This review contains spoilers about an element of the solution.

****

This is one of the earlier volumes in the 87th Precinct series (and for #16 to be considered “early”, that’s a LOT of books), and so it has brevity on its side. Detective novels in the mid-20th century were often more tightly plotted and didn’t go into great lengths of character development and description. That said, the characters here get enough development to allow the reader to form a picture of them. Women don’t come off quite as well as the men, though. There is a lot of smutty male gaze in the narration, some gratuitous stripping (that ends up being key to the solution of the crime, which I found rather eyeroll-inducing), and some deeply problematic characters, one of whom was fortunately blown up in the first chapter. The solution to the main crime felt a bit of a letdown: there weren’t many suspects and the motive felt unsatisfying. But I suppose there are unsatisfying motives in real life as well. ( )

Todo parecía indicar que se trataba de un suicidio. Y de un suicidio por amor. Aquellos cuerpos enlazados y casi desnudos en un dormitorio que apestaba a gas presentaban el caso como un incidente rutinario. Pero Cotton Hawes, de la Comisaría de distrito 87, no se conformaba con una solución tan cómoda.
Una vez más, Ed McBain presenta en acción a la famosa Brigada 87. El desarrollo minucioso de la investigación, la complejidad de las técnicas policiales, la intuición, en definitiva, como recurso clave, constituyen el fondo de un apasionante caso criminal tratado con magistral habilidad por uno de los grandes maestros de la novela dura americana.

A rock solid mystery from McBain that kept me guessing right up to the end. There are no gimmicks here, just a really accomplished police procedural with great characters, cracking prose and a healthy dose of pathos. It struck me reading it that one of McBain's great talents was making even the smallest of characters come to the life on the page. The city, too, is a living, breathing thing that is utterly convincing. Just superb. ( )

“In suicide, as in baseball, it is sometimes difficult to tell who is who or what is what without a scorecard.”

So, have the men of the 87th caught a case that is a double suicide or is it a homicide? This story is a nice bounce back from the previous novel. It's quick paced, and tightly written, with some dang good dialogue to boot! And I love the way the crime was solved - Christine Maxwell's strip tease!

“The facts of life in the 87th Precinct were too often the facts of death.” ( )

Carella fails to prevent a girl from jumping off a building and Hawes gets a double suicide, which has some odd elements. Suspiscion falls first on the cuckolded husband and then on her mother because of insurance proceeds, but little progress is made. Once again, Carella gets attacked and badly beaten, presumably because of the investigation. Meanwhile, Cotton Hawes' lover inadvertently provides the key to solving the mystery. ( )