Penzler Pick, January 2000: When it comes to the novels of big-city cop life revolving around a single station house's daily dramas, Ed McBain wrote the book--50 of them, in fact. And whatever one thinks of the virtues of NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, or even Law and Order, there's the undeniable truth that McBain was there first, with his wonderfully reimagined New York. (Fans know that Isola is the stand-in for the borough of Manhattan, Riverhead for the Bronx, Majesta for Queens, Calm's Point for Brooklyn, and Bethtown for Staten Island.)

Here, as one hopes and expects, a body turns up within the opening pages. And also, as is often the case, Detective Steve Carella is there to spar with the medical examiner.

But there are other bodies and other police personnel in a story that takes the typical McBain route--no short cuts--that amounts to a crook's tour of the city he loves. With a cast of characters that ranges from socialites to hookers, The Last Dance takes in theater world chicanery, police brutality, and a pizza-joint massacre.

Ed McBain, also known as Evan Hunter, is the only American ever to have won the British Crimewriters Association's Diamond Dagger; he is a grand master of the Mystery Writers of America; his books have sold over a hundred million copies around the world; and he wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, the Matthew Hope series of mystery novels with fairy tale and nursery rhyme titles (Rumpelstiltskin, Goldilocks, etc.), as well as the classic The Blackboard Jungle.

Celebrating the publication of the 50th novel in a series that stays amazingly fresh and incredibly readable is no small thing. This much-loved and seminal writer is a national treasure. If you're a mystery reader, you've undoubtedly read Ed McBain. If you haven't read one for a while, try this one. It's so good it will immediately send you scurrying back for the ones you missed. --Otto Penzler


From Publishers Weekly
The 50th novel of the 87th Precinct is one of the best, a melancholy, acerbic paean to lifeAand deathAin the fictional big city of Isola. The story begins with death: detectives Meyer Meyer and Steve Carella are questioning Cynthia Keating, whose father lies lifeless in a nearby bed. Cynthia claims she hasn't touched Andrew Hale since she discovered his body, but the cops suspect she's lying: for one thing, the corpse's feet are blue from postmortem lividity, a sign of death by hanging. The detectives' doubts turn darker when, after Cynthia admits she found her father hanged and, in shock, laid him down, the M.E. rules that Hale was murdered. Carella asks stoolie Danny Gimp to listen to the drums on the street for any hints of the killer. Danny calls back for a meet but is gunned down before Carella's eyes by two shooters, who escape. Much shoe leather hits the pavement before the cops find a possible motive: Hale left Cynthia the rights to a play now in preproduction as a major musical. If it's a hit, she and three other heirs stand to gain a fortuneAand Hale, the cops further learn, had refused to okay the production while alive. The dicks thus take their investigation into the bustling worlds of theater and high society, which McBain observes tartly. Further deaths ensue, further suspects arise, including a Jamaican hit man who sheds the blood of one of McBain's heroes. The closing of the case comes a tad easily to the cops and to the narrative, but overall this is McBain in classic form, displaying the writing wisdom gained over more than 40 years of 87th Precinct novels (the first appeared in 1956) to deliver a cop story that's as strong and soulful as the urban heart of America he celebrates so well. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In this 50th addition to the 87th Precinct series, Carella and Meyer are sent to an apartment where an elderly man has been found dead in his bed. It is soon apparent that the man, Andrew Hale, was asphyxiated and probably hung, then later moved to make everything seem natural. The autopsy shows that he was also drugged before he died. His daughter, who found him, disavows any knowledge and becomes a major suspect. When the investigation leads to a number of people who were given the drug Rohypnol and then murdered, the pool of suspects expands to include participants in a theater production, the rights to which were owned by HaleAwho opposed its production. The plot is basic, and the personal lives of the detectives we have come to regard as friends remain in the background; but McBain is still the grandmaster of the police procedural. As always, he has created a first-rate mystery for the police of Isola (a.k.a. NYC) toCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
Years ago, I thought Ed McBain's books were sexy love songs to a cold, violent city. Now, I think they are sad, slow dances in a city where everyone dances alone.


From AudioFile
McBain's 87th Precinct novels feature the cast of Carella and his associates. This one also features "Fat Ollie" Weeks of the 88th precinct, who has become increasingly well established as a character in the more recent books in the series. Fans of McBain, and that is a large collection of people, will find all the elements they have come to expect, and admirers of Weeks will be especially pleased. Garrick Hagon provides a well-paced reading that keeps the listener involved. In giving the large cast distinctive voices, he is most successful with Weeks; his 87th Precinct voices seem less individualized. But this does not detract from the pleasure of the listen. R.E.K. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Andrew Hale is found dead in bed by his daughter, Cynthia Keating. Detectives Carella and Meyer of the 87th Precinct catch the call. An old man with a history of heart trouble dies. Simple, right? Never. Hale didn't die in bed; he died hanging from a door, and his daughter moved the body. She stands to collect 25K from a life-insurance policy but not if it was suicide. Carella and Meyer think they could prove obstruction of justice with intent to defraud the insurance company, but 25-large is nothing to Keating, whose husband is a wealthy corporate attorney. What else is there? Well, there are the rights to the source material for a revival of a 1920s hit musical. Hale himself inherited it from an elderly neighbor who wrote the original play but wouldn't release the rights to the current producers. Suspects abound for Carella and Meyer including the play's producers and the other descendants of the original collaborators. The fiftieth 87th Precinct novel--though Carella has just turned 40--is the typically accomplished mix of police procedure, characterization, social commentary and tight plotting that has long distinguished this landmark series. McBain is making at least one reader very nervous with his titles. The most recent entry in the Matthew Hope series was called The Last Best Hope , and now we have The Last Dance. Say it ain't so, Ed. Wes Lukowsky


