Lady Killer

A quick read providing interesting glimpses into everyday life in the summer in the city in the 1950s: cold beer from an icebox with melting ice, kids opening fire hydrants to cool off in the water, more hockshops than book stores. "He was a hot sketch." - one of my favorite lines. I haven't heard that in ages. The police investigation following the arrival of an ominous note ["I will kill the Lady tonight at 8. What can you do about it?"] richly details methods used at the time (sketches of the suspect, fingerprints, interrogations). Seems these methods were not so different to now, just much more rudimentary.

This, the eighth book in the legendary 87th Precinct series, was written over the course of just nine days, according to author Ed McBain. It’s a concise, tense account of just a few hours in the lives of the detectives who have to find a man who has threatened to kill “The Lady” at eight o’clock that night. Because it’s a police procedural, a genre of crime fiction that McBain basically invented, it’s full of the painstaking detail that would be involved for a real police force — though one has to wonder if the simple arrival of a threatening note at a police station would trigger such a large scale manhunt. As always in these books, weather plays an important role, and as the cops pound the hot streets for hours, walking show more up steaming staircases in tenements, one feels real relief when finally air conditioning appears at one point in the story. The mystery of who is the intended target (“The Lady”) is revealed at the end, and you’ll be the judge of whether it is convincing. For me, not so much. show less

Lady Killer by Ed McBain is part of the 87h Precinct series. In this story the detectives of the 87th are hunting for a murderer. They received an anonymous note stating that “The Lady” was going to be killed at 8 pm. The day was spent trying to find “The Lady” and in hunting down the mysterious killer.

This isn’t a long book, but nevertheless the tension rises as the hours count down. As the day creeps toward 8 pm, this classic police procedural follows the detectives in a race against time to identify and protect the woman threatened in the note. The author delivers a strong plot filled with realistic 1950s
police work details and played out by the familiar, well-developed characters that comprise the detectives at this show more precinct.

Lady Killer held my attention throughout. As in most of the series, the weather plays an important role. This was meant to be the hottest day of the year and the cops suffered accordingly. The identity of both “the lady” and the killer is revealed at the end of the book, and I was a little let down. Over-all this was a good, yet not great, entry to the series. show less

Lady Killer is the second book in a row in the series to focus on a single crime, rather than one major case with minor ones in the background. The 87th receives an anonymous letter at 8AM on July 24th promising to kill "The Lady" at 8PM that night. With nothing to go on, and with doubts as to whether the threat is real, the boys race against time to try to solve a murder before it even happens.

Strangely enough, the forced time limit of the plot doesn't quite push the suspense of the story beyond anything in the previous novels, possibly because despite the race against the clock, there are still plenty of stretches involving the kind of highly detailed leg work that drives McBains 87th Precinct books. The highest point of action show more almost seems to be the hour that all hell breaks loose at the station, forcing everyone to set aside the Lady Killer case to handle the other problems that erupt in the city on a regular basis. Perhaps this manic episode is including to help remind author and reader alike that these are not meant to be detective novels focusing on one crime, but glimpses into the daily routines and trials of the police detectives working the city.

Carella and Hawes dominate the story once again, with Meyer, Willis, and Kling filling in the edges. Lieutenant Byrnes gets his hands in this one as he green lights the investigation and keeps a hand in throughout. Hawes' womanizing is on in full force as he crosses paths with an aging madame and her prostitute, a bawdy lounge singer (with whom he makes a date), a suspect's barely dressed neighbor (whom he perceives as unattractive, but with a "disconcerting" bust), and a cold career woman who slaps him around verbally, knocking him down a peg. This also marks the first appearance of "Doomed Detective" Bob O'Brian, who has been forced to kill seven men in his ten year career, after each of which "He wept inside, where it hurts most."

Also notable is the few asides where Carella and Hawes tackle the moral dilemma of the need to turn a blind eye to some crimes in order to focus on others, and the rational behind keeping some illegal activities (like prostitution) penned in but active out in the open instead of widespread and underground. Previous novels have covered the trials and tribulations of being a cop in the city, but this might be the first one to actively dive into the gray area where justice and the law must sometimes exist. show less

“The note read: I will kill the lady tonight at 8 what can you do about it?”

This is the plot of the fourth consecutive 87th Precinct book with the word “killer” in the title! Twelve hours to stop the crime with only that note for a clue! And the whole city of Isola to cover! Good luck boys!

A good mystery, and a quick read! There is only the one plot, as opposed to the usual two in these books. But this one is good enough to stand on it's on!

Another great procedural mystery from McBain. This one I'd read before, but even then it was a joy to watch the plot unfold.

A young boy delivers a letter to the desk sergeant at the 87th Precinct, which has newspaper words that state "the Lady" will be killed at 8 PM that night. Steve Carella and Cotton Hawes and the rest of the squad try to figure out the identity of the victim and the perpetrator through acccelerated police work. The highlight of this story are the sequential sketches created from Cotton and an 8-year old's brief sightings. At 7:57, they finally figure out the mystery and rocket off to avert the murder.