The Deaf Man is back from his near death experience in his last escapade. First, vengeance shall be his on the person who almost killed him, and then he is back to playing games with the 87th Precinct detectives as he is sending them clues to his next theft. I did not like that the other plot lines were not crimes, but personal stories: the marriages of Carella's mother and sister, Bert Kling's pathetic love life and Elaine starting a new relationship. Hard to believe there is only one book left in this series and the name of that book suggests it might be a sequel to this one. ( )

Ding, ding! Round six with The Deaf Man! This one picks up the story, satisfyingly, right after his last grappling with the 87th Precinct, in the book "Mischief"! The books are eleven years apart in the real word (1993 to 2004) and there were eight 87th Precinct Mysteries in between. And still, the fireworks between them...

We get a little revenge, lots of Shakespeare and palindromes, a double wedding, and two relationships on the rocks. Oh, and the Deaf Man’s latest scheme! Toward the end, he leaves a message for the 87th:

“I’LL BE SEEING YOU, BOYS!”

Sadly, with the passing of the author, no, no he won’t. Sniff, sniff. :(
I'm really gonna miss this rivalry... ( )

"Hark!" is the last Deaf Man book, where he gets his revenge on Gloria, who double crossed him in "Mischief" and made off with his multi-million dollar drug haul. He recruits another helper, a hooker this time, mistakenly believing she'll be stupid enough not to double cross him. He is planning on stealing a rare violin off of a visiting Greek musician, and he succeeds. Then Melissa, the hooker, steals the violin from him and safely makes it out of the country after shooting the Deaf Man. He survives, and even calls Carella to tell him who Melissa is and where she's headed, hoping he'll catch her. They don't, but good for her. You can't help but cheer for Melissa. ( )

In this novel set in the 87th Precinct, Carella and the rest of the detectives are again faced with the return of the Deaf Man who had seriously wounded Carella in an earlier case. Using anagrams and quotations form Shakespeare, the Deaf Man leads them on to what and when his next crime will be.

Meanwhile, Carella faces the remarriages of his mother and sister on the same day. Other detectives also face problems in their relationships that put a strain on how they work the case.

Creating the many anagrams and working in the many quotations so that they were mysterious to the reader as well as the detectives must have taken McBain a lot of time. He does give credit to Daniel Starer for assistance with this aspect of the novel.

As an aside, Fat Ollie finds his stolen novel and has also fallen in love. ( )

I found the reaction of other reader's very interesting, I'm so used to McBain's 'style' that I don't compare it to reality. Of course when you do it is very odd stuff indeed. LT reviewer LisaMaria_C hits the nail on the head when she says reading Hark feels like travelling in some kind of time warp back to the 50's. That's exactly right. Indeed the perpetual youth of the characters, even while thirty years (at least) of time seems to evolve in the fictional background, is the stuff of wonder even for me. But McBain is like a comfortable but worn out pair of boots, after a while you read them because you know what to expect. Which includes a large dose of various styles everyone else has outgrown.

If you came at his novels from this end you'd be simply astonished, but it makes sense (sort of) when you read him from the other direction. There's a large part of it that's tradition. His worst novels, and some are real stinkers, are those where he tries too hard to update, to be hip and modern. I don't mean that he's introducing technology (which he's never seemed interested in) but rather swamping his narrative with dark sexuality and violence (usually together) which was hinted at in the early novels but never made so explicit. Perhaps it was his natural style all along and the editors used to hold him back in less 'liberal' times.

This one, 'Hark' is the best of some very mediocre stories of the 87th Precinct series put out in recent years, partly because its part of a a story arc involving the 'Deaf Man' that is nearly fifty years in the making. Back in the 60's and 70's McBain did this very well. But compared to the early 'Deaf Man' novels this one is sluggish and unimaginative, and I'd add 'laboured'. It's definitely an 'old times sake' kind of thing. You know things are crook when Ollie Weeks - a parody - is the only really interesting character in the book. I can't recommend any of the later McBain, but the early ones are interesting - as sort of historical 'objects', and if you start reading those you might end up here. In which case I'd observe that at least 'Hark' isn't one of those that I'd urge you at all costs to avoid. ( )