#Readathon-The Ed McBain 87th Precinct Novels Part 2-‘The Mugger’

Hello and welcome to part 2 of my Ed McBain re-read. As before, I will link at the foot of the page to the Tipping The Fedora WordPress publication on the book, and also the Hark87Podcast for this week’s book-

About the book…

The mugger was special. He preyed only on women. He waited in the darkness, coming from behind to snatch their bags. Then he punched his victims and told them not to scream. As the women reeled with pain and fear, he bowed, and said, ‘Clifford thanks you, madam.’

The cops in the 87th Precinct are not amused. They want the mugger and they want him bad. Especially after he puts one victim in hospital …and the next one in the morgue.

The dead girl was pretty and only seventeen.

And patrolman Bert Kling has a personal reason to go after her murderer…a reason that becomes a burning obsession and an easy way for a cop to get killed.

”An autopsy report is a coldly scientific thing.It reduces flesh and blood to medical terms, measuring in centimetres, analysing with calm aloofness. There is very little warmth and emotion in an autopsy report.There is no room for sentiment, no room for philosophising. There is only one or more eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheets of official looking paper, and there are type written words on the sheet and those words explain in straightforward medical English the conditions under which such and such a person met death.”

Boy oh boy, after introducing those who we constant readers will recognise as the mainstays of the series, Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer are relegated to the outskirts of this second 87th precinct outing. Meyer pops up as a link to a crime that lurks in the background of the mugging spree, where multiple cats are being stolen in a another part of Isola, the island where the 67th precinct is based, and Steve pops up literally to say ‘What have I missed?’ right at the end.

According to him, ‘sitting on your duffs and collecting salaries’ , which is a bitter and laughable comment on all the events of the preceding pages. A lot of story and continued world building is packed into a relatively slim volume and it really highlights not only the cultural and scientific advances we have made since the late 50’s, it sadly throws sharp relief on what hasn’t . In relation to the horrifying news of the death of Tyre Nichols, the casual racism and violence towards those seen as interloping ‘others’ really reinforces the long held suspicion of white policemen against anyone whose skin is slightly off white, and the power they wield with deadly force against them. I don’t have the best way with words and it is a horrific reality which we are still living with-institutionalised racism and sexism within the forces which are supposed to ‘protect and serve’. Instead it is used as a convenient shield for fraud, violence and misogony.

Within the Mugger’s pages you have the character of Roger Havilland, the archetypal bad guy cop attacking a potential suspect who is Puerto Rican , without compunction, and the way that the vernacular of Sixo Fangez, the man in question is written is painful and wince inducing. I don’t know if it is my 21st Century hindsight thast has me thinking this is deliberate, in that Ed has Sixo using the kind of language that would deflect Havilland’s violence and suspicion to end it quicker, the same as when he describes the beauty of all the women in the book, including a 17 year old corpse, is that paradoxically intensifying the tragedy of wasted beauty or was he just reducing women to body parts? Specifically their calves….so many description of shapely calves!

The Mugger’s main storyline follows a spate of muggings with little financial gain where the criminal ends a violent and sustained attack by bowing and saying ‘Clifford thanks you.’

It introduces a stalwart of the series, Eileen Burke-yes, her calves are shapely, natch-who goes under cover to entice the mugger, tailed by future love interest Hal Willis.

Alongside this, Bert Kling, not yet a detective, is introduced in his first leading role, asked to help a friend’s sister in law who he believes, has fallen in with a bad crowd. His old pal, taxi driver Pete Bell has worries about his 17 year old sister in law , Jeanie, and in a brilliant two hander, Kling, only 24 but sounding so much older, pays a visit and tries to talk to her. She reveals nothing, but Bert is not convinced there is nothing going on behind those beautiful eyes….it is repeatedly mentioned that Jeanie has the body of a woman but the emotional age of a child and her older sister Molly, already on her 3rd pregnancy at 24 , is worn out with worry for her. And by extension, so is Pete, who begs Kling to have a word.

The way Molly is described in relation to how Pete has portrayed her is a damning indictment on the way that life treats these young women-in the world of the precinct they are conduits for the needs and wants of women and yet, whilst there are criminals ready to exploit this through dance clubs, prostitution and mugging, there will be the men , and women, of the 87th Precinct willing to risk life and limb to bring justice down on the evil doers.

Interspersed with the three main stories are the city against whom the characters parade like actors on a stage which she-the city of Isola is always a she-provides the scenery.

”It was a big city, and a dirty city, but when you were born and raised in it, it became as much a part of you as your liver or your intestinal tract. ”

The police procedural part is evidenced by the insertion of finger prints, typed post mortems, maps and more. It reminds you of how doggedly the police were in those times when you read paragraphs such as this, Hal asks the Bureau of Criminal Identification for help with a set of print-

”Its Modus Operandi File contained more than 80,000 photographs of known criminals. And since all persons charged with and convicted of a crime are photographed and fingerprinted as specified by law,the file was continually growing and continually being brought up to date. Since the UB received and classified some 206,000 sets of prints yearly, and since it answered requests for some 250,000 criminal records for departments all over the country, Willis’ request was a fairly simple one to answer, and they delivered their package to him within the hour.”

I was so impressed! Given that the solving of these crimes presented in books 1 and 2 often rely on pure flukes , the coincidence of which is brought around by dogged police work and relentless interviewing , without the benefit of DNA testing or the internet, working street lights or even reliable phones, those people of then 87th are legends. Most of them. Havilland excepting.

Hail Hail the gang’s (almost) all here!

I thoroughly recommend, if you enjoy or are getting into the 87th Precinct novels, checking out and following the Hark! podcast-link below. Give them a hello over on the socials and tell them Rachel sent you!

About the author…

“Ed McBain” is one of the pen names of American author and screenwriter Salvatore Albert Lombino (1926 – 2005), who legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952. While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was even better known as Ed McBain, a name he used for most of his crime fiction, beginning in 1956.