Ed McBain/Evan Hunter


Book Description

One of the most prolific crime writers of the last century, Evan Hunter published more than 120 novels from 1952 to 2005 under a variety of pseudonymns. He also wrote several teleplays and screenplays, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and the 1954 novel The Blackboard Jungle. When the Mystery Writers of America named Hunter a Grand Master, he gave the designation to his alter ego, Ed McBain, best known for his long-running police procedural series about the detectives of the 87th Precinct. This comprehensive companion provides detailed information about all of Evan Hunter's/Ed McBain's works, characters, and recurring themes. From police detective and crime stories to dramatic novels and films, this reference celebrates the vast body of literature of this versatile writer.




Come Winter


Book Description

A glamorous ski resort becomes the setting for unspeakable evil in this “chilling, fascinating novel” by the New York Times–bestselling author of Last Summer (Los Angeles Times). Sandy, David, and Peter met as bored teenagers vacationing with their parents on a small resort island. The horrific crime they committed five years ago bound them together forever, cursing their friendship in blood and setting them on a path toward nihilism and destruction. Now in their early twenties, the glamorous and sophisticated trio has come to an exclusive ski resort just days before Christmas to satisfy their appetite for danger and enjoy the physical company of the only human beings they can still tolerate: one another. But an interloper soon finds her way into their closed circle. Mary Margaret is no gullible innocent. She’s smart and mischievous and appears bent on tearing the friends apart. Will Sandy, Peter, and David keep their sinister ménage-à-trois intact, or have they finally met their match? On the steep and icy slopes of Semanee Peak, a dangerous game of cat and mouse comes to a shattering end. “An unforgettable exploration into the nature of evil,” Come Winter is the chilling sequel to Last Summer and a “brilliant . . . dazzling” portrait of young sociopaths at play (Burlington Free Press).




The Big Bad City


Book Description

The Squadroom of the 87th Precinct is under even more pressure than usual. There's the Cookie Boy, a burglar with a taste for chocolate chip cookies and violence; and a murdered woman with breast implants, who turns out to be a nun. Detective Carella has problems of his own, too.




Cop Hater


Book Description

"The murder of three detectives in quick succession in the 87th Precinct leads Detective Steve Carella on a search through the city's underside and ultimately into the murderer's sights"--NoveList.




Fiddlers


Book Description

A police detective hunts for a pattern in a puzzling murder spree in this mystery by “a master” (Time). A blind violinist taking a smoke break. A cosmetics sales rep cooking an omelet in her own kitchen. A college professor trudging home from class. A priest contemplating retirement in the rectory garden. An old woman walking her dog. These are the seemingly random targets, all shot twice in the face. But most serial killers don’t use guns. Most serial killers don’t strike five times in two weeks. And most serial killers’ victims have something more in common than just being over fifty years of age. Now it falls to Det. Steve Carella and his colleagues in the 87th Precinct to find a connection that will crack this case—before another body is found. As Entertainment Weekly said about this long-running, much-loved police procedural series: “Imagine your favorite Law & Order cast solving fresh mysteries into infinity, with no reruns, and you have some sense of McBain’s grand, ongoing accomplishment.”




Lizzie


Book Description

Lizzie Borden, America's most celebrated murderer, comes to vivid life in this riveting and chilling book by acclaimed author Evan Hunter as the portrait of a notorious woman unfolds with shocking clarity. Lizzie Borden took an ax And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one. In recreating the events of that fateful day, August 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts, and the extraordinary circumstances which led up to them, Evan Hunter spins a breathtakingly imaginative tale of an enigmatic spinster whose secret life would eventually force her to the ultimate confrontation with her stepmother and father. Here is Lizzie Borden freed of history and legend—a full-bodied woman of hot blood and passion, fighting against her prim New England upbringing, surrendering to the late-Victorian hedonism of London, Paris and the Riviera, yet fated to live out her meager life in a placid Massachusetts town. Seething with frustration and rage, a prisoner of her appetites, Lizzie Borden finally snapped . . . but how and why she was led into her uncompromising acts is at the heart of this enthralling, suspenseful work of the imagination. Alternating the actual inquest and trial of Lizzie Borden with an account of her head-spinning, seductive trip to Europe, Evan Hunter portrays with a master craftsman's art the agony of a passionate woman and the depths of a murdering heart.




Mothers and Daughters


Book Description

New York Times Bestseller: A “monumental” saga of four ordinary American women from the author of The Blackboard Jungle (The New York Times Book Review). Amanda, a small-town minister’s daughter with hopes for a musical career, and Gillian, a hot-tempered aspiring actress from the Bronx, met at college. A decade later, one is happily married to an ambitious lawyer while the other is entangled in a passionate but troubled affair with a young man who’s spent five years in a navy prison. The other women in Amanda and Gillian’s lives mirror the choices they make and the secrets they share. Gillian’s mother-in-law, Julia, is haunted by a wartime affair and its tragic consequences. Amanda’s precocious teenage niece, Kate, belongs to a booming postwar generation that will radically change American society. Nevertheless, Kate knows that many of the challenges she faces as a young woman have been met and endured by her aunt and countless other women throughout history. Taking readers on an emotional journey through mid-twentieth-century America, author Evan Hunter paints an indelible portrait of romance, friendship, and sisterhood. Mothers and Daughters is a wide-ranging and poignant masterpiece from one of America’s most beloved storytellers.




The Blackboard Jungle


Book Description

Written in 1954, this controversial story cracked down on the public school system and dramatized student violence as no other novel of its time. It also spawned the classic 1955 film that introduced the world to Sidney Poitier and rock-and-roll music. Now reissued for its 50th anniversary.




Jigsaw


Book Description

A piece of a torn picture in the hand of a dead man puts the detectives of the 87th Precinct on the trail of $750,000 missing from a six-year-old bank heist. "Imagine your favorite Law & Order cast solving fresh mysteries into infinity, with no re-runs, and you have some sense of McBain's grand, ongoing accomplishment." --Entertainment Weekly "McBain has the ability to make every character believable--which few writers these days can do." --Associated Press




The Con Man


Book Description

When a young woman's body is fished out of the 87th Precinct's river, a street-wise detective is on the clock to find the con man who killed her before he strikes again. "McBain forces us to think twice about every character we meet...even those we thought we already knew." --New York Times Book Review "Imagine your favorite Law & Order cast solving fresh mysteries into infinity, with no re-runs, and you have some sense of McBain's grand, ongoing accomplishment." --Entertainment Weekly