Ed McBain_7 Novels + 2 Shorts-Stand-Alone (Thriller; Mystery) EPUB + MOBI

McBain's latest, a sparkling departure from his 87th Precinct detective series, follows a week in the life of Floridian Alice Glendenning, a feisty 34-year-old widow who has fallen on tough times. Still grieving over her husband Eddie's drowning accident eight months earlier, Alice is now the stressed single mother of bright 10-year-old Ashley and sullen Jamie, eight, voiceless since his father's death. Money is tight: Eddie's life insurance payout hasn't arrived, and Alice, a struggling real estate agent, has yet to sell her first house. Things turn calamitous when Ashley and Jamie are kidnapped from their school yard by two women who demand $250,000—the exact amount due Alice from Eddie's double indemnity policy—and no police involvement or the children will be killed. Alice's housekeeper immediately alerts the authorities, and before long, the Glendenning residence is bleeping with telephone surveillance equipment and buzzing with bumbling Cape October police detectives. Alice leans on her friend Charlie Hobbs for levelheaded support after the unwelcome arrivals of countless "world-class snoops" like her shifty, jailbird brother-in-law; the annoying, airheaded woman who ran over Alice's foot; a smitten house hunter; and Alice's sister, Carol. As the ever-expanding houseful of irritating meddlers fuels her desperation, a shocking surprise awaits poor Alice. A swift, cleverly plotted story line, sassy dialogue and a well-drawn, resilient heroine make this gripper a hands-down success. As one of our most prolific and talented writers, McBain appears to have struck gold once again.



Uptown Manhattan is where Olivia Kidd forces her brother Sarge to sell his beloved collection of paintings as ordered by their father, a Texas trillionaire. Downtown, Detective Reardon seeks for clues to the gunmen who have shot Ralph D'Annunzio dead in his restaurant. Robbery isn't the motive; there seems to be none, nor can Reardon make a connection between D'Annunzio and a second murder victim, a lawyer killed after leaving a stock broker's office. By diligently investigating the dead men's last days, however, the detective begins to put together bits of a puzzle with appalling implications. The murders and other crimes form a graphic picture in Reardon's mind of a great metropolis ravaged by people beyond the law's long arm.



Ed McBain, author of the bestselling 87th Precinct series, takes us "Downtown" in a bold departure of a novel that will have readers cheering for a lone out-of-towner running for his life in New York City. Meet Michael Barnes, a Florida orange grower who finds himself in a Manhattan bar with a couple of hours to kill. It's a couple of hours that almost kill him, as he's swindled, robbed, framed for murder, and hunted down by an assassin in one of the wildest, scariest, funniest, fastest twenty-four hours ever packed.



Synopsis for FIND THE FEATHERED SERPENT by Evan Hunter
When the strange hourglass-shaped time machine crashed out of the twentieth century and into the Caribbean Sea of fourteen hundred years ago, Neil Falsen realized how unprepared he was to head the expedition that his father had organized back through time. Of the four men who had flown through centuries to solve the mystery of an ancient Mayan god, two had died in the shattering crash. Only Neil and ship's pilot Dave remained to cope with the language and customs of a people who had disappeared into the darkness of history.

It was confusing enough not to know which century the machine had fallen into. But Neil was sure his eyes were playing tricks when he spotted a Norse ship cutting proudly through southern seas. How ancient Vikings, Mayas and two twentieth-century Americans met - and fought - amid the splendors of a civilization that today dots the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico with its ruins, makes a tale as unique in telling as it is in content.

In scenes that throb with drama and thunder with excitement, Dave and Neil found frightening evidence of the approaching Mayan collapse. With a common modern device, Neil stepped into a tense religious ceremony to prevent human sacrifice. Without realizing it, he discovered the secret of the white god among the Mayan Indian dieties.

One of history's most intriguing suppositions forms the basis for this tale of the secret behind the legend of a lost civilization.
Posted by Winston Science Fiction at 3:12 PM



Detective Matt Cordell was happily married once, and gainfully employed, and sober. But that was before he caught his wife cheating on him with one of his operatives and took it out on the man with the butt end of a .45.

Now Matt makes his home on the streets of New York and his only companions are the city’s bartenders. But trouble still knows how to find him, and when Johnny Bridges shows up from the old neighborhood, begging for Matt’s help, Cordell finds himself drawn into a case full of beautiful women and bloody murder. It’s just like the old days – only this time, when the beatings come, he may wind up on the receiving end...



Ben Smoke is an ex-cop, a tough-guy bachelor who never had a case he couldn't crack--that is, until someone starts snatching bodies from a funeral home. This is the kind of challenge Smoke loves--only this time, the case leads him on a bizarre and dangerous journey, leading to a crazy, kinky lady, a twisted killer, black magic, and ancient Egyptian rites. It's a devilish--and deadly--business. This is a case that might just be too hot for Smoke to handle.

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From Publishers Weekly

The 25 crime stories the late MWA Grand Master (1926–2005) wrote between 1952 and 1957 and selected for this thematically arranged collection display in embryo the style and techniques that he would later hone into perhaps the finest police procedural series of all time: the 87th Precinct. Born Salvatore Lombino, McBain (Fiddlers) changed his name legally to Evan Hunter, one of three names these early stories were published under in magazines like Manhunt and Argosy. McBain's entertaining general introduction points to the wide range of his subject matter: "Here were the kids in trouble and the women in jeopardy, here were the private eyes and the gangs. Here were the loose cannons and the innocent bystanders. And here, too, were the cops and robbers." Equally illuminating are his introductions to individual tales like "See Him Die," which, greatly expanded, became the 13th book in the 87th Precinct series. This is an essential volume for McBain fans, an inspiration for aspiring authors and a treasure for both. (July)
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From Booklist

McBain oversaw the compilation of this anthology of his early crime fiction before his death in 2005. Long before McBain was the McBain of the 87th Precinct series and the winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award and the British Crime Writers' Diamond Dagger Award, he wrote short fiction, paid by the word, for 1950s pulp magazines such as Manhunt and Argosy under the names of Richard Marsten, Hunt Collins, and Evan Hunter. This collection presents 25 of those crime stories, published between 1952 and 1957 (none of his science fiction, adventure, or western stories are republished here). Grouped thematically under such headings as "Women in Jeopardy," "Private Eyes," and "Cops and Robbers," the stories are definitely of the period, long on hard-boiled tone, short on subtlety. More interesting than the stories themselves are McBain's general introduction, which presents both comic details about his career and valuable insights into his writing, and the short prefaces he gives each section, which provide a window into the times and his own development as a writer. For McBain fans. Connie Fletcher
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