Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Police Procedural

Showing posts with label Police Procedural. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 03, 2024

Killer’s Wedge (87th Precinct) 3.5Stars

Title: Killer’s Wedge
Series: 87^th 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.

All My “87^th Precinct” Reviews

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Killer’s Payoff (87th Precinct #6) 3Stars

Title: Killer’s Payoff
Series: 87^th Precinct #6
Author: Ed McBain
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 118
Words: 53K

Wow, it’s been a while since I read an 87^th Precinct book! I was thinking I had stopped in November of ‘23, but looking at the the blog, it turns out it was back in June with Killer’s Choice. Man, time really got away from me on this series. That’s ok though, as these are essentially standalone stories with just little tidbits connecting them to any previous books.

Cotton Hawes was introduced in the previous book and he’s the main character here. He literally sleeps with some woman every other chapter and is the main reason this didn’t get 3 ½ stars. It’s not graphic or anything, but McBain makes it a point and by the end, it’s almost a joke. But that kind of thing isn’t a joke.

I found the idea of the police working hard to apprehend the killer of a scumbag blackmailer to be morally repugnant but that is how the Rule of Law works. It doesn’t get to play favorites based on your personal choice of who you like or don’t like. Either the Law applies to all or it applies to none. I didn’t delve into that aspect in my own head very deep because I didn’t want to go down a ranty path where I sounded off about various social ills caused by Big Government either ignoring the Law or actively working against it. But it peeped out. Like a ray of ranty sunshine ;-)

I still love the fact that these are so short. I read this in one sitting and when I was done, I just sat back and enjoyed the fact that I had a complete story under my belt and didn’t have to spend the next week wading through purple prose and over descriptiveness and so much detail that nothing was left to my imagination.

Overall, I was happy with this story and the continuing adventures of the police of the 87^th Precinct. Cotton Hawes will be the main character for at least one more book, so I’m prepared now for him to be a total manwhore. I do hope though that he gets married and settles down.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher

Sy Kramer, a blackmailer, is shot dead in a 1937-style drive-by execution. But it is 1958 and Cotton Hawes and Steve Carella have to find out who killed him. It could have been Lucy Mencken, a rich and respectable lady with a past that included some very unrespectable photographic portraits, or it could have been Edward Schlesser, a manufacturer of soda pop. Or perhaps it was one of the members of a hunting party that went very wrong. In the end, it was the 3 hunters. They had accidentally killed a man, were seen by Kramer and he was blackmailing them. He squeezed them too hard and so they decided to simply kill him.

All My “87^th Precinct” Reviews

Thursday, June 22, 2023

Killer’s Choice (87th Precinct) ★★★✬☆

Title: Killer’s Choice
Series: 87^th Precinct
Author: Ed McBain
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 97
Words: 44K

From the Publisher and Bookstooge.blog

Annie Boone is dead. She was shot four times in the chest, pieces of the liquor store’s windows spread over her body like raindrops from a lethal storm. For 87th Precinct Detectives Carella, Kling, and newcomer Hawes, even more troubling is the loss of one of their own. Detective Roger Havilland is murdered shortly thereafter, a shard of glass through his jugular.

Faced with a host of suspects—from Annie’s former mother-in-law to her ex-husband, employer, and a string of boyfriends—the detectives find themselves with a victim whose identity spurns all conventional definition. She was the store’s saleswoman…as well as a divorced mother, pool shark, society lady, drunk, and patron of the ballet. Each facet of her life has a corresponding potential suspect. The only way for Carella and the men to find her killer—and maybe that of Havilland, too—is to find out who she really was. The problem is, the only one who really knew her died in a shower of glass.

Turns out the woman was having an affair with the owner of the store and the man's wife got tired of him cheating on her. So she killed her competition. She would have gotten away with it too except she sent the murdered woman a gloating note and said note was written on a torn off piece of vehicle registration, which had the wife's info all over it.

