Matthew Hope was in bed with his ex-wife when Otto Samalson met his violent end on a dark Florida highway. Samalson was investigating a kinky case of adultery for attorney Hope, who then had to make sure the case hadn't done the detective in. It hadn't. Instead, kindly, bald-headed Otto Samalson had the misfortune of crossing paths with a beautiful girl of many names, a high-priced hooker cutting a path of tricks through South Florida. Now Hope has crossed her path, too. And whether he likes it or not, he is going to find out why some very dangerous men, having once invited a Cinderella to the ball, are now moving heaven and earth-and everyone in between-to make sure they punch her ticket.      ***          From Publishers Weekly     This is the sixth in McBain's series of fearful "fairy tales" starring lawyer Matthew Hope of Calusa, Fla., as compelling a character as those in the author's popular 87th Precinct novels. When Hope's friend, private eye Otto Samalson, is killed while on an assignment for him, the lawyer makes up his mind to find the murderer. The investigation leads Hope into the affairs of several men involved with a gorgeous hooker known as Cinderella. Hired thugs on her trail leave behind them the bloody bodies of people they question, and the lawyer is in constant danger. Cleverly eluding pursuers, Cinderella guards a fortune in stolen cocaine with which she expects to secure a rosy future until time and her luck run out. This is a violent story, more horrifying than its gory predecessors (Goldilocks; Beauty and the Beast), but very well written and a natural attraction for McBain fans.      ***          "It is hard to mink of anyone better at what he does. In feet, ifs impossible."     -Robert B. Parker          "McBain has a great approach, great attitude, terrific style, strong plots, excellent dialogue, sense of place, and sense of reality."     -Elmore Leonard          "I prefer Ed McBain to Raymond Chandler and place him far ahead of Dashiell Hammett"     -Roald Dahl          "The Matthew Hope novels do for the world of Florida sleaze what the 87th Precinct books do for big-city vice. The reader is hooked and given not a moment's letup."     -New York Times Book Review          "McBain is as convincing as Scott Throw or John Grisham when he puts his lawyer, deadpan, before a judge and jury."     -TIME          "When McBain sets his tale to wagging, he commands close attention."     -Los Angeles Times          "A master. He is a superior stylist, a spinner of artfully designed and sometimes macabre plots."     -Newsweek          "Hope springs eternal, and hurrah for mat"     -New York Daily News          "You'll be engrossed by McBain's fast, lean prose."     -Chicago Tribune          "The best crime writer in the business."     -Houston Post          "The McBain stamp: sharp dialogue and crisp plotting."     -Miami Herald          "McBain has stood the test of time. He remains one of the very best"     -San Antonio Express-News          "McBain is the unquestioned king… light-years ahead of anyone else in me field."     -San Diego Union

This mugger is special. He preys on women, waiting in the darkness…then comes from behind, attacks them, and snatches their purses. He tells them not to scream and as they're on the ground, reeling with pain and fear, he bows and nonchalantly says, “Clifford thanks you, madam.” But when he puts one victim in the hospital and the next in the morgue, the detectives of the 87th Precinct are not amused and will stop at nothing to bring him to justice.Dashing young patrolman Bert Kling is always there to help a friend. And when a friend's sister-in-law is the mugger's murder victim, Bert's personal reasons to find the maniacal killer soon become a burning obsession…and it could easily get him killed. The second book in the 87th Precinct series, The Mugger is an Ed McBain classic, a nuanced portrayal of justice and vengeance hailed by the Daily Mirror as “a masterpiece of crime writing…and there's nobody who does it better.”Amazon.com ReviewStephen King and Nelson DeMille on Ed McBainI 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 KingWay 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 from Thomas & Mercer, visit our Ed McBain's 87th Precinct Booklist.Review'McBain writes with spare economy, bringing his city and the cops who patrolits toughest precinct to vivid life. Classics of crime fiction.'EVENING PRESS

