It should have been the night that launched a new pop idol. Tamar Valparaiso is young and beautiful, with the body and voice of an angel, and the stage is set for her to launch her debut album, Bandersnatch, on a luxury yacht in the heart of the city. But halfway through her performance, while the partygoers look on helplessly, masked men drag Tamar off the stage and into a waiting speedboat. Detective Steve Carella is just showing up for the graveyard shift when news of the kidnapping comes in. Working disjointedly with a Joint Task Force that calls itself "The Squad," Carella and the men and women of the Eight-Seven must find Tamar before time -- or indeed her very life -- runs out. In this brilliant look at the music industry, Ed McBain once again combines his mastery of the form with the fast-paced dialogue and intricate plotting that have become his signature.

Snow whips through the city’s streets like lethal daggers when a young actress leaves the theater after her latest performance. She walks home instead of taking the subway, and soon the snow on the ground is stained red with her blood. A cold, hard winter is blowing in, and it’s bringing greed and murder. For Detectives Carella, Kling, Meyer, and Brown, the sudden storm that has covered the city in a suffocating sheet of ice is only the beginning of their problems. From a multimillion-dollar showbiz scam and diamonds spilling out of a dead man’s vest to a cold-hearted rapist prowling the streets and a stone-cold murderer on the loose, the frozen grip of fear is strangling the city. It is up to the men of the 87th to bring the heat. Bestselling author Ed McBain pulls out all the stops in Ice, a classic installment of his famed 87th Precinct series that blends intense plotting, biting dialogue, and gripping suspense. The New Yorker hails Ice as “a real stunner!” Amazon.com ReviewStephen King and Nelson DeMille on Ed McBain I think Evan Hunter, known by that name or as Ed McBain, was one of the most influential writers of the postwar generation. He was the first writer to successfully merge realism with genre fiction, and by so doing I think he may actually have created the kind of popular fiction that drove the best-seller lists and lit up the American imagination in the years 1960 to 2000. Books as disparate as The New Centurions, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Godfather, Black Sunday, and The Shining all owe a debt to Evan Hunter, who taught a whole generation of baby boomers how to write stories that were not only entertaining but that truthfully reflected the times and the culture. He will be remembered for bringing the so-called "police procedural" into the modern age, but he did so much more than that. And he was one hell of a nice man. --*Stephen King Way back in the mid-1970s, when I was a new writer and police series were very big, my editor asked me to do a series called Joe Ryker, NYPD. I had no idea how to write a police detective novel, but the editor handed me a stack of books and said, "These are the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain. Read them and you’ll know everything you need to know about police novels." After I read the first book--which I think was Let’s Hear It for the Deaf Man--I was hooked, and I read every Ed McBain I could get my hands on. Then I sat down and wrote my own detective novel, The Sniper, featuring Joe Ryker. My series never reached the heights of the 87th Precinct series, but by reading those classic masterpieces, I learned all I needed to know about urban crime and how detectives think and act. And I had a hell of a time learning from the master. Years later, when I actually got to meet Ed McBain/Evan Hunter, I told him this story, and he said, "I would have liked it better if my books inspired you to become a detective instead of becoming my competition." Evan and I became friends, and I was privileged to know him and honored to be in his company. I remain indebted to him for his good advice over the years. But most of all, I thank him for hundreds of hours of great reading. --Nelson DeMille*To read about how Ed McBain influenced other mystery and thriller writers, visit our Perspectives on McBain page.For a complete selection of 87th Precinct novels available for Kindle, visit our Ed McBain's 87th Precinct Booklist.About the AuthorEd McBain was one of the pen names of successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926 – 2005). Debuting in 1956, the popular 87th Precinct is one of the longest running crime series ever published, featuring over fifty novels, and is hailed as “one of the great literary accomplishments of the last half-century.” McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain.

From the internationally admired creator of the 87th Precinct series come these tales featuring policemen and their work and displaying Ed McBain's inimitable talents in shorter form.In this collection of short stories, bestselling author Ed McBain presents a varied and colorful cast of characters who run afoul of, then into, the arms of the law... a collector who loves his porcelain more than his daughter; a hooker who melts the heart of a tough cop; an ex-fighter who goes berserk at Christmas; an automobile dealer out for a funny business ride...Ed McBain's bestselling works put him in the very top rank of crime writers. In The McBain Brief, he more than justifies his reputation as a master storyteller.

He'd been a promising piano prodigy, once. Now he was just an addict, scraping to get by, letting his hunger for drugs consume him. But a man's life can always get worse - as Ray Stone discovers when he wakes up beside a beautiful nightclub singer only to find her dead... and 16 ounces of pure heroin missing. On the run from the law, desperate to prove his innocence and find a killer, Ray also faces another foe, merciless and unforgiving: his growing craving for a fix...

Just in case anybody thought the 47 earlier novels in the 87th precinct were a fluke, McBain's gone and revitalized the routine with Nocturne"". -- The New York Times Book ReviewIn Isola, the hours between midnight and dawn are usually a quiet time. But for 87th Precinct detectives Carella and Hawes, the murder of an old woman makes the wee hours anything but peaceful -- especially when they learn she was one of the greatest concert pianists of the century long vanished. Meanwhile 88th Precinct cop Fat Ollie Weeks has his own early morning nightmare: he's on the trail of three prep school boys and a crack dealer who spent the evening carving up a hooker.

Description

Ed McBain concocts a brilliant and intricate thriller about a master criminal who haunts the city with cryptic passages from Shakespeare, directing the detectives of the 87th Precinct to a future crime -- if only they can figure out what he means. The 87th Precinct gets a visit from one of the city's most accomplished criminals -- a thief known as the Deaf Man. Because he might be deaf. Or he might not. So little is known about the man who is harassing Detective Steve Carella with puzzling messages that it is hard to tell. But as soon as a pattern emerges, the detectives of the 87th are forced to hit the books and brush up on their Shakespeare -- because each new clue contains a line from one of his works. Unless they can crack the complicated riddles and beat the Deaf Man at his own cat-and-mouse game, someone is going to end up hurt, or something will be stolen -- or both. It's always so hard to tell with the Deaf Man. Ed McBain brings his most intelligent and devious...