Ed McBain died yesterday July 6, 2005, of throat cancer. He was 78. Ed sold more than 100 million books and wrote over 100 novels, plays and filmscripts.
This author is one of the few from which I have read almost all the books (I’ve got 59 from the 67 books of McBain – 54 books from the 87th Precinct series and 13 from the Matthew Hope series). Some of them are very difficult to find because they weren’t re-published so often. I read my first McBain when I was 12. In a sense, he was always part of my life. My father made me discovered this author. My mother, my wife, my parents-in-law have also read almost all his books. I will surely also give them to my son…in some time!
In 1956, writing as Ed McBain, he launched what became known as the police procedural genre, focusing in detail on the work of police squad as it investigates and solves a single crime.
The 87th Precinct series were set in an unnamed city which bore a strong resemblance to New York.
There were more than 50 “Precinct” novels, forming crime’s longest ever series. They were set in Isola, a city clearly based on New York. Although they had no central hero, the viewpoint was often that of Detective Steve Carella, who, like McBain, was of Italian descent and the father of twins.[…]
McBain began a second series of novels in 1977, featuring Florida lawyer Matthew Hope. Each title was that of a nursery tale and included Goldilocks (1977), Three Blind Mice (1990) and Mary, Mary (1992).