The Big Bad City

Starred review from January 4, 1999
McBain has been writing his 87th Precinct stories since 1956, but Isola's cops and crooks remain as fresh as rain. In the 49th book in the series, detectives Steve Carella and Artie Brown are searching for the killer of a nun. An autopsy reveals that the strangled woman had breast implants and an unconventional background, moving between her pious, charitable order and a freewheeling secular life. Other oddities are plaguing the 87th, too. The hood who recently murdered Carella's father is walking around loose because an inept prosecutor blew the case. Now the thug is stalking Carella, and Carella's sister wants to marry the prosecutor. Meanwhile, detectives Meyer Meyer and Bert King are tracking the Cookie Boy, a burglar who leaves a little box of home-baked chocolate chip cookies at his victims' homes. His crimes escalate to felony murder when he interrupts a tryst and things go very bad, very quickly. As always, McBain invests the many story lines with off-the-wall humor (nun jokes abound), a startlingly real cast of suspects and witnesses and a terrifically entertaining mix of cop dialogue, gritty city atmosphere and action. McBain is so good, he ought to be arrested.

September 15, 1998
McBain is back with another 87th Precinct novel, this time concerning the murder of a young nun with a shocking past as a rock singer.

November 15, 1998
A young woman is murdered in a city park across town from her home. She has no identification except a wedding ring with the inscription IHS. Detective Steve Carella of the NYPD's 87th Precinct recognizes the inscription from his Catholic schoolboy days as a Latin monogram for "Jesus, Savior of Men." Jane Doe is a nun, Sister Mary Vincent, once known as Kate Cochrane. The autopsy confirms the obvious: death by strangulation. It also reveals a curious fact regarding Sister Mary Vincent: she'd had breast implants within the last three to four years. Meanwhile, the man who killed Carella's father and walked because of an incompetent prosecution, Samson Wilber "Sonny" Cole, has revenge on his mind. As Carella stalks the killer of Sister Mary Vincent, Cole stalks Carella. A background check reveals that the nun was formerly a singer in a rock band, and Carella focuses his investigation on the band members. It's a small group rife with internal jealousies, sudden death, and the specter of AIDS. This compelling thriller, number 48 in the long-running 87th Precinct series, is as fresh as the first, "Cop Hater," which was published in 1956. Another solid entry in an amazing series that has always set the standard for intelligent police procedurals. ((Reviewed November 15, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)