Wednesday, April 03, 2024

Killer’s Wedge (87th Precinct) 3.5Stars

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Title: Killer’s Wedge
Series: 87th Precinct
Author: Ed McBain
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 100
Words: 45K





Wow, talk about a taut police procedural. The whole book takes place almost in one office and yet the tension never let up. A crazy lady comes into the police station to kill one of the officers and ends up taking a whole bunch of officers hostage as well as a prisoner and a pregnant lady.

Oh man. So, there was a perfect example of a character being totally stupid and ruining things for everyone. The prisoner is a hispanic lady who was picked up for knifing a gang leader. She’s fiery and angry and doesn’t let anyone tell her anything. She ends up hating on the crazy lady and you’d think they would be bitter enemies. BUT. Just as one of the police officers is about to make a successful move against the crazy lady, the prisoner interferes and has a chance to escape. However, she believes the crazy lady over the police officers, with predictable results of everyone still being held as hostages. I was so outraged that I just dropped my kindle on the bed spread and starting hollering out loud. Poor Mrs B had to listen to me for a solid 5minutes. The things wives have to put up with, hahahahahaa.

Cotton Hawes played a large part in the story, but thankfully, there was no sleeping around. I kept waiting for him to hit on the crazy lady though, just because.

Everything gets resolved in the end and we find out the nitroglycerin was real, not water like the police officers eventually gambled on it being. It made me laugh. KABOOM!!!

★★★✬☆


From the Publisher

Her name is death - and her name is Virginia Dodge. Virginia Dodge is determined to put a bullet through Steve Carella's brain, and she doesn't care if she has to kill all the boys in the 87th Precinct in the process. Armed with a gun and a bottle of nitro-glycerine she spends an afternoon terrorising Lieutenant Byrnes and his men with her clever little home-made bomb. Is there anything the boys at the 87th can do to save Carella or will this crazy broad achieve her goal ¿? In one of the most dazzling novellas of the Precinct, Ed McBain exposes the dangerous loyalties that keep the boys of the 87th together, and threaten to tear them apart at the same time.


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