There are times I do not understand why one of these books is super gritty and makes me feel horrible while at other times, like this particular book, its like I’m just reading a newspaper report with zero emotional impact.

This was one of those cases where the victim had portrayed herself to each person who knew her as somebody different. Why, we’re never told. But it made life really hard for the detectives and made me glad I’m a land surveyor and all I have to worry about is poison ivy, stepping on ground nests of hornets and abutters who are dumb as bricks and don’t even know it. I can deal with those things!

I’m glad this didn’t hit me like some of the previous books. Means I can keep on reading the series.

★★★✬☆

All My “87^th Precinct” Reviews

Thursday, May 11, 2023

The Con Man (87th Precinct) ★★★✬☆

Title: The Con Man
Series: 87^th Precinct
Author: Ed McBain
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 150
Words: 51K

From the Publisher

A con man is plying his trade on the streets of Isola: conning a domestic for pocket change, businessmen for thousands, and even ladies in exchange for a little bit of love. You can see the world, meet a lot of nice people, imbibe some unique drinks, and make a ton money…all by conning them for their cash.

The question is: How far is he willing to go?

When a young woman's body washes up in the Harb River, the answer to that question becomes tragically clear. Now Detective Steve Carella races against time to find him before another con turns deadly. The only clue he has to go on is the mysterious tattoo on the young woman’s hand—but it’s enough. Carella takes to the streets, searching its darkest corners for a man who cons his victims out of their money…and their lives.

INSERT SEPARATOR

The synopsis is very misleading, in that it makes it seem like there is only ONE con man doing his thing. Well, there isn’t. I won’t tell you how many though, because that would be, GASP, a spoiler and heaven forbid you read a spoiler for a book from 1957! (and by the way, Leia is Luke’s sister) Plus, everyone knows by now that Bookstooge.blog is a completely Spoiler Free Zone and I never tell anyone anything. You bunch of saps…

This wasn’t nearly as “gritty” as the Pusher and I am very thankful for that. McBain doesn’t go into graphic detail about the murders, so that’s good too. And it’s hard to be “gritty” about con men tricking people out of 5 dollars, or 50 dollars or 500 dollars. Basically, trust nobody and you’ll be safe. That’s my philosophy and it would have helped the poor marks who were fleeced in the story.

If it’s too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true. That is true whether you’re talking about money or love. Be happy and satisfied with what you have. Otherwise you’re going to end up losing what you do have. Don’t be stupid.

Well, if you really want to be stupid, you can be. But I’m going to have to charge you for being stupid on my blog. And that’s going to cost you a cool $20 American. Just leave your name, address, mother’s maiden name, credit card number, expiration date and cvw number down in the comments. It’ll be a sacrifice, but I’ll take your data and bilk you. But remember, I warned you, so it’s your fault.

★★★✬☆

All My “87^th Precinct” Reviews

Monday, March 27, 2023

The Pusher (87th Precinct) ★★★✬☆

Title: The Pusher
Series: 87^th Precinct
Author: Ed McBain
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 111
Words: 50K

From Bookstooge.blog

A pusher is killed and it is made to look like a suicide. But it is all a setup to frame the son of the Lt. Of the 87^th Precinct. The son is a junkie and the Lt locks him in his room while he goes through withdrawals. Meanwhile, the detectives track down the guy who is trying to blackmail the Lt, and who has also killed several other people.

Oooph, another gritty entry. I’m beginning to think that Darren, in leaving his comment on The Mugger, might have been correct. There is nothing suave here. This is heroin overdoses and whores being beaten to death and families being torn apart by drugs and cops almost dying from being shot at point blank range.

But at the same time, I was hooked. I think I read this in one sitting. It helps that it is so short. I guess people in the 60’s actually worked and got things done, so any entertainment had to slot in wherever it could. Of course, all those hippies went and ruined everything and that is why I am cursed today to be sitting on my couch, eating pizza while enjoying doing nothing. My goodness, my life is so brutal!