From Kirkus Reviews
Cynthia Keating says she found her father, Andrew Hale, dead in his bed. Faint cord marks on his neck and Rohypnol in his blood say otherwise. And for a landmark 50th investigation, the men of the 87thCarella, Meyer, Hawes, Brown, Parker, and Kling (The Big Bad City, 1999, etc.), joined by Fat Ollie Weeks, equal opportunity bigot of the 88thfan through the streets of Isola, unearthing a vintage array of vics, perps, rats, and innocent bystanders, tracking the case witness by witness. Stoolie Danny the Gimp knows a guy who was in a poker game with a knife-scarred Jamaican contract killer who took him home afterward for a night of sex and ``roofies.'' But Danny gets aced by a couple of thugs who work for El Jefe, Hightown dealer of designer drugs. Meanwhile, an alert neighbor reports that Hale was visited by a big man who offered him, in his radio- announcer's voice, the opportunity to make millionsan opportunity Hale refused. And Fat Ollie, looking for whoever stabbed Althea Clearygirl from the sticks by day, topless dancer by nightcareens through the projects downtown, turning up a hot lead on a scarred Jamaican and a hot plateful of fried bananas for good measure. McBain plots masterfully, each new encounter winding the skein tighter. The few slack threads herehis perennial musings on the human condition, this time focusing on race relationsnever interfere with his matchless affection for all his detectives, the good, the bad, and the dyspeptic. (Literary Guild featured alternate; Mystery Guild main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Los Angeles Times McBain...retains mastery of words, plots, small tragedies, and still smaller triumphs.


Book Description
In this city, you can get anything done for a price. If you want someone's eyeglasses smashed, it'll cost you a subway token. You want his fingernails pulled out? His legs broken? You want him hurt so bad he's an invalid his whole life? You want him...killed? Let me talk to someone. It can be done. The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby little apartment in a meager section of the 87th Precinct is nothing much in this city, especially to detectives Carella and Meyer. But everyone has a story, and this old man's story stood to make some people a lot of money. His story takes Carella, Meyer, Brown, and Weeks on a search through Isola's seedy strip clubs and to the bright lights of the theater district. There they discover an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug -- and a killer who stays until the last dance.


Download Description
In this city, you can get anything done for a price. If you want someone's eyeglasses smashed, it'll cost you a subway token. You want his fingernails pulled out? His legs broken? You want him more seriously injured? You want him hurt so he's an invalid his whole life? You want him skinned, you want him burned, you want him -- don't even mention it in a whisper -- killed? It can be done. Let me talk to someone. It can be done. The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby little apartment in a meager section of the 87th Precinct was nothing much in this city, especially to detectives Carella and Meyer. But everyone has a story, and this old man's story stood to make some people a lot of money. His story takes Carella, Meyer, Brown, and Weeks on a search through Isola's seedy strip clubs and to the bright lights of the theater district. There they discover an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug and a killer who stays until the last dance. The Last Dance is Ed McBain's fiftieth novel of the 87th Precinct and certainly one of his best. The series began in 1956 with Cop Hater and proves him to be the man who has been called "so good he should be arrested".


About the Author
Ed McBain is the only American to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Association's highest award. He also holds the Mystery Writers of America's coveted Grand Master Award. His books have sold more than one hundred million copies, ranging from The Last Dance, the fiftieth title in his outstanding 87th Precinct series, to the bestselling novels The Blackboard Jungle and Privileged Conversation, written under his own name, Evan Hunter. He is also the author of the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Dragica.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Although Ed McBain may not have invented the police procedural, he has done more than any other writer, living or dead, to make the form his own. His 87th Precinct series, which began in 1956 with Cop Hater, has influenced novelists around the world, and has set the standards by which its numerous imitators must ultimately be judged. Now, in one of the more noteworthy publishing events of the newly arrived millennium, McBain presents us with the 50th volume in this remarkable series. It￯﾿ﾽs called The Last Dance, and it is as fresh, funny, lively and literate as any of its many predecessors.

As The Last Dance opens, Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer have just arrived at the scene of a suspicious death and are interviewing a reluctant—and probably devious—witness. The body, this time out, is that of a retired 68-year-old male nurse named Andrew Hale. Hale—according to his daughter, Cynthia Keating—had been found dead in bed, the victim of an apparent heart attack. Forensic evidence eventually indicates that Hale had, in fact, been hanged from a hook on his bathroom door and then moved to his bed. This revised scenario leads Meyer and Carella to conclude that Cynthia herself had tampered with the death scene. Her probable purpose: to conceal the fact of her father￯﾿ﾽs suicide and thus protect her claim to his meager, $25,000 life insurance policy.

