FFB: Fiddlers -- Ed McBain

A Friday's Forgotten Books devoted to Ed McBain?  Okay, I'm on board for that.  He's certainly a favorite of mine, as anyone who's followed the blog for long probably knows.  I've written about him as much, or more, than I've written about another of my favorites, Lawrence Block.  I didn't realize how much I'd written about him, in fact, until I did a little searching on my blog.  Check out the links below.  They're the major ones, but there are a good many others I could have added, as well.  The review below, with only three of the links, originally appeared on September 12, 2005.

I've mentioned my admiration of Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain, among many other pseudonyms) before. Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, for example. So it was with a little bit of sadness and regret that I picked up Fiddlers, which, because of McBain's recent death, is probably the last of the 87th Precinct novels. 

McBain hasn't lost a step with age or illness. I'm sure you can think of a writer or two who should have stopped writing long before the end of an extended career, like an athlete who plays one season after his talent has deserted him. McBain wasn't one of those writers. He's just as sharp now as he was when I first read one of his books more than 50 years ago. Maybe sharper. I think that his body of work is about as impressive as that of any writer during the second half of the 20th century.

For me, it was impossible to read Fiddlers without having McBain's final illness in mind, and I'm convinced that he had it in mind, too. Just how much, I'm not sure. Is the book a grim joke in its own way? Autobiographical in any sense? I don't know. I do know that it's a typically well-written procedural with appearances by Steve Carella, Meyer, Bert Kling, Cotton Hawes, and Fat Ollie Weeks tracking down a serial killer. The stories of their personal lives aren't resolved, exactly, but I think readers who have been following them for many years, as I have, will be satisfied with their final appearances.

When I closed the book, I thought, "Well, that's it." But it's not. I can always go back and start over at the beginning of the series with books like The Mugger and The Pusher. I probably won't, but the possiblity is always there. McBain will be around for a long, long time.

Fiddlers -- Ed McBain

I've mentioned my admiration of Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain, among many other pseudonyms) before. Here, here, and here, for example. So it was with a little bit of sadness and regret that I picked up Fiddlers, which, because of McBain's recent death, is probably the last of the 87th Precinct novels.

McBain hasn't lost a step with age or illness. I'm sure you can think of a writer or two who should have stopped writing long before the end of a long career, like an athlete who plays one season too long. McBain wasn't one of those writers. He's just as sharp now as he was when I first read one of his books more than 50 years ago. Maybe sharper. I think that his body of work is about as impressive as that of any writer during the second half of the 20th century.

For me, it was impossible to read Fiddlers without having McBain's final illness in mind, and I'm convinced that he had it in mind, too. Just how much, I'm not sure. Is the book a grim joke in its own way? Autobiographical in any sense? I don't know. I do know that it's a typically well-written procedural with appearances by Steve Carella, Meyer, Bert Kling, Cotton Hawes, and Fat Ollie Weeks tracking down a serial killer. The stories of their personal lives aren't resolved, exactly, but I think readers who have been following them for many years, as I have, will be satisfied with their final appearances.

When I closed the book, I thought, "Well, that's it." But it's not. I can always go back and start over at the beginning of the series with books like The Mugger and The Pusher. I probably won't, but the possiblity is always there. McBain will be around for a long, long time.

Forgotten Books: THE MCBAIN BRIEF -- Ed McBain

Okay, here's the problem. In the intro to this collection of short stories, Ed McBain says that only one of them was previously published under the McBain name, and that was as a reprint. But the book gives no publishing information. We don't learn when or where or under what names the stories were originally published. I read the paperback, so maybe the info's in the hardcover edition. I would hope so.

The first and last stories in this book are also the first and last stories in McBain's more recent collection, Learning to Kill. Some of the others appear there, too. "Kiss Me, Dudley," for example. (When I was a kid, I thought this parody of Spillane was hilarious. Now, not so much.) But there are other stories that aren't in Learning to Kill ("Skin Flick," for one), and they all illustrate McBain's strengths as a story teller. If you have one collection, there's really no need to own both, but I'm glad I do.