While not being disturbingly graphic, McBain doesn’t sugarcoat a thing. It makes me wonder about the people for whom stories like this aren’t fictional at all, but every day life. It also makes me wonder (again) if this is a series I want to continue. I think I’m going to have to take this a book at a time and maybe space them out a bit more. I think I have a total of 5 of these on my kindle right now. Once I’m done with them, I’ll read some other series for a bit and decide if I want to come back.

But the attraction of a short, tight story is undeniable.

★★★✬☆

All My “87^th Precinct” Reviews

Sunday, February 26, 2023

The Mugger (87th Precinct) ★★★✬☆

Title: The Mugger
Series: 87^th Precinct
Author: Ed McBain
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 149
Words: 49K

Oh, this not a cozy crime novel and I’m realizing this series is not even going to be “comfortable murder solving 101” like with Nero Wolfe. Not being a “crime fiction” aficiando, I think I would call this True Crime. It’s certainly dirty, gritty and violent enough. I added the ultra violent tag because a 17 year old is killed and she was pregnant, by her brother in law. I felt dirty just writing that.

The whole Mugger thing is a separate storyline and McBain plays the reader like a violin in how he interweaves them and makes them appear as one. It was fantastic. There are times I like being manipulated as a reader and McBain did that masterly in this book.

At the same time, the whole pregnant 17 year old thing was extremely disturbing. She had fallen in love with her brother in law and he used that to his own advantage. It was the grossest violation of adult power that I have read about in a long time. Realizing that people can be, and are, like this really depresses me. As a Christian I know that humanity as a whole is fallen, ie, no longer perfect because of sin. But knowing something and seeing something are very different things. I’ve talked about this with a friend of mine, and that dichotomy of knowing that humanity is the worst while still expecting the best of them, is something most Christians seem to have to live with. So while this kind of behavior is rather normal, unfortunately, it still shocks me.

I do hope this kind of thing isn’t going to be the norm. That would be too heavy a burden for me to deal with I suspect.

★★★✬☆

All My “87^th Precinct” Reviews

Thursday, January 19, 2023

Cop Hater (87th Precinct) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Cop Hater
Series: 87^th Precinct
Author: Ed McBain
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 112
Words: 49K

During a steamy hot summer, the 87^th Precinct is plagued by a rash of cop killings. 3 cops are killed in as many weeks, with one of them being Detective Steve Carella’s partner. After running clues to the ground and coming up empty, Steve gets a lucky break, finds the killer and it’s revealed the whole thing happened to cover up a woman having her husband killed so she wouldn’t have to divorce him.

Talk about misdirection! I was impressed. I was flabbergasted too. I know that I’m almost 70 years removed from the time this was written (it was published in 1956) and that divorce was one of those “social” sins of the time AND that I’ve read/watched this scenario before but it still blows my mind that someone will commit murder and view it as a better option than divorce. It’s like blowing up the court house because you don’t want to pay your speeding fine.

This was a nice short story with McBain focusing on what went on and not trying to give me every single characters back story or explain the city in block by block detail. You simply don’t need that bloat, you just want it. And here, McBain kicks your teeth in, tells you to sit down, shut up and read the fething story! Ahhh, if only readers of today could appreciate this sparse way of telling a story. I don’t think it was THAT great of a story but simply not having any bloat or author ego or message to wade through made this very enjoyable.

The 87^th Precinct series is really long one (I currently have access to 40 of them and I’m pretty sure there’s more) so I have decided to add 4 or 5 and then take a break between those little mini rotations. Keep it fresh.

The other thing was the main character’s name, Steve Carella. All I could think of was Steve Carell and so I saw him in his “The Office” role and that made for some really funny mental pictures, as Steve Carella is a tough, no-nonsense detective like Starsky or Hutch.

★★★✬☆

Tuesday, November 05, 2019

The Prefect (Revelation Space #7) ★★★★☆

Title: The Prefect
Series: Revelation Space #7
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 516
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, an officer in the Panoply, a police force that enforces the few laws of the Glitter Band that orbits the planet Yellowstone.

