the discovery of a decomposing body in the swampy areas of the Florida coast. It seems for a long time that the two plots have nothing to do with one another. Or do they? Well, I won't spoil any plot points, but I do want to say that the final explanation is a wonderfully brilliant stream of consciousness (in my opinion, delivered in a much better way than Virginia Wolf) that was so eloquent that it will stay with me for years to come.

I read somewhere that Evan Hunter didn't want to use his real name when writing mysteries because he didn't think the genre was "serious" enough, thus coming up with the pseudonymn Ed McBain. Well, he had nothing to be ashamed of... Matthew Hope is a hero for the ages, all the while maintaining the appeal of Travis McGee and Toby Peters-- real men characters.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read..., January 11, 2004

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Snow White & Rose Red

This is a pretty short novel featuring Matthew Hope as a lawyer who often ends up playing detective (also an older book... 1985). In this story, there are two plot lines going on. In the first, Hope is retained by a young lady who's been involuntarily committed to a mental institution. She seems very sane, and blames the situation on her mother who is trying to control a chunk of money she's inherited. In the other plot line (that seems totally unrelated), a pair of detectives find the body of a young lady in a swamp. She was shot in the throat and her tongue was cut out, and she's been there for six to nine months. As the two plots unfold, they start moving towards each other with a twist at the end... Good read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece, July 21, 2003

By 

Dan Allison "Dan" (Tampa Bay) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Snow White and Rose Red (Paperback)

Probably the best of the Matthew Hope novels. Excellent plotting and characterizations. The cops, Bloom and Rawles, are wonderful, full dimensional characters. I love Matthew Hope's naivete, he's an unreliable narrator who has a "hope"ful view of humanity, unlike McBain himself, or whatever his name is. This one's great!