From Publishers Weekly
Stransky proves a fine choice as narrator of Ed McBain's final 87th Precinct novel. A series of killings has claimed several victims who seem unrelated except that each has been killed by the same gun with two shots to the face. The detectives of the 87th try to find the common thread linking the victims that will lead to the killer. McBain's fictional city of Isola has stalwartly stood in for New York City for nearly five decades and does so once again, offering Stransky the opportunity to show off the diversity of the city's populace as they weave in and out of the detective's investigation. Stransky slips easily into each of McBain's characters regardless of sex, age or ethnicity, keeping his portrayals grounded and real. His descriptive narration, especially when dealing with the murders and their aftermath, is delivered in a straightforward, just the facts, manner, that turns these passages into moving observations on the fragility of life and the finality of death.
Fiddlers is classic McBain, handled with aplomb by Stransky, and though this may be the last case for the detectives of the 87th, at least it is a case of going out in style.
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A blind violinist is shot in the alley behind the restaurant where he works. A sales rep is gunned down in her apartment while cooking dinner. They are both killed with the same gun. Detective Steve Carella and his 87th Precinct team investigate. The case grows more confusing when an elderly priest and an old woman walking her dog are also murdered with the same gun. The killer, a seemingly ordinary man, is on a last fling with a call girl, who doesn't understand the darkness residing within the man she hopes will pull her out of the life. McBain has written more than 100 novels and earned more awards than can be cataloged in a brief review. His 87th Precinct novels remain the benchmark for both police procedurals and crime series fiction. Here he offers a proposition: with one's own end in sight, would there be any satisfaction in exacting revenge on those who forced your life off course? Say a teacher who gave you a C when a B would have kept you safe from Vietnam? McBain asks the question and--in making the killer something less than a monster--provides a provocatively open-ended answer. McBain just keeps getting better and better. This one will have readers waking in the middle of the night wondering if they, too, have killers inside themselves.
Wes LukowskyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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