Of course, this is an 87th Precinct novel, and things aren￯﾿ﾽt always as they seem. Further forensic evidence indicates that Hale had ingested a large enough quantity of Ruhypnol—popularly known as the Date Rape drug—to make suicide a physical impossibility. So, once again, Carella and Meyer have a homicide on their hands, and they begin their investigation by asking themselves the eternally relevant question: Cui Bono? Who benefits most from the victim￯﾿ﾽs death?

As it turns out, quite a number of people stand to benefit from Hale￯﾿ﾽs death. Hale, who had very little money, owned one thing of genuine value: the copyright to a 1923 play entitled Jenny￯﾿ﾽs Room. Norman Zimmer, a high-powered theatrical producer, plans to use the play as the basis for a Broadway musical, if he can only acquire the necessary rights. Hale, for personal reasons, had refused to grant those rights, a problem that is conveniently resolved by his violent death. The subsequent trail of evidence and supposition leads the two detectives—together with a number of other series regulars, such as Bert Kling, Arthur Brown, Cotton Hawes and Andy Parker—into the unfamiliar territory of the New York theater world, where egos proliferate and far too many people have a viable motive for murder.

McBain￯﾿ﾽs account of this investigation—which eventually widens to encompass the Columbia drug cartel, a litigious 98-year-old playwright, a murdered police informer and a Jamaican hit man with a most unusual tattoo—ranges across the length of his fictional city of Isola, moving swiftly and cleanly from scene to scene, from confrontation to confrontation, before ending—in classic McBain fashion—with a series of interrogations that ultimately lead to a surprising but logical conclusion.

En route to that conclusion, The Last Dance offers up a generous display of McBain￯﾿ﾽs characteristic virtues: the deceptively effortless prose, the deadpan humor, the artfully constructed set pieces, the profane, precisely rendered dialogue, the mordant observations of an increasingly decadent society in thrall to the media and hungry for cheap, secondhand sensations.

Like the rest of McBain￯﾿ﾽs novels, The Last Dance also offers us the underrated pleasure of familiarity. Those of us who have followed the series through its countless twists and turnings have had the rare opportunity to witness the evolution of a varied and engaging cast of recurring characters. Steve Carella, a dedicated policeman and a decent man whose life revolves around his children and his deaf, endearing wife; Bert Kling, a classically handsome young cop with a complex, constantly changing love life; Meyer, a practicing Jew in a Christian society and something of a natural outsider—these and a host of other characters, major and minor, have achieved a substantial reality of their own over the past forty-odd years, and have added immeasurably to the depth and quality of this durable—and remarkably consistent—series.

The fact that McBain has gone to the well fifty times and never really come back empty is something on the order of a minor artistic miracle. While it￯﾿ﾽs probably unrealistic to expect fifty more novels from that same well, we can reasonably look forward to several more. Or so I sincerely hope. McBain (also known as Evan Hunter) is an inexhaustible national resource, and he has added something special—something uniquely his own—to the literature of the late 20th century.

--Bill Sheehan

ANNOTATION

Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, and the boys of the 87th Precinct know where, when, and how George Lasser died, but they don't have a clue as to who had "given him the ax." And when the mad marauder strikes again, it's time to take the ax to the grindstone. Reissue.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby little apartment in a meager section of the 87th Precinct was nothing much in this city, especially to detectives Carella and Meyer. But everyone has a story, and this old man's story stood to make some people a lot of money. His story takes Carella, Meyer, Brown, and Weeks on a search through Isola's seedy strip clubs and to the bright lights of the theater district. There they discover an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug and a killer who stays until the last dance.

SYNOPSIS

In this city, you can get anything done for a price. If you want someone's eyeglasses smashed, it'll cost you a subway token.

FROM THE CRITICS

Eugen Weber - Los Angeles Times Book Review

McBain...has not stuck to his guns about avoiding social comment because it is impossible to write police novels without it. He hasn't kept his word, which is all the better for us because he retains mastery of words, plots, small tragedies and still smaller triumphs.

AudioFile

McBain's 87th Precinct novels feature the cast of Carella and his associates. This one also features "Fat Ollie" Weeks of the 88th precinct, who has become increasingly well established as a character in the more recent books in the series. Fans of McBain, and that is a large collection of people, will find all the elements they have come to expect, and admirers of Weeks will be especially pleased. Garrick Hagon provides a well-paced reading that keeps the listener involved. In giving the large cast distinctive voices, he is most successful with Weeks; his 87th Precinct voices seem less individualized. But this does not detract from the pleasure of the listen. R.E.K. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Jon L. Breen - Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

An elderly man's apparent suicide begins to look like murder to 87th cops Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer, Bert Kling's latest romance is an interracial one; and Fat Ollie Weeks, revolting and bigoted cop of a neighboring precinct has the largest part I can remember. This is about average as 87th Precinct novels go; longtime readers won't need to be told how good that is.

Marilyn Stasio - The New York Times Book Review