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87th Precinct #30

by Ed McBain

A killer is out for blood, and it's up to Detective Steve Carella to bring him in ? but a shocking surprise awaits when a survivor fingers the suspect in a lineup. McBain has the ability to make every character believable?which few writers these days can do.? ? Associated Press McBain forces us to think twice about every character we meet?even those we thought we already knew.? ? New York Times Book Review

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, Detective, Police, Procedural, Mystery Thriller

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

"Ed McBain" is one of the pen names of American author and screenwriter Salvatore Albert Lombino (1926-2005), who legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952.

While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was even better known as Ed McBain, a name he used for most of his crime fiction, beginning in 1956.

He also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Dean Hudson, Evan Hunter, and Richard Marsten.

Reviews

[Bobby Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evan Hunter is better known today as Ed McBain, because of the 87th Precinct series. He wrote Blood Relatives in 1975, nearly twenty years after the inaugural book in the series, Cop Hater. From the opening scene as a bloodied girl runs through the rain-darkened streets of Isola to get help, this one grabs you and doesn’t let go.

The tale Patricia Lowrey tells to the police leads them to her cousin Muriel, butchered by the man who tried to kill both of them. A line-up is arranged by Kling and Carella who discover they are working on the same case. But when Patricia fingers someone very strange in a line-up, Carella can't shake the feeling that something's all wrong here. Even once the boys of the 87th appear to be finally getting at the truth, Carella can't shake the feeling they aren't there yet.

This one delves more into the gritty underbelly of extended families than the mean streets of Isola, yet has that same noirish feel to it for which the series is famous. When a new piece of evidence falls into the lap of Carella by sheer happenstance - as it sometimes does in real life - a sad and twisted story finally leads him to the killer. Passages told through a young girl's voice in this one is some of the finest writing McBain ever did in this series. It humanizes the victim, and adds poignancy to this excellent police procedural.

Rather than attempting to flesh out every cop of the 87th in one book, or even two or three, McBain allowed the reader to become almost intimately acquainted with the cops of the 87th over time, just as we get to know someone over years in real life. It was a gamble which paid off, having such a diverse cast that readers came to know and love, and sometimes not love at all.

This one ends as it began, in the rain, as Carella walks away. Blood Relatives is a terrific entry in the series, despite some coincidence. There is a bit of a lag in the middle, but a huge and poignant payoff for readers at the end. Great and gritty stuff, with some nice writing from a female perspective. Worth a read for fans of hardboiled police procedurals.

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A funny thing happened as I was reading “Blood Relatives’ by Ed McBain. And that funny thing seems to have bothered me all of last night and into today. Approximately three quarters through the book, I had to stop reading and almost threw the book across the room. Let me quickly say that this is over all a most enjoyable book that is well written and pleasingly paced.

“Blood Relatives” is a police procedural. Much of the book is a well detailed examination of what those boys in blue go through to solve a crime. And therein lies the problem. Why do we as a culture now insist that the police wear body cameras? I realize that this book was written in 1975, prior to all of this growing distrust of authority figures.

This led to a deeper question about our literature and our television viewing. It seems generally as an audience we crave a happy ending, and for all things to turn out well. This must cause a rush of endorphins that make us feel good. That’s perhaps why figures from Sherlock Holmes to Culumbo become so popular. There seems to be a need/want to have things be resolved and cleverly explained l. However life just ain’t like that. We want to believe there is a Santa Clause. We, like Fox Mulder want to believe in that happy ending and the antagonist is foiled through the hard work of the “good” guys.

That leads me to my frustration with this book. Police Procedure did not solve this murder mystery. Good detecting did not resolve this complex and engaging mystery. I don’t want to add any spoilers here. Though the book has a cleaver and insightful resolution, it didn’t happen due to the hard work of the men from the 87’Th, this being the thirtieth installment. Perhaps I am being too hard on Mr. Mcbain for painting himself into a corner, and having “luck” leading his hero(s) to the resolution. This turn of events just did not fit the rest of the story. Thus my frustration.


This first hardcover edition of "Blood Relatives" is signed by "Ed McBain" on two different pages.

[James Thane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, which first appeared in 1975, is about halfway through the 87th Precinct series and it's one of the better books in the series. Two young female cousins, seventeen and fifteen, are walking home late one night after a party in a driving rainstorm. As they take refuge from the rain in an abandoned building, the elder of the two is viciously stabbed to death. The younger, though cut in several places, manages to run to the 87th Precinct station house where she reports the crime.

The younger girl is able to give the detectives a fairly detailed description of the man she says attacked them, and the detectives' first step is to interview known sex offenders. They find one who closely matches the description the girl has given them and the guy has the world's worst alibi for the time of the attack. But when the young girl looks at a lineup, instead of identifying the known perv, she mistakenly picks out a detective.

