Ice

Ice by Ed McBain 1983 Avon Books Police drama

This is an 87th Precinct Thriller which means it’s a police drama. When I started reading it, I thought of the “Barney Miller” television show where the police station is chaotic with different cases coming in and out to an assortment of police officers and their friendly competition with other precincts.

Characters are introduced fast and furious, but the early ones can be ignored. They only find the body of Sally Anderson, a dancer in a hit show, shot to death a few feet from her doorstep.

The 87th catches the case because cocaine dealer Paco Lopez was killed with the same gun. Det. Steve Carella is in charge of the case. We find out he’s a family man. Each cop has a back story. Det. Kling found his model wife in bed with another guy. The other cops are worried he’ll eat his gun. Det. Eileen Burke, the lone female, puts herself in danger undercover to catch the bad guys. Her back-up cops have the lowest IQ in the squad because she is left on her own more than once to apprehend the bad guy.

I don’t know if McBain supported female officers or thought the job was too dangerous for them.

The word “ice” stands for several things in the story. The obvious is cocaine, which is being sold by the victims. Two down on their luck and vicious characters, Brother Anthony, who dresses like a monk and speaks broken phrases of Latin, is a big brute who wants to take over the cocaine business with Fat Lady, a woman who uses a switchblade to disfigure and kill others. You may want to skip what they do to Paco’s ex-girlfriend in order to obtain Paco’s customer list.

Brother Anthony and Fat Lady are a step ahead of the cops as they track down the distributor of the cocaine in order to take over the business.

Another meaning for “ice” has to do with the theater and scalping of tickets. Because Sally was in a hit show and her boyfriend Tim Moore mentioned it, they find out the four people in the show were selling tickets to brokers for inflated prices, but it is a distraction from the real case.

The third person shot with the gun that killed Paco and Sally is Edelman, a diamond seller. They find $300,000 in his safe and begin looking for his connection to the cocaine.

McBain builds his story step by step through different points of view so the reader knows a little bit more than the detectives. McBain also uses long interviews with short questions and answers to give the feel of a real interrogation and provide the subtle clues that lead to the shooter.

For those who enjoy police stories or want to feel like they’re in the squad room, McBain provides the codes and procedures in detail. He wrote more than 50 crime stories so if you like this one, you’ll have plenty more to read.

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