McBain (Evan Hunter) is one of those rare authors who was either sublime, as in the majority of 87th Precinct novels, or horrid, as in the Matthew Hope series (some of them are crass and unreadable, in my opinion). I love McBain most of the time, because I stick to Carella and the boys of the 87th Precinct. I read this one years ago and it definitely fell into the latter category for me. For those who've read a lot of McBain, this one reads like "filler", as someone else mentioned, something McBain threw out there simply to meet an obligation to his publisher (McBain openly spoke of doing so on occasion). Not a good place to start if you've never read McBain. Try an 87th Precinct instead. All its interconnected stories and wonderfully non-PC observations make it the finest police procedural every penned. ( )

"There's nothing like early retirement to make a man feel dead." I can attest to this quote from Ed McBain's excellent tale of a woman whose children are kidnapped. She is struggling to make a living as a real estate agent in Florida following the accidental death of her husband when he fell from a boat. In the meantime, her son was so traumatized by his father's death, he has become mute and Alice, on the cusp of making her first house sale with the prospect of a badly needed commission, is hit by a car and has her ankle broken. Could things possibly get worse? Well, they do as the kids are kidnapped and the cops in the small town seem reminiscent of the Keystone Kops not to mention jurisdictional fighting with the feds.

There are some marvelous set pieces. As they sit in the living room and Alice becomes more frustrated with the cops, a blond woman in a red mustang pulls into the driveway. It's Jennifer Redding, the woman who hit Alice the day before. She thanks Alice for not calling the police, they discuss whether it's better for Jennifer or Alice to report the accident, the kind of small talk at which McBain excels. Then Jennifer offers Alice a box of chocolate, "everybody likes chocolate, right?" and then in a marvelous scene hints that wouldn't it be nice if Alice offered her some pieces of candy from the box she was just given. Brings a smile to your face.

Not at all your usual McBain and the 87th Precinct. ( )

Eight months ago, Alice Glendenning lost her husband in a boating accident in the Gulf of Mexico. Alice and her two children are grieving and not doing well financially. Alice isn't sure how she is going to pay the bills as she is trying to jump-start a career in real estate. Then things get much worse one afternoon when the kids don't come home from school. After a promising start, things deteriorate, and the book ends up being just mediocre. ( )

An easy comfort read. Not up to the usual standard of McBain's work. ( )