Her mistake totally destroys the girl's value as an eyewitness and so Steve Carella and the other detectives on the case are forced to fall back on other, much more pain-staking and difficult methods in their attempt to capture the guilty party. There's more than the usual amount of police procedure in this book, and it's fascinating to watch the way in which the detectives would work a case like this--or at least the way they would have worked it forty years ago, before the advent of DNA testing and other more modern investigatory tools.

It's a very entertaining book that takes a number of totally unexpected twists and turns, one that's sure to appeal to any fan of the series and to most readers who enjoy crime fiction.

[David Highton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one - Carella and Kling really the only two of the Precinct guys to feature - and a violent murder of a seventeen year old girl to solve. The story moves along with real pace, with a big twist half way through and then another big twist at the end (although I had suspected it was coming).
McBain writes in his usual atmospheric way, setting the city in context for the action of the plot. This was #30 in a great series already nearly 20 years old at the time this was written

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent 87th Precinct mystery

A really solid entry in the series. This has less comedy than some of the books, and features a single case and a single cop (Carella, of course). A bit like ‘Sadie When She Died’, it’s unrelentingly bleak, but also moving and very effective. The mystery is great too, and McBain kept me guessing to the final twist.

[Craig "NEEDS MORE DAMN TIME TO READ !!!!" · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did it! I guessed who the killer was haha!! A straight to the point thriller with just a little bit to keep you guessing. Although the title of the book offers a huge hint! Not bad.

[Chad Malkamaki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love triangle made up of blood relatives, nope this isn't West Virginia, Kentucky, or for that matter anywhere else in the South but the good old burrow of Isola and the boys in blue at the 87th have one doozy of a case on their hands. I was gonna give this install 5 stars but the more I thought about it, Andy never had blood on his clothes any of the times he went back to the apartment and this crime, even with the rain would have had blood all over everyone involved. This kept going through my head while reading and seems like a big point that was missed by McBain.

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly straightforward tale of jealousy, incest, pedophilia and homicidal insanity, all wrapped up in under 160 pages. Each of these mini-masterpieces is the template for countless TV episodes and B-movie screenplays, but they have never been delivered with more brutal concision than in these perfect paperbacks.

[AndrewP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another solid entry in the series. Only one case here so it's pretty linear and only two of the detectives have any significant parts. One twist halfway through (which I was expecting otherwise the book would have been over after 100 pages). Then another near the end.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you can tell by the rating, I am a fan of Ed McBain, and am sorry that there won't be any more 87th Precinct Mysteries. This was a slim hardcover--his books tend not to be thick. The question is: who killed Muriel Stark? and why does her cousin keep lying about what happened that night? There is an interesting set of circumstances, and it isn't until the end, as these things go, that all the ramifications are revealed.

[Skip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young woman is killed and her cousin slashed. The cousin is sure she knows the killer, but then identifies a detective in the line-up, causing Steve Carella to re-examine the case. Then the cousin says her brother was the killer, and a diary reveals that the two were having an affair and he became jealous when the 17-year old girl began a platonic relationship with her boss at the bank. Count on Steve's doggedness to uncover the truth.

[Eddie Whitlock · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was hoping to write a mystery, I looked up the term "police procedural." I wanted good examples of police work. Ed McBain was repeatedly the master of this genre.

I have read several of them now and I have great respect for his writing skills. The stories are succinct, the characters are believable and the procedures are credible.

[Federico · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una storia drammatica e folle di amore, gelosia, delirio, orrore. Quale modo migliore di iniziare l'anno!

[Weldon Durham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating a police procedural by Ed McBain is like rating a Harry Potter novel. You have to ask, "if this isn't what I expected, then what DID I expect and why did I think this novel might or might not deliver it?" McBain is the master of the police procedural. He has consistently written books that are gems in their entirety or books that contain gems--scenes, jokes, character quirks, plot twists--that have lifted the genre to heights only a few have since attained.

[wally · Rating 3 out of 5]

just finished this one, a rainy thursday morning, ten ay emm. good story. i liked it. a young girl's (17) diary features big in this one, pages and pages of her diary that detective steve carella reads, learns the truth.

[Colin Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tale of young girls becoming involved with relatives and teenage love that turns sour and leads to murder. Rather tame on the 87th standard as it amounted to solid police routine.

Good enough but not my favourite.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first McBain book.

I liked the ending! I hope more of his books are like this.

[Jiří Pavlovský · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pokračuju dál ve své McBainovské túře. Tentokrát autor přichází s přímočarými příběhem, zaměřený na jeden zločin a na jednoho detektiva. Někdo zabil náctiletou holku a pokus se zabít její ještě mladší sestřenici – a zdá se, že vrah byl někdo z jejich blízkých. I přes temné téma je tu pro tuhle dobu dost typického humoru a nadhledu. Což je fajn a díky tomu se to pořád skvěle čte.
V podstatě jediné, co mi brání ve vyšším hodnocení je to, že celý případ je vyřešený ryzí a dost nepravděpodobnou náhodou. Autor si ve finále hodně usnadnil život hned několika věcmi. Někde je to k prospěchu věci, někde to fakt zavání leností.

[Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really a frightening story, another McBain with real suspense (even though I guessed the end early on) - it's kind of like when you know the ending, as we so often do with tv shows and movies and series books, but the journey of reading it is great fun and excitement.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good tense thriller with a twist right near the end.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much McBain’s invention of the police procedural. Not a complex story on the surface but deft writing about jealousy/desire/violence simmering just below the surface. One of his best.

[♥Scout Paige♥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first Ed Mcbain book I've ever read, I hadn't heard of it before my mum gave me a copy she was going to throw out. Even though I had the killer pegged pretty early on I still enjoyed reading Blood Relatives. The writing flowed well and the plot was well paced. To be honest when I began reading the book I didn't think I would like it, although it has the trademarks of my type of book I was a little concerned about the fact it was written in the 70's. To my surprise I found it easy to connect with the characters and lose myself in the story. A very well put together book, and a good read even for a new audience.

[Nik Maack · Rating 3 out of 5]

The suspense is non-existent. However, it's still a fun read. Ed McBain just does dialogue well. That carries the novel. The plot itself is a flimsy soap opera of a thing that I suspect most readers will see through fairly quickly.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very meh. It was alright but not great. It was very predictable and I didn’t particularly connect with any of the characters or really care what was going to happen.

[Helen (Helena/Nell) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gruesome read but a good read. Unlike the previous novel in the series, the plot is simple and the main characters have personalities.

The witness to a particular gory murder changes her account of what happened twice. She's only fifteen (a key factor, as it happens) and these changes to her story fit neatly inside a novel where the unreliability of memory is challenged. When she wrongly identifies the killer in a line-up parade (she picks out one of the detectives), McBain takes the opportunity to explain about a classic situation from Police Academy training. During a lecture to academy students, a man will be primed to walk across the room, work on the window for five minutes with a screwdriver, and then walk out again. All this is set up so that the students later will fail miserably to describe what he looked like and what he was doing, thus illustrating the principle of unreliable memory, even among police cadets. "When it came to what the man was carrying, an astonishing sixty-two percent of the students said a bucket of water."

As it happens, that is not why the witness wrongly identifies the killer in this case, but by the time we get to the denouement, we've forgotten that.

The weakness of the novel, to my mind, is the 19 pages of the dead girl's diary, shared close to the end of the book. I know McBain has a weakness for multiple narrators and different points of view but in this case, too much is revealed from one source at too great a length.

The tension slackened at this point. Also I just didn't believe the girl who died would write some of what she wrote -- it would all take too long, and I speak as a diarist. She'd be exhausted. She'd run out of diary pages in no time. I mean, who really writes: "During that time the television was going outside, it almost sounded as if there were people in the house besides us, people with their own problems and their own lives, thrashing them out on television the way we were thrashing them out there in Andy's room. After I told him, he just lay there on his bed for the longest time without saying anything at all, so finally I got up to go, and he said Sit down, Muriel."

But on balance it's a well-paced, fast read, compelling and urgent. I can see precisely why they made it into a film.

Interestingly, the fifteen-year-old who witnessed the brutal murder of her cousin is remarkably un-traumatised. The murder (in which the witness is also badly cut) happens on a Saturday night. In today's scheme of things, no way would she be in the squadroom on Monday afternoon, identifying the killer from a line-up unaccompanied. No two-way mirror. She's in the same room as the line-up parade and she IDs the killer by touching him on the shoulder. Her hands are both bandaged and she's got eight stitches in one cheek, and they ask her to TOUCH the killer?? Times have (thankfully) changed.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blood Relatives is a superb example of McBain in his form/element. Police procedural, great dialogue rendered in a way as to place you in the scene, intimately, rather than as a passive audience, and enough twists and turns in the plot to qualify as an F-1 racetrack.

What begins as a horrifying attempted murder of a 15 year old girl who has just witnessed Muriel, her 17 year old cousin, stabbed and slashed to death turns into a fascinating exploration of a young girl's mind. She lied about the man she described as her assailant, but later recants and gives up her brother as the one who murdered Muriel and tried to kill her as well. The cousin (who was orphaned and taken in by the family of the girl and brother) had kept a detailed diary, which as luck would have it, was recovered from a trash dump. Detective Carella, having read the diary, begins to piece together just what might have actually happened that rainy night when the murder occurred.

