87th Precinct

Murders happen every day in the big bad city. They're not such a big deal, you know. Even when the victim is a city councilman as well-known as Lester Henderson.

But this is the first time Fat Ollie Weeks of the 88th Precinct has written a novel, ah yes. Called Report to the Commissioner, it follows a cunning detective named Olivia Wesley Watts, who, apart from being female and slim, is rather like Fat Ollie himself. While Ollie's responding to the squeal about the dead councilman, his leather dispatch case is stolen from the back of his car....

It should have been the night that launched a new pop idol. Tamar Valparaiso is young and beautiful, with the body and voice of an angel. The stage is set for her to launch her debut album, Bandersnatch, on a luxury yacht in the heart of the city. But halfway through her performance, masked men drag Tamar off the stage and into a waiting speedboat, while the partygoers look on helplessly.

Ed McBain concocts a brilliant and intricate thriller about a master criminal who haunts the city with cryptic passages from Shakespeare, directing the detectives of the 87th Precinct to a future crime - if only they can figure out what he means.

Ed McBain's latest installment in the 87th Precinct series finds the detectives stumped by a serial killer who doesn't fit the profile. Seemingly random targets shot twice in the face. But most serial killers don't use guns. Most serial killers don't strike five times in two weeks. Now it falls to Detective Steve Carella and his colleagues in the 87th Precinct to find out what, or whom, the victims had in common before another body is found.