Customer Reviews

Tricks

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

 

 

Ed McBain was on something of a roll while writing his 87th Precinct novels in the 1980s. For years they had been very good, but in his fourth decade of defining and detailing the seedy underworld of the mythical Northeastern U.S. city of Isola, something was clicking like never before.

There were great classic crime dramas, like "Ice" and "Poison," taut psychological thrillers like "Lullaby," and then this, 1987's "Tricks," which is hard to classify but perhaps the most entertaining of all 87th Precinct novels. While other 87th Precinct novels have major and minor storylines, "Tricks" presents us with three very different central plots. All are cleverly connected to the deceptively simple title, a McBain trademark: There's a magician who disappeared as part of his big finale during a show and seems to be turning up in pieces around the city. There's a group of trick-or-treaters shooting up liquor stores and then vanishing into the night in their innocent-looking children's disguises. Then there's undercover detective Eileen Burke, looking for "tricks" of another kind, namely those slashing prostitutes to death in Isola's dangerous Canal Zone.

Each story works in a different way. The one with the undercover cop is a suspense story focused on Burke, a recovering rape victim who is probably McBain's best female creation. The one with the missing magician is a nicely-crafted mystery that caught me in the end by complete surprise. The trick-or-treater story, bloody as it is, is funny as well in a brutal Quentin Tarantino sort of way.

It's nice to have this book not as three good short stories, though they are that, but as a glimpse of detectives in action during a particularly bloody and strange Halloween. The sequences work off of each other in tandem, forming a kind of rhythm that gels into something bigger than any one of the stories. There's long sections of dialogue set in the precinct house where conversations about two different cases are alternately quoted and blended one into the other without identifying the speakers. Writer's vanity? Perhaps, but it works at establishing both tension and dramatic pace.

There's also McBain's trademark humor. At one crime scene where part of a human torso is found in a garbage can, a homicide detective regales a visibly sickened colleague. "You won't need an ambulance for this one...All you need is a shopping bag."

The medical examiner arrives. "What have we got here?" he asks.

"Just this chest here," the homicide detective replies.

"Very nice. Do you want me to pronounce it dead, or what?"

And then there's Andy Parker's eventful Halloween night out, at a party with a onetime murder witness he has the hots for which turns out to be less of a break from duty than he expects. Parker's a funny and rich character here, not the 87th's finest but not someone you can pigeonhole as a miserable failure, either. You actually root for him here despite yourself.

Even the minor characters breathe in "Tricks." At one point, two detectives visit two old guys at a school at night, a custodian and his checker-playing buddy. It's an inconsequential scene in the narrative, but McBain still fills out some five pages with tiny details that add color, interest, and life. The custodian thinks the cops are on to him stealing school supplies. He mops his brow. The cops wonder what he is hiding. The checkers buddy explains he is a widower who has nothing better to do. The vignette ends, and so it goes.

It's hard enough to end one good story in a satisfactory way. How McBain manages to do it so brilliantly in triplicate boggles the mind. With the lack of a clear central focus, this may not be the most representative of 87th Precinct novels, but it is very enjoyable and even a non-crime fiction fan will likely savor and marvel at its many twists and turns.

If you've read any Ed McBain, you know what to expect--he established his style long ago and doesn't deviate, at least in the 87th Precinct series. These are all well written police procedurals, with a large cast of interesting characters, although character development isn't really the name of the game for McBain. Instead, these are plot driven books, about unusual (but usually believable) crime--Tricks features a troup of murdering circus midgets posing as kids at Halloween! And McBain is careful not to keep his characters in "series limbo"; although they don't age quite the same as you and I, things do happen to them--this book features an event that occurs to undercover decoy Eileen Burke that resonates through many of the subsequent books. It's a shame so many of the books in this series are out-of-print; they are good, quick reads. Bring 'em back!

The first 2/3rds of this book is devoted to a series of set-pieces typical of McBain that force these consecutive responses from Detective Hall Willis when receiving a midnight update on the happenings of a Halloween night in Isola's 87th precinct.

In true McBain style, the reminder of the book neatly resolves issues, arrests the guilty and makes the reader feel a little smarter for getting to the solution first;

This episode of the long running novel series features most of the familiar faces, with a lot of time being given to Detective Andy Parker for a change. There's a cathartic coming of age for one of our heroes, jeopardy for another two and a major decision made by a fourth.

I read the majority of the series a long time back and only recently discovered that this book represented a hole in my reading. I found the story to be a little more graphic than others I recall, with less of the "police procedural" feel with which McBain made his name.

Apart from that it's more of the same: the dialog and characterizations are still there and my patented "McBain drinking game" - one shot every time he mentions high heels would have had me paralytic if I'd read this in a single sitting.

If you like the 87th precict novels - this will be fine for you. If you don't or are neutral: this won't change your mind.

2.5 stars (3)

OK, just like most of the 87th Precinct stories, this one has three stories to be followed.

First: parts of a body start showing up around town at the same time that a magician is reported missing by his wife. She is able to identify the parts based on some body scars. How come everything but the head and hands don't show-up?

Second: it's halloween and some kids in costume are robbing liquor stores. They are being driven around by a big blond in a blue station wagon. They shoot as soon as they walk into the store. In four robberies they kill four people and end up shooting Meyer and Carella.

Third: Eileen Burke goes out a decoy/stake-out to try and catch a man who has already murdered three hookers. Eileen is scared but she agrees to do it because Annie is going with her and there is other back-up. All Eileen wants to do is shoot the guy to get back at her rapist.

I've been reading this series in order and that this now is thirty years since the first book in '56. How come Steve and Meyer are still Det/2s and how come the LT Burns has never been promoted. With all the cases they've solved and even saved the Mayor's life you would think they would be running their own precincts by now. This is the second time that Meyer has been shot in the last few years (he was shot in the leg when he went out with O'Brien) and the second time that Carella has almost been killed. What do these guys need to do to get a break.

Meyer fought in WW2, which means he's at least in his late 50s, though his kids seem to still live at home. On the other hand Steve fought in Korea and joined the 87th in the early fifties, which would make him in his late forties or early fifties. Steve's twins who were born in the sixties, haven't gotten to High School yet... and the series runs for another twenty years! Time for a reality or time travel check.

Zeb Kantrowitz