The wedding day of Detective Steve Carella’s sister Angela should be the most romantic, special day of her life. But it might turn out to be the worst if her brother can’t figure out which man on the guest list has come to murder the groom.Carella and the men from the 87th Precinct find themselves on the clock as they desperately hunt amongst the name cards and catered dinners for the would-be assailant. Trouble is, the crowd has numerous people with viable motives: the best man who stands to inherit everything the groom owns, the ex-boyfriend with a homicidal crush, and even an ex-GI with a score to settle. But time is ticking, and if they don’t act fast, Angela will become a bride—and a widow—on the same day.Another riveting installment of the 87th Precinct series, 'Til Death is one of bestseller Ed McBain’s finest, an intense, life-and-death nerve-wracker hailed by the Literary Review as “zestful, inventive, and utterly compulsive.”Amazon.com ReviewStephen King and Nelson DeMille on Ed McBainI 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 KingWay 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 from Thomas & Mercer, 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 series is one of the longest running crime series ever published, featuring more than 50 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.

    "This is your case," the manual advised, "stick with the investigation." Stick with it in the pouring rain where a man lay with his open skull seeping his brains onto the sidewalk, stick with it in a hospital room reeking of antiseptic, stick with it in a tenement apartment at two in the morning, the clock throwing minutes into the empty hours of the night while a woman wept tears for her man who was dead. Search her closet for the clothing the killer wore. Get her to talk about her husband's possible infidelities. Be a cop.     Being a cop was something Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct knew a lot about. He knew about the careful, painstaking work of tracking down leads that could mean nothing or everything. He knew that cops like continuity even if it takes a couple of corpses to provide it and that right now he and his partner Meyer Meyer had all the continuity they could handle. They had two corpses shot within four hours of each other on the same rainy Friday night with the same.38 Smith & Wesson-one a calypso singer from Trinidad who had just finished a gig. the other a hooker named C. J. who had just turned her last trick. Carella knew they had a case that was growing as cold as a slab in the morgue. He knew that they had a killer loose in the city who had killed once, twice, and perhaps would kill again if he and Meyer didn't follow the leads, didn't stick with the case, didn't get there first…     With this breathtakingly suspenseful novel Ed McBain shows us what the police procedural novel is all about. Whether you're one of the millions of faithful followers of the 87th Precinct or a fan-to-be, from the first terse page of Calypso to an ending that will frighten you out of your skin, you'll know you are in the hands of a master.

New York Times bestsellers Sharyn McCrumb, Joyce Carol Oates, and Anne Perry each provided a brand-new, never-before-published tale for this unique collection of stories edited by New York Times bestselling author and mystery legend Ed McBain."The Resurrection Man" by Sharyn McCrumb: During America's first century, doctors used any means necessary to advance their craft—including dissecting corpses. Sharyn McCrumb brings the South of the 1850s to life in this story of a man who is assigned to dig up bodies to help those that are still alive."The Corn Maiden" by Joyce Carol Oates: When a twelve-year-old girl is abducted in a small New York town, the crime starts a spiral of destruction and despair as only this master of psychological suspense could write it."Hostages" by Anne Perry: The bestselling historical mystery author has written a tale of beautiful yet still savage Ireland today. In their eternal struggle for freedom, there is about to be a changing of the guard in the Irish Republican Army. Yet for some, old habits—and honor—still die hard, even at gunpoint.

Murders happen every day in the big bad city. They're not such a big deal, you know. Even when the victim is a city councilman as well known as Lester Henderson. But this is the first time Fat Ollie Weeks of the 88th Precinct has written a novel, ah yes. Called Report to the Commissioner, it follows a cunning detective named Olivia Wesley Watts, who, apart from being female and slim, is rather like Fat Ollie himself. While Ollie's responding to the squeal about the dead councilman, his leather dispatch case is stolen from the back of his car -- and in it, the only copy of his precious manuscript. Joined by Carella and Kling from the neighboring 87th Precinct, Ollie investigates the homicide with all the exquisite crudeness, insensitivity, and determination for which he is famous. But the theft of his first novel fills Ollie with a renewed passion for old-fashioned detective work. Following the exploits of one of Ed McBain's most beloved detectives, this lively and...