Perspectives on McBain

Amazon Exclusive: Perspectives on McBain: Crime fiction master Ed McBain, also known as Evan Hunter, penned more than 115 books (among them the 87th Precinct and Matthew Hope series) and numerous screenplays, including the one for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. He is considered the father of the police procedural and hardboiled crime genres.

To celebrate the rerelease of much of his work, now available for the first time in digital format, Amazon Publishing imprint Thomas & Mercer asked a group of acclaimed mystery and thriller authors to tell us how Ed McBain influenced them:

Lawrence Block | Max Allan Collins | Bill Crider | Aric Davis | Nelson DeMille | Aaron Elkins | Charlotte Elkins | Stephen King | J.A. Konrath | Peter Lovesey | Matthew P. Mayo | Scott Nicholson | Tom Schreck | Harry Shannon | Johnny Shaw | J. Gregory Smith | Arni Thorarinsson | Blair S. Walker

FFB: Cut Me In -- Ed McBain

Back in the middle '50s, Evan Hunter hit the Big Time with The Blackboard Jungle.  By that time he'd written a lot of stories and other novels under various names.  In his introduction to Learning to Kill, a collection of his early short stories, Hunter mentions Cut Me In, an "as-yet-unpurchased novel" that his agent submitted to Pocket Books.  Pocket didn't buy the novel, but it eventually sold to Abelard-Schuman and was reprinted by Pryamid books.  The pen name Hunt Collins was used in both cases.  And that was the end of it.

Until now.  Hard Case Crime has brought back Cut Me In after it's languished in obscurity for nearly 60 years.  Hard Case will be releasing the novel under the Ed McBain byline, which is more marketable than Hunt Collins, I suppose.  And it also allows them to use the "McBain is a master" blurb from Newsweek.

The book's narrator is Josh Blake, a literary agent.  Right there, I'm hooked.  I'm ready for some inside scoop on literary agencies in New York in the '50s, since Collins/McBain/Hunter would know plenty.  I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more of that kind of thing in the book, but what is included is both amusing and interesting.  

The book is a mystery novel, though, so publishing info wasn't the main reason for its existence.  Sometimes, when the info does come, it feels almost as if it's being shoehorned in.  Blake's partner in the literary agency is murdered, and while the cops are perfectly capable of solving the crime, Blake gets involved, not necessarily because he wants to but because of the McGuffin in the case, a copy of a contract with a writer.

Cut Me In is a long way from an Evan Hunter novel of the middle '50s.  It's more like a paperback original by Richard Marsten, with beautiful women seducing or trying to seduce Blake every time he meets them.  Lots of fisticuffs, too.  Even some shooting.  I think most readers will be way ahead of both the cops and Blake as far as the mystery goes, but I still had a lot of fun reading the book.  It's fast and smooth, and it's even funny in parts.  When I read about the book in Learning to Kill, I immediately went on the Internet to search for copies.  I found some, too, but they were priced at a lot more than I was willing to pay.  I'm glad Hard Case has reprinted it so I can read it at last.

But wait.  There's more.  Also included in this edition of Cut Me In is "Now Die in It," a long-lost novelette about alcoholic p.i. Matt Cordell.  You can't go wrong, so order your copy now.

Great News

Amazon Media Room:News Release: "Amazon.com today announced that Amazon Publishing has acquired the publication rights of 35 titles in the 87th Precinct Series--including 'The Con Man' and 'The Mugger'--by author Ed McBain. These books will be published by the Thomas & Mercer imprint in print, digital and audio formats starting in Fall 2011. In addition to the 87th Precinct titles, Thomas & Mercer will publish 12 titles in McBain's Matthew Hope series starting in Spring 2012. These 12 books will be published in digital and audio format, with most of the 12 available in print format. This is the first time any of these books have been available digitally for readers. Jane Gelfman of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents, Inc. represented the estate of Ed McBain in this deal."

87th Precinct for Sale

You can't go wrong here!

Amazon.com Gold Box: New Deals. Every Day.: 90% Off on Ed McBain's "87th Precinct Series," $0.99 Each

Master crime novelist Ed McBain's "87th Precinct" is one of the longest-running crime series ever published and helped McBain earn the Mystery Writers of America's "Grand Master Award" for lifetime achievement. Today only, 35 Kindle Books from the series are just $0.99 each.

