finished this one lastnight, the 28th of february. good read. i really liked it. quite the mystery. and another mcbain. surprised there are so few (relatively) reviews...what was the number? 46? give or take. anyway, an entertaining story. onward and upward.

Chilling psychological ending!

Ed McBain is one of the masters of the police procedural. His plots and writing style are crisp, the dialogue feels authentic and he gave us characters we can care about.

This is a solid entry into the 87th Precinct series. But I found myself drifting and wanting to hurry through it. It could be the ill-conceived title. I think that was a burr in my saddle for the whole book. It was fun to have some actual dismembered hands show up, and I am taken aback at the snapshot of the world McBain provides in his books. It somehow seems so innocent. But I really appreciate how some officers are having sex and some are in relationships and it's not judgmental at all - just...

Another solid entry in the series. I remembered nothing of this one but the title. It's got all the trademark stuff - it's naturalistic, full of believable characters, full of equal parts cynical realism and a humanity that makes your heart ache. The view of women in this one was particularly noticeable in its datedness, but on that account McBain is occasionally jokey and crude, but never leering or demeaning. He's also self-aware enough to give the most emotionally devastating scene (imo, an e...

A black-cloaked killer leaves a bag behind when disappearing onto a bus. Patrolman Richard Genero sees what happens and goes and opens said bag. The only thing in it is the hand of the title. A murder investigation takes place, using the reports of missing persons as that's about the only line of enquiry available. I suppose that any series is going to have it's highs and lows. It also makes sense to say that the better a series is, the more enjoyable the lows will be, so it stands to reason tha...

GIVE THE BOYS A GREAT BIG HAND (Pol. Proc- 87th Precinct-Fic. City-Cont) – ExMcBain, Ed – 11th in seriesSimon and Schuster, 1960, US Hardcover – Lib. of Congress Card No: 60-6103First Sentence: It was raining.*** On a rainy Marcy day in Isola, Patrolman Richard Genero sees someone all dressed in black board a bus but leave behind an airline tote bag. What Genero doesn’t expect is that the bag contains the large severed hand of an adult male. Now it’s up the “boys” of 87th Precinct to identify bo...

He had been a cop for a long time now, and he knew instantly from the expression on Hawes's face that the bag must contain a segment of the human body.When a severed hand is found inside an airline bag, all the boys from the 87th precinct have to go on is that it was removed from a "large white male, aged 18-24." Now they've got to find not only the rest of the body, but the killer as well. Steve and Cotton are on the case, which has them, among other things, interviewing strippers. Yeah - some

Another great story of the 87th Precinct as Carella, Hawes and Kling follow the clues to the mystery of the severed hand found in an airline bag.Quick, easy reads with a good plot and great description of the city at night.I am really enjoying this series.

In the world of 2013, if a policeman were to find a bag abandoned near a crowded bus stop, the first thing he might expect to find in the bag would be an explosive devise left by a terrorist. But in the simpler world of 1960, it's only a bloody, crudely severed hand.It's raining day after day in Isola and the last place the detectives of the 87th Precinct want to be is out running around in the rain, trying to figure out who might be missing the hand in question. In due course, yet another hand

This case starts off when a patrolman finds a severed human hand in a bag. As the case develops the detectives have a hard time identifying the victim let alone the perpetrator. Some of the clues point to the same person for both roles. A decent story and it wraps up in the end with a bit of a twist. I enjoyed this one a bit more than the previous book.

Typically, these 87th precinct books start off with a monologue about the city, or the weather, or something that seems like it would be suitable for a TV opening.This time, we get right to the crime, but then things meander quite a bit. There are a few things that seem like they don't go together at all, like surely the detectives were grasping at straws. Even Steve Carella was grumpy, and thought so. It was actually pretty clever when everything did come together, and didn't seem a random coin...

Another terrific book in the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals. This one's got a great title, a nifty play on the subject matter. All of McBain's stories are fun, but with an underlying level of seriousness that grounds them in reality.

This is the 11th Book in the series and much I have said in the previous 10 reviews still applies to I will deal with those points in brief. They are all positive.The writing is still very sharp and very goodThe Plot is sharp, focused and brilliantIt is a single tale that is concluded quicklyI still love the fact that because it is set in the 50s there has to be proper long form detective work.It amazes me the author was writing 2-3 of these a year and they are this much funIts a quick fund read...

11 books into the series McBain is getting more philosophical. The last book explores money and class and this one talks more deeply about city life itself. Thankfully it's been several books without putting the wife of hero Steve Carella in peril after leaning on that device often in the first half dozen or more books. This time a beat cop finds a bag left on a street corner and discovers a severed hand inside. With nothing else to go on the cops lean heavily on the lab for any clue the hand mi...

It's always great to be back with the boys from the 87th Precinct even when McBain struggles to work a worthy plot line.Hapless beat cop Richard Genaro makes another grisly discovery in the form of a severed hand. McBain turns up the extreme weather (its raining constantly) while he scrambles to fit a story to the discarded appendage. Carella leads the investigation whilst Hawes attempts to charm the local Strippers. Kling adds support. Other than plot this one has Teddy and Carella moving into

Dear Mr McBain,First I want you to know how saddened I was by your death several years ago and secondly to thank you for not allowing some other author to "buy" your series and continue to write as you. It's never the same and I would prefer a finite number of 87 Precient novels that are good solid mysteries with interesting characters. I started reading you in the 70's and have probably read almost everything you wrote but one advantage of getting older is that you don't always remember the plo...

The man in black gets on a bus leaving a small bag behind. The beat cop opens the bag and finds a human body part.Thus begins one of the more intriguing cases that I have read thus far in my quest to read the 87th Precinct series from start to finish in order. This one has its share of rabbit trails along with a somewhat sophisticated conclusion that brings together a number of loose ends. And, I will admit, I did not see the case wrapping in the way it did. Somewhat more gruesome than the previ...

Despite having been written in 1960, the story is still an entertaining one, complete with simply the best dialogue in the game. McBain's 87th Precinct series, featuring a slew of engaging detectives (Carella and Hawes are featured here), delivers consistently high quality police procedurals / murder mysteries with just the right balance of humor and grizzly details. McBain has the ability to draw up characters that jump off the pages and while reading through their conversations, one easily sli...

A very clever entry in this well crafted series.