Ok, sometime in the Near Future my old GeoCities page Will Be online again, at http://hem.passagen.se/rawanimal .
For reprint preview content, this little piece about someting Ed McBain books is as good as anything I guess. Or not too much Worse at Least:
Just finished "Fuzz" (or, in Swedish, as I read it, "Deckarna") by Ed McBain,
a book about the 87th precinct. There are quite a few more such books,
and some of them I've read, and liked.
Tadaaaa... List of 87th books I've read so far (may be updated),
in the order I happen to think of them:
eng / swe
Fuzz/Deckarna
A bit of a lightweight book, maybe, but still nice reading, especially for
a lover of cool villains such as myself. This is, nehmlich, the second appearance
of the horrendous "deaf man", and the first one I've read.
If possible, you should probably read the first book where he appears, named
something like "The Deaf Man" (Den döve... detta är den riktiga svenska titeln,
men den engelska vet jag inte.) before this one. I didn't, but...
And oh, it's a really cold March. McBain never lets you forget the weather.
Ice/Is
The English titles of mr. McBain's works often involve rather clever use of
double meanings, but to my knowledge he has never integrated this so totally
with the story as in "Ice". The detectives of 87th know, in this book, that
people have been killed because of ice, but ice can mean a lot of things...
McBain gets something fairly interesting out of this. However, I suppose I
should tell you that it's not an Agatha Christie type of intrigue we're talking
about (as the talk of "ice can mean a lot of things..." might indicate). There
may be McBain books with such stories (I wouldn't be too surprised) but I have
yet to read them.
And of course, it is Winter...
Bread/Kulor
I really like this one. It's thinner than most of them, although that may just
be the printing (a pocket book) I have. The theme, "bread", cash that is, and
what people will do for it (all sorts of people) comes through nicely, without
making the story feel constructed. It's rather cynical, maybe, but it has a nice
feeling. Drugs and filthy real estate deals is the name of the game,
and I don't remember the weather.
Give the Boys a Great Big Hand.../Handen
In heavy rain, rain that keeps pouring through most of the book, a constable
picks up a parcel that reveals itself to contain a human hand... And the boys
take on the challenge, what else can they do. They're paid for it after all...
A lot of "There are nicer things to do than to chase after a body minus one hand..."
Nocturne/Nocturne
"The nightshift book". So it's about half "the city has another face in the night,
other people, other creatures, come out, other business is done...", half
"I need some sleep...". By the way, I need some sleep.
Just gonna list the rest by name for now and fill out the details later.
Vespers/Aftonsång
Priesticide. Satanic cult involved.
Calypso/Calypso
First one I read. Has a serial killer of the really ugly kind.
King's Ransom/Hotet
One of the more interesting, quite dense. The gardener's boy is kidnapped
instead of the heir to the King fortune - but the kidnappers still demand
ransom. Heated discussions, moral dilemmas (?), interesting portraits of both
the kidnapping gang (with its own internal conflicts) and the members of the
King household.
Killer's Payoff/Hämnden
Extortionisticide investigation with lots of dead ends (or are they?), där everyone the detectives talk to gets to ask quite a real person (even if do Do They Prove to Be a Dead End). This is true about most of the books, but i think Particularly so about this one. 'Til Death / Hatred Do not read this The Day Before Your Wedding. Or maybe, do. It Might Be Fun. I think I'll try it if I ever marry. I Can recommend them all. But of course, only to people who like this sort of thing ... with love (as usually), MHO
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