Word: mcbain
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...almost infallible measure of the true mystery buff is that when asked to cite his favorite current author, he will respond with some name the general public would never recognize. To the obsessive fan, the big story is rarely the arrival of a new Elmore Leonard or Ed McBain or Dick Francis -- although, as it happens, each of those established commercial writers has a new book out at the moment, all of middling quality. The main event is more likely to be, say, a new Simon Brett or Stuart M. Kaminsky, a new Jonathan Valin or Michael Allegretto. These less...
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When writing his steely, intensely violent mysteries, the novelist who is otherwise known as Evan Hunter (The Blackboard Jungle, Last Summer) calls himself Ed McBain. Fans have learned that the McBain byline promises wit, shrewd plotting and downbeat realism, but also allows for great variety. His 47th and 48th books demonstrate that range. Cinderella is a gem of sting and countersting among a prostitute, a gay hairdresser, a Latin American drug king, a Mafioso, his brutal brother, and assorted innocents who get hurt. The action keeps up until the final sentence. Another Part of the City is a thriller about...
...even hard-boiled can be overdone. Says Evan Hunter, who as Ed McBain has written more than three dozen books in the 87th Precinct series: "For me, 'hard-boiled' means not turning away from a dead body and going into the hall to vomit. It means going into a morgue and smelling a stench that makes you want to wash your hands for days." In short, unflinching realism, a misunderstood term. Says Elmore Leonard, the macabre ironist of crime and punishment: "If I were to ever write a private-eye story, and try to make it as realistic...