Evan Hunter, R.I.P.

Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind: "The man beloved to millions of crime fiction fans under his real name and as Ed McBain passed away this afternoon after a longrunning battle with cancer. He was 79. More information will be available later, but suffice to say, he will be missed by many, many people."

When I read this on Sarah Weinman's blog, my jaw dropped. I can't begin to imagine a world without Evan Hunter in it. I've been reading his books before I even started reading crime fiction, the first one being a Winston SF novel called FIND THE FEATHERED SERPENT when I was just a tyke. I loved that book. A few years later I picked up THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, which I read about the time the movie came out. I thought it was a great novel, and I still have that same copy, though it's been re-read so many times that it's in tatters. I later read many of his "mainstream" books, like STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET, mainly because of the movies made from them. What really got me started on him, though, was the 87th Precinct books that he wrote as Ed McBain. Man, I loved those early books in that series. As anyone who reads my Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels is aware, I work in a tribute to McBain every chance I get. He ever wrote me a letter about it once, which was a huge thrill for me. The news that he's gone hit me hard. I've been reading his novels for more than fifty years, and I guess I just thought he'd always be around.

FFB: The Case of the Nervous Nude -- Jonathan Craig

Once upon a time, kiddies, there was a popular radio show called Dragnet.  It moved to television and became equally popular there.  A couple of novelizations appeared, but they weren't nearly as popular as the shows on radio and TV.  Crime writers also tried to capture something of the feel of the show in their own novels, and two of the best were Ed McBain (Evan Hunter), with his books about the 87th Precinct, and Jonathan Craig (Frank R. Smith), who wrote about the 6th Precinct.  We all know whose books were the most popular.  I love McBain's books, and I've mentioned them in my own work a number of times.  But I'm here to tell you that if you're looking for books that come the closest to capturing the Dragnet feeling in prose, Jonathan Craig is your man.  I've liked his books since reading the Gold Medal originals long ago, and in re-reading The Case of the Nervous Nude, I found that I still liked them just as much.

What inspired the reread was an eBay purchase.  While looking at the site not long ago, I saw a collection of 8 of Craig's books that had been reprinted by Belmont-Tower in the middle 1970s.  They were unread.  The batch was under $10, postage paid.  Now as I said, I have the Gold Medal editions.  I even have some of the BT editions.  But nobody was bidding on these great books.  I felt they needed a good home, and I was just the guy to give it to them.  And when I got them, I thought I should read one.

Craig's approach was a lot different from McBain's.  Whereas McBain set his novels in a fictional city (that we all knew was New York), Craig used the actual city.  Whereas McBain wanted to use the squad of different characters and have different protagonists now and then, Craig used Pete Selby as his first-person narrator.  Selby has a partner named Stan Rayder, and there are other recurring characters, but Selby is always the focus.  The emphasis on police procedure is heavy, just as it is on Dragnet, and the dialog between Selby and the other characters could often have been inserted in Dragnet without anybody knowing it hadn't been written for the show.  Or so it seems to me.

A big difference in Craig's books and Dragnet is the emphasis on sex.  Everything in the Selby stories seems connected to sex, of all kinds.  And in this particular book leprosy even plays a part.  So that makes two crime novels that I know of that bring leprosy into the story, Richard Sale's Lazarus #7 being the other.

In this story, Selby and Rayder see a naked woman on the street, but she disappears before they can catch up to her.  This leads to their discovery of a dead man, murdered by an unusual method.  That discovery leads to as sleazy a bunch of characters as you're ever likely to encounter in a novel.  I won't say anything about them other than to mention that if you think closing abortion clinics is going to stop abortions, then you don't remember the 1950s.

Let me give you a little sample of the dialogue so you can judge for yourself if it has that Dragnet feel, assuming you remember that show:

I reached for the knob, but she beat me to it.
"Thank you," I said.
"It's what I get paid for," she said. 
"How about eavesdropping? You get paid for that, too?"
"Only cops get paid for that. I do it for free."
"You got any free ideas about Nancy?"
"Sure I got ideas. You want one?"
"Why not?"
"I figure she shacked up with some guy, and now she's afraid to come home."
"Any man in particular?"
"Sure. This Greer you were jawing about.  Who else?"