Things start off with a bang as an Ultra ship uses its engines to wipe out 1 of the 10,000 Habitats. Dreyfus is sent in to investigate by his boss, Jane Aumonier. Jane had a run-in several years ago with an entity named the Clockmaker and has a mechanical tick on neck that places all sorts of restrictions on her or it will kill her.

During Dreyfus's investigation it becomes apparent that the Ultra Captain was framed to cover something else up. While this investigation is going on, Dreyfus's newest underling, Thalia Ng, is sent out on a routine software patch update to 4 of the Habitats. Said patch closes a loophole that allowed those habitats to sway the voting in their habitats, which is strictly against the Law. Thalia installs the code but finds out that it hid some other code that allowed another entity to take over those Habitats.

Thus is revealed the Bad Guy, Aurora Nerval-Lermontov. She is the only surviving member of the 80, an experiment by the Sylveste's to truly digitize humans. She has been hiding and found a ship full of Conjoiners. Said conjoiners could see the future and saw the melding plague, which spells the end of the Glitter Band, and thus Aurora, as she would be destroyed by the melding plague. Aurora wants to prevent this plague but the only way she thinks is viable is to take over and control the entire Glitter Band, no matter how many people she has to kill.

Thalia must survive on the Habitat she is on while the rest of the Panoply tries to deal with Aurora, who has a traitor inside the Panoply. She uses the resources of the 4 Habitats she controls to create drones to spread her control code to other Habitats. Panoply ends up nuking several of them to contain the spread but realize they can't really stop Aurora.

Dreyfus realizes that the first Habitat destroyed by the Ultra ship probably contained the Clockmaker and that Aurora was behind it, as the Clockmaker is the only entity Aurora truly fears. Dreyfus races against the traitor in their midst to find the Clockmaker and release it.

The Clockmaker and Aurora end up inhabiting the entire data band, which slows them down and makes them a non-threat for at least a century or two. The Panoply and the Ultra's get together to clean up the remnants of Aurora's forces and Dreyfus deals with the traitor, regains some memories he never knew he'd even lost and Life Goes On.

My Thoughts:

This was a decent end to my Revelation Space series read. Since I had already read about the melding plague and the glitter band, the situation presented to me wasn't completely outside what I could comprehend.

That being said, this was only a decent end to my Revelation Space series read. I enjoyed what I read but I was neither wowed or impressed nor disgusted.

Dreyfus came across as this careworn, stoic, tired man who could barely function. I didn't enjoy him as a character even while he wasn't boring. No character was boring though. Each and everyone was unique and made the story what it was. I didn't feel like anyone should have been cut out nor did I feel like I wanted “someone else”. But by the end of the book I realized that my time with Reynolds was over.

It feels kind of funny to be giving this 4stars and yet saying it wasn't good enough to keep me reading more Reynolds, but hey, thems the breaks! Reynold's style just never grabbed me like Neal Asher's writing did, so take from that what you may.

Glad I read this compendium of 7 books but I've had enough.

★★★★☆

Previous "Revelation Space" Reviews

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

City of Night (Frankenstein #2) ★★★☆½

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: City of Night
Series: Frankenstein #2
Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 482
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Victor Helios is stepping up his campaign of the overthrow of the world with his newmen. Unfortunately for him, some really weird things are starting to happen with his newmen and even though he doesn't realize it yet, he's losing control. They are changing, mutating, becoming something completely non-human.

Deucalion is still hamstrung by his inability to harm Victor and so his use of police detectives Carson O'Connor and her partner Michael Maddison continues.

Victor sends some of his assassins after Carson and her autistic younger brother but things don't go as Victor planned because one of his creations managed to get to them first and put them on guard.

The book ends with the group planning on how to assault Victor and not unleash the wrath of the newmen who have replaced so many key officials in New Orleans.

