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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 6, No. 2 |
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reviews the latest 87th Precinct Novel by ED McBAIN HARK! featuring the return of THE DEAF MAN |
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Just what Carella needs:
Return of the Deaf Man!
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of TheColumnists.com |
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The Deaf Man is the Prof. Moriarty of Ed McBain's series of novels about the 87th Precinct. He's been plaguing Detective Steve Carella and the rest of the gang ever since "The Heckler" in 1960--a crime wave that has lasted close to half a century. Which brings me to the good news: The Deaf Man is back to needle Carella & Co. once more in the new McBain novel, "Hark!" (Simon & Schuster, $24.95). Given that longevity, it's amazing that Carella & Co. really don't know that much about the tall, blond master criminal whose hearing aid is his trademark. He obviously knows so much more about them than they do about him. Perhaps that's why he always becomes the central character whenever he decides to re-materialize again in their slice of the New York-like metropolis where they protect and serve. This time the crime that gets the 87th Precinct gang involved is the murder of a shapely woman who's found shot to death in her luxury apartment. We readers know that she's "Gloria," a former consort to The Deaf Man, who had the moxie to actually cheat him out of a fortune in loot. We know that she's dead meat as soon as The Deaf Man turns up at her door. But the master criminal doesn't like leaving his enemies in the dark too long, so he begins to send them clues in the form of notes containing anagrams, delivered by messenger services to the precinct house, care of Detective Steve Carella. When the notes start containing quotes from Shakespeare, Carella and the others in the detective bureau begin to realize The Deaf Man is back and he's planning something big that he's taunting them with in advance. The question: What big crime is he going to pull off? As usual, we're kept in almost as much dark as the cops are, except that we know it's somehow going to involve a Greek concert violinist who's scheduled to perform in June. Many critics who don't particularly care for the McBain series generally cite his extraneous plotting for the lightness of his novels. They miss the point. That's like grumbling that "NYPD" has too many plot irons in the fire each week and doesn't focus on the primary case. Well, the point of "NYPD" is the way the detective squad characters interrelate with the criminals, witnesses, victims and, most importantly, each other. That's McBain's great attraction: He absorbs us in the lives of Carella & Co. to the point where we're nearly as interested in what they're up to these days as we are in the doings of the main heavy. For example, Carella is suffering deep angst over the impending marriage of his widowed mother to an Italian businessman, who intends to take her back to Italy to live after the wedding, which, coincidentally, is scheduled to take place the same day as the big event The Deaf Man is planning. We also get rather wrapped up in the love affair between Detective Hawes and a TV news reporter. When a sniper starts taking deadly aim at Hawes, his girl friend thinks she must be the target of the shooter--and she persists in that theory because the publicity is good for her career. Then there's Fat Ollie, who's having a relationship with a Latino lady. Is he too fat to expect much to happen there? Well, we find that out, too. And let's not forget Detective Kling, who's seriously in love with Sharyn, who's African-American. Can they cross the color line without conflict? It seems so--until Kling starts following her to make sure she's not involved in some kind of kinky thing with a handsome black physician and a sleek young white woman that she meets mysteriously and lies about to him. The Deaf Man even has an unorthodox sidekick whose personal life involves us. She's Melissa, a young and attractive prostitute The Deaf Man recruits to find willing "messengers" to take his clue-notes to the 87th Precinct several times a day. She's a lot smarter than you'd expect. Will she turn out to be yet another female land mine the arch villain steps on in his careful pursuit of master criminality? Stay tuned. McBain seldom disappoints me. I've been hooked on the Precinct tales ever since "Cop Hater," the first in the series, which came out just a few years after his blockbuster bestseller "The Blackboard Jungle," written under his "real" name, Evan Hunter. (Actually, Evan Hunter isn't the name he was born with, which was "Salvatore Lombino.") At age 78, McBain still churns out stories that are hard to put down once you start reading them. "Hark!" is one of his best in recent years--and it continues the "Deaf Man" tradition in grand style. ©2005 by Ron Miller. The book cover illustration is courtesy of Simon & Schuster. |
Ron Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently writes about TV and movie mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE Magazine and teaches classes in mystery and related topics at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
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