I could just quote the whole book.  It's great stuff.  If you haven't read any books in the series, I recommend them all highly.

August 7, 2002: Here's my take on forgotten writer Jonathan Craig, in a message I posted to the rara-avis list:

Dragnet probably spawned plenty of fictional procedural
series, but two of the best were published as paperback
originals. You all know about one of them, Ed McBain's 87th
Precinct series, which eventually went into hardback and is
still going on. The other one began about a year before
McBain's, and hardly anyone remembers it. Too bad, because
it's a good one. The author was Jonathan Craig, and the
series is set in a (named) New York City. The main
characters are two homicide cops, Pete Selby and Stan
Rayder. They work out of the 6th precinct, and most of
their cases (I think there were 10, all for Gold Medal) are
in Greenwich Village. The book I picked to re-read (for no
particular reason) was CASE OF THE PETTICOAT MURDER (1958).

The book opens, as nearly every Selby/Rayder case with the
discovery of a beautiful nude murder victim. It proceeds
with very little action but a lot of attention of details
(both of forensics and of regular police routine). And with
plenty of cross examination by Selby. Craig was really good
with dialog, and the story moves right along. Like all the
crimes Selby and Rayder get involved with, this one has
plenty of sexual overtones. Here's Selby: "People do weird
things for sexual enjoyment; strangling themselves and
others is only one of them. The idea, of course, is to stop
just the other side of climax and just this side of death;
but by the time that point is reached, the victim is often
in such a state of excitement that he no longer recognizes
it. In our years together, Stan and I have cut down a lot
of them: men dressed in women's clothing, girls with their
bodies coveredwith obscene words written in lipstick, men
and women with their stomachs bristling with needles or
forearms livid with cigarette burns." Pretty strong stuff
for 1958. (Trust me; I was there.) But at the same time,
there's Gold Medal's apparent ban on the grosser
body-function words. One character, for example, is "peed
off."

If you read several Selby books in a row, there would
probably be a sameness about them, but I highly recommend at
least one. Why didn't they hit the big time like McBain's
books? One reason was almost certainly Craig's decision to
write in the first person. He doesn't have the big cast
that McBain does. And of course McBain's plots are a lot
more varied.

FFB: The Boys from Grover Avenue -- George N. Dove

I'm jumping the gun on Ed McBain week, but I'm going to have a reprint then.  So I thought I'd talk about this book a week early. 

Back in the Olden Days before the Internet, we couldn't just click a few keys and find a ton of information on just about anything.  Luckily for us, however, the Bowling Green University Popular Press did a lot of good work and published books like The Boys from Grover Avenue.  This book was published in 1985, and it gives you an idea of how important Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels were.  There were a lot of them, even then, thirty-five of them by 1983.  


The table of contents gives you a good idea of what's in the book, but it doesn't mention that there are maps.  Which there are.  And I'll add a few words about the appendices since there's some good stuff there, including a timeline worked out from details mentioned in the books, crime stats for the 87, a necrology, a list of motives, a list of murder weapons, a discussion of the station house, and a few other items of interest.  

George N. Dove was a familiar name back in the early days of scholarship devoted to crime fiction, and I'm sure some of you remember him.  His work was always solid and meticulous, or seemed to be to me.  

In looking around the Internet, I discovered that The Boys from Grover Avenue appears to be still in print, so it's easily available if there are any fans out there who'd like to get a copy.

An Interview with Ed McBain

Bookreporter.com - Author Profile: Ed McBain: "You published your first book, FIND THE FEATHERED SERPENT, in 1952"

This interview appeared in 2000. It's a pretty good one, and I'm surprised to learn that Find the Feathered Serpent was Hunter's first book. (The Evil Sleep appeared the same year.) I bought Find the Feathered Serpent new, so I suppose I got in on the beginning of Hunter's career. And a great one it was.

McBain/Hunter Update

The Bunburyist: Preliminary info, McBain/Hunter companion (ed. Foxwell).: McFarland has posted some preliminary details on Ed McBain/ Evan Hunter: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Erin E. MacDonald, volume 3 in the series of reference works on mystery authors that I edit (volume 1 on John Buchan; volume 2 on E. X., aka Elizabeth, Ferrars). It is tentatively scheduled for publication in spring/summer 2012.