My Thoughts:

This series is one I am glad I didn't read as it came out. Each “book” ends on a serious cliffhanger and without a lot of resolution. It is really more one big story that has been artificially chunked up into 5 separate books. Knowing that I have it completed and just waiting for me to read, I don't mind nearly so much. I'm actually reading the omnibus edition, but reading over 1500 pages all at once is just a bit more than I want to deal with. Plus, it's easier to review 5 smaller chunks than one huge thing like that.

This time around there is no small time villain like in the previous book. It made the cops' part feel not as needed. A lot more time with the newmen happens and we see some of the happenings as they change. It is wicked creepy and yet perfectly illustrates how evil always turns on itself and destroys itself.

The threat of the newmen is also made a bit more evident in this book. There was at least one incident where the newmen assassins (a couple where the woman is going crazy because she wants a baby but Victor created them unable to have children) simply walked through a hail of 9mm bullets. Being very familiar with the 9mm, as I own a Sig-p938 cbt, it really brought out just how dangerous these beings were. Not immortal, not invincible, but not something that a regular police force could handle. A race of super villains as it were.

Both Carson and Michael come to the realization, and acceptance, that to stop Victor, it will probably cost them their lives. That is a sobering thought to me as a reader. It also makes me want to cheer for them even harder. Heroes.

The ending with the group planning to assault Victor's secret lab really amped up the tension for me. The lab is filled with newmen, but it is also starting to fill up with the mutations, all of which are wicked nasty and give even the newmen a run for their money in the violence department.

I really wanted to just jump into the next book right away, to see what happens. But I know myself well enough to not start down that path again. I'll get to the next book in a month or two. That wait won't hurt me and will help temper any excitement and expectations I may have for book 3.

★★★☆½

Prodigal Son (Book 1)

Wednesday, December 06, 2017

Prodigal Son (Frankenstein #1) ★★★☆½

^{This
review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained
therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to
copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions.
Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Librarything & by
Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission}
Title: Prodigal Son

Series: Frankenstein #1

Author: Dean Koontz

Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Pages: 498

Format: Digital edition

Synopsis:

Deucalion, otherwise known as Frankenstein's Monster, has been hanging out at some Zen Buddhist Monk Temple Mountain Retreat kind of place. But when Victor Frankenstein, now known as Victor Helios, appears on the scene, Deucalion knows that Victor is continuing his attempts to create a new breed of humanity and replace the old with the new.

At the same time, a mass murderer has appeared and this gets the New Orleans PD involved. Carson O'Connor, the sole caretaker of her younger autistic brother, is partnered up with Michael Maddison. They are the chief detectives and their goal is to bring this scumbag to justice.

Both of these events overlap. Can Deucalion put a stop to Victor's plan to exterminate humanity and can Carson find a killer who kills for the perfect body part? One of these gets answered and the other will take the rest of the series to answer.

My Thoughts:

I would classify this as an urban fantasy police procedural.

Deucalion's part is much smaller than I had hoped. He starts the ball rolling but then just kind of disappears. Koontz writes at the beginning that he started this whole project for a tv show and it really shows. When things moved over to Carson and the serial murderer side of things, I felt like I was reading a detective murder tv show.

In many ways I felt like this had the supernatural side of things that was missing from Koontz's Odd Thomas series. Victor Helios is truly one scary guy and while he's supposedly dabbling in super science, it really comes across as “magic”. Victor is cruel, intelligent, ruthless and so dedicated to his view of Materialism that it blinds him to anything else. This introduces certain flaws into his character and weakness that can be exploited.

There is a much longer story arc going on. I liked that the serial murder case was solved. It gave a good ending so I felt like I had actually finished a book. Yet the arc dealing with Victor and his plans to overthrow humanity seems big enough to fill the rest of the series with no problem.

I enjoyed my time reading this and look forward to the rest of the series. This is my second foray into Koontz territory and so far I'm pretty pleased. I always thought of him as second rate Stephen King horror wannabe but these books are showing me just how wrong I was. He's writing some good thrillers.

★★★☆½

Odd Thomas Novels