Nothing but net! Folks, this installation in the 87th Precinct series just scores on so many interesting levels, that it is one of the better entries. Admittedly, I like most all of the novels in this series, but as murder mystery / police procedurals go, this one just seems to click. It's a quick read, as are many of McBain's stories, so nothing is beat to death. The only thing keeping is from 5 stars is his habitual over-reliance on citations of ordinances and laws that seem to only to serve to fluff up the rather slim page count. Otherwise, the story is well told, the pace and sense of place, spot on, and the enjoyment factor solid as a rock. 4.5 stars.

[Pamela Mclaren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ed McBain (AKA Evan Hunter) always writes stories where the setting and dialogue, as well as the crimes themselves, are utterly realistic and believable. It's always struck me that way and with this book, it is the same, although its been nearly a year since I've read any of his books.

The setting is gritty but not threatening — two young teens are walking home from a party when the skies open up and they take shelter in the hallway of a condemned building. Only one of them comes away from the building.

Patricia Lowery, 15, makes it to a police station and reports an assault on herself and her cousin. She has slash marks on both hands and her face, her dress is torn. What are police to believe? Especially when they find her cousin's body.

Steve Carella and Bert Kling work hard to bring the case to a successful arrest before the murderer strikes again, but then things (as usual in the 87th precinct) things go south. In this case, Patricia identifies not the suspect Carella and Kling have found, but a fellow officer. Then she changes her story.

For veteran police officers, they work hard, trying to believe what they have been told and what they find. Sometimes that is not enough.

Ed McBain writes brilliantly and the tale is riveting. You feel for the officers as they go about what they have to go through to catch what they see as a murderer. This story doesn't have fast car chases, blasting of guns, no physical fights, yet it is tense, dramatic and all so real. I couldn't put the book down — it was that good.

[Elmer Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kudos to McBain for his continual quality output for the 87th, this being #30. I enjoyed the majority of this book, with the crimes being headed up by Carella and Kling.

Blood Relatives was more of a procedural insight story than full-on mystery to be solved. From the law enforcement side of things, this felt really accurate in the depiction of how a crime is delivered to the police for "solving" and prosecuting. The obvious undercurrent of subterfuge by the perpetrators, the conflicting testimonies, the evidentiary pathways required to close a case are all on display.

While there are other criminal activities passing through the story, the main plot has a creep factor that has not diminished over time. Carella takes us through every minute detail of the process from receiving the squeal, and notifications, through to the final confession. Surely, this has happened somewhere in our towns, perhaps not to the ultimate resolution, but to varying degrees.

The damning evidence of a diary felt extremely dated and contrived, albeit probably more true than one would care to admit. The final reveal left much to be desired, for me. McBain does a decent job of misdirection and storytelling to cover his tracks.

As a procedural, this one stands out, but as a mystery, not so much.

Thanks for reading.

[Ken Heard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second Ed McBain, 87th Precinct book I've read in the past few days... after a long, long break from reading his novels.

Blood Relatives is more of the police procedural type work that makes his books really shine. McBain shows the truth behind being a detective. It's not all the glamour that television shows portray them to be. Instead, it's foot work and, in some cases, luck. He also gives glimpses into his characters and, as I'm reading more now, I remember how they grew as the series progressed. It would probably be fun to read the entire series in order, but it's hard to find all them now. I haunt the library here; they have maybe 10 87th Precinct books on the shelves.

To me, this read a bit slower than others. It's "solved" early on, but then the reader is wondering if it really has been figured out. McBain uses detective Steve Carella's doubts to convey that doubt if they have the real bad guy.

One thing that stood out as a bit of an annoyance. Everyone, when explaining things in long quotes, uses "you see" in their comments. The victim in this one who lived, said "you see" quite a bit. Others used the same phrase as well. A small, small thing. Yet still a tad annoying.

I've checked out three other 87th Precincts so they'll be up next. This really is a good series that is kind of the basis and primer for all the later police mysteries.

[Ren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fast-paced in a good way and the ending had my jaw on the floor. In the beginning of reading you 100% believe it is the cousin, Andy, then the boss, Jack. Those are most likely your assumptions but you aren't completely sure. And I will be quite honest I thought that Patricia did it but then my belief switched back over to Andy. I think that feeling like you know who did it but then switching and then it turns to a whole other speculation that you forgot about is genius. I love the writing and i think it is great but i did not enjoy that Muriel's whole diary was just fantasy. As a teenage girl with a diary i don't just talk about guys i like or sexual fantasy. Though i do not have any boyfriends or anything. But for the most part most of my diary is just things that happen to me or random thoughts and i think it isn't too common to have your diary just be about sexual fantasies or things that have taken place. That was he only thing i didn't like in the beginning of the journal segment but after that i loved just reading the journal entries. But as a review in full i enjoyed the book and do recommend it i think it was great. Weird incestuous stuff happens though but it is still interesting nonetheless.