The Gutter and the Grave -- Ed McBain

A long time ago I read a book called I'm Cannon -- For Hire. It was a Gold Medal edition by "Curt Cannon," who was also the novel's main character. Cannon, as you probably know, was a pen name used by Evan Hunter.

Now Hard Case Crime has reissued the novel under what I suppose is Hunter's original title, and the main character's name has been changed to Matt Cordell, who (if memory serves, and it rarely does) was the name of the character in a series of short stories that appeared in Manhunt. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I have the facts wrong.) Some of these stories were reprinted in a Gold Medal book called I Like 'em Tough by Curt Cannon, with the main character's name again being Curt Cannon.

At any rate, The Gutter and the Grave is a highly entertaining novel. You have to believe that Lawrence Block must have read it or the short stories because, like Matthew Scudder, Cordell/Cannon is a former p.i. who has no license now nad spends his time drinking. He can, however, be talked into "doing a favor for a friend." The favor sounds simple enough, but it leads to murder in short order, and then it becomes a lot more complicated. Hunter writes a good bit about musicians in the course of the book, and he seems to have particularly enjoyed it. Some of the "hip" talk will seem a little dated to you whippersnappers, but I remember it well. And when it comes to driving a story a long, McBain is hard to beat. He had the narrative gift. Pick this one up and see what you think.

Happy Birthday, Glenn Ford!

So Glenn Ford turns 90 today. That means he was 39 when The Blackboard Jungle was released. I was 14, just the right age to see that movie. When "Rock Around the Clock" played over the opening credits, I knew I was in the right place at the right time. I liked the movie so much that I bought a paperback copy of the novel, which was even better and which began my long-term affection for the works of Evan Hunter. I went on to read Strangers When We Meet, A Matter of Conviction, Buddwing, and a number of others in the years after that. I was also reading Ed McBain, but at the time I didn't know that McBain and Hunter were one and the same.

But I digress. I was talking about Glenn Ford, right? I'd seen him before The Blackboard Jungle, in movies like The Man from the Alamo and The Big Heat, and he'd already made an impression on me. The Blackboard Jungle put him firmly among those actors I really liked, and he went on to make some movies that are still among my favorites: The Sheepman, 3:10 to Yuma, Don't Go Near the Water (another one that sent me to the book; William Brinkley wrote a couple of novels that I loved, including that one), Cowboy, Experiment in Terror. A lot of them, including Gilda, will be on TV this week. Click here for a schedule. Ford had a fine career, and I wish him the best today.

The Gutter and the Grave -- Ed McBain

A long time ago I read a book called I'm Cannon -- For Hire. It was a Gold Medal edition by "Curt Cannon," who was also the novel's main character. Cannon, as you probably know, was a pen name used by Evan Hunter.

Now Hard Case Crime has reissued the novel under what I suppose is Hunter's original title, and the main character's name has been changed to Matt Cordell, who (if memory serves, and it rarely does) was the name of the character in a series of short stories that appeared in Manhunt. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I have the facts wrong.) Some of these stories were reprinted in a Gold Medal book called I Like 'em Tough by Curt Cannon, with the main character's name again being Curt Cannon.

At any rate, The Gutter and the Grave is a highly entertaining novel. You have to believe that Lawrence Block must have read it or the short stories because, like Matthew Scudder, Cordell/Cannon is a former p.i. who has no license now nad spends his time drinking. He can, however, be talked into "doing a favor for a friend." The favor sounds simple enough, but it leads to murder in short order, and then it becomes a lot more complicated. Hunter writes a good bit about musicians in the course of the book, and he seems to have particularly enjoyed it. Some of the "hip" talk will seem a little dated to you whippersnappers, but I remember it well. And when it comes to driving a story a long, McBain is hard to beat. He had the narrative gift. Pick this one up and see what you think.

Discovering New Mysteries

At the International Mystery Writers' Festival: Kentucky resident Gary Sandy may be most well-known for his role as Andy Travis, the handsome WKRP in Cincinnati Program Director, but his true love for the theatre is no longer a mystery!

