Hark! (Inscribed Association Copy from the Personal Library of Otto Penzler)

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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 criminal back to the 87th Precinct with a richly plotted and literary crime.

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 criminal back to the 87th Precinct with a richly plotted and literary crime.

Recovered from his wounds, the Deaf Man is bent on revenge and determined to rub the collective face of the 87th in the dust of his brilliance in McBain's latest zany romp. After striking first at the woman who betrayed him, the Deaf Man turns to taunting the 87th with cryptic hand-delivered messages (quotes from Shakespeare or anagrams) that are interpreted or misinterpreted with hilarious results. The saga of Fat Ollie's book, which began in Fat Ollie's Book (2003) and continued in The Frumious Bandersnatch (2004), resumes and promises to have a long life of its own. There are a lot of soap opera flourishes to the personal relationships of the 87th crew, and McBain milks them for humor and pathos. Steve Carella faces paying for the double wedding of his mother and his sister. Bert Kling knows his beautiful surgeon girlfriend is cheating on him. Cotton Hawes and his glamorous TV news girlfriend, Honey Blair, are under attack, but which one is the real target? It's vintage McBain, complete with pitch-perfect dialogue, subplots that thrust various precinct cops into the spotlight, a pace that encourages the reader to forget about dinner or a good night's rest, and a plot that teases and tantalizes from start to finish.
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*Starred Review* The Deaf Man is not a dead man. The brilliant criminal, double-crossed by his female partner in Mischief (1993) and left for dead, is back to make life miserable for the detectives of the 87th Precinct. The cops' frustration begins with the murder of the Deaf Man's former accomplice, a crime that leads the investigating officers down a dead end. But then come the notes, hand delivered to the precinct by a parade of junkies, prostitutes, and panhandlers, and containing combinations of Shakespearean quotes, encrypted anagrams, and palindromes. The Deaf Man is providing clues to the crime he is going to commit, if only the detectives are clever enough to decipher their meaning. As Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, and Fat Ollie Weeks--who also has a lead on his missing novel (see Fat Ollie's Book, 2003)--struggle with the Deaf Man's missives, the Deaf Man himself is dealing with the fallout from his own nearly fatal flaw: underestimating his new female partner. Melissa Summers may be a hooker, but she's no victim and is slowly hatching her own plan as the Deaf Man executes his. McBain has written the series since the mid-1950s yet his key players keep evolving--there are always character-driven subplots woven carefully into the crime story--and the setting is always contemporary. McBain remains the quintessential Grand Master of the genre. If his name's on it, read it. Wes Lukowsky
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