Following Sandy's years on the CBS sitcom, he made numerous TV guest appearances in Murder She Wrote, F.B.I. the Untold Story, L.A. Law, and Diagnosis Murder. But, his true passion has come from his more than 70 theatrical productions, including Milo Tindle in Sleuth, Mortimer in the Broadway revival of Arsenic and Old Lace, the Pirate King in the Broadway production of The Pirates of Penzance and Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire.

The International Mystery Writers' Festival is pleased to have Kentucky's Gary Sandy joining the cast for Ed McBain's Final Curtain to play in the main theatre, Cannon Hall at RiverPark Center, during the week of the festival.

Forgotten Books: Happy New Year, Herbie & Other Stories -- Evan Hunter

It's a surprise to me to be writing (not for the first time) about something by Evan Hunter as a forgotten book. When I was a youth, Hunter was a big name, what with Blackboard Jungle coming out in the middle '50s. He was the guy everybody was talking about. The movie and the book were both big sensations, but Hunter was a writing machine. After that success, he kept on turning out paperback originals as Richard Marsten and Ed McBain and Curt Cannon and Hunt Collins. We now know that a bit later he was also writing softcore porn as Dean Hudson. Hunter was the name he reserved for his more serious work, including some of his short stories. Like the ones in this book.

There's quite a mixture here. A summer camp story, a suburban despair story, a crime story, a science fiction story, and others. All of them well done, because Hunter was a storyteller above all. Now, if he's not forgotten, he's well on the way to being forgotten, and most of his books are out of print. I don't know why that bothers me, but it does. If you'd like to take a look at the different kinds of things he could do, this little book wouldn't be a bad place to start.

Mystery Scene Update from Kate Stine

At the Scene, February 2011 Solving the mystery of what to give next!

In this Issue Greetings from MS Barbara D'Amato on The Choirboys 2011 Edgar Nominees Romancing the Con Overheard Murder Gras Reads Win a Year of Mystery Scene Quick Links Current Issue Book Reviews Mystery Scene Blog Follow us at... AUTHORS PUBLISHERS BOOKSELLERS Reach thousands of enthusiastic mystery fans Promote your new book in our newsletter, online and in print. Send an email to Teri Duerr for details. READ PREVIOUS "AT THE SCENE" E-NEWS AT OUR ARCHIVE HERE Intent to Sell 3rd Edition by Jeffrey Marks NOW AVAILABLE $17.95 pb Hilliard & Harris ISBN 978-1591331162 Greetings Barbara D'Amato on The Choirboys, 2011 Edgar Award Nominations, Mardi Gras Reads, and Finding True Love at Mystery Conventions Hi everyone, If the winter weather has gotten you down, our guest for "Writers on Reading" this month, Barbara D'Amato, has a suggestion: Joseph Wambaugh's The Choirboys. And if a healthy dose of Joseph Wambaugh's outrageous black comedy doesn't cure the winter doldrums, there's a lot more going on in February:Edgar Awards buzz (read our MS reviews of all Best Novel nominees); tales of true love on the mystery convention circuit in honor of Valentine's Day; and some of our favorite Mardi Gras reads . Oh, and how could we forget? The #118 Winter Issue of Mystery Scene, featuring Robert Crais, author of the Elvis Cole series, is just on the horizon for late February. The forthcoming issue also includes a chat with Jill Paton Walsh about her latest continuation of Dorothy L. Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, a look at TV's most intriguing PI, Kalinda Sharma on The Good Wife (CBS), a selection of crime films featuring journalists, and a look at Steven Hockensmith's Holmes on the Range adventures, andLawrence Block remembers his friendship with Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain). Sincerely, Kate Stine Editor-in-Chief Read Anything Good Lately? Email us your fave raves for the "Our Readers Recommend" feature and be entered to win a free book! Need Help with Your Subscription? Send us a note. Renew or subscribe at our website.

I'm Blushing

Bruce Grossman over at Bookgasm takes a look at one of my books, Evil at the Root, and he seems to have liked it. I'd tell you what he has to say, but I'm too modest. So take a look for yourself. You'll have to scroll down, or you can read his take on Ed McBain's Fuzz first. Thanks, Bruce.