Fat Ollie's Book by
Ed McBain
hbk out January 03
Published by Orion
at £12.99
Ed McBain must surely be the most entertaining author alive.
Apart from all his other books, this is no less than the fifty-fifth in the 87th
Precinct series, yet his writing remains as fresh and lively as ever. Full of
real humour and wit, he puts in inconsequential detail and dialogue that
would make the po-faced tutors of writing courses wince, yet the result is a
flowing cascade of words that keeps the grinning reader enthralled.
In the last couple of books, he has shifted his character emphasis slightly, so
that although Steve Carella, Kling, Parker and the rest are still with us, the
lead figure is now Fat Ollie Weeks, the gross and grossly insensitive
detective from the adjacent 88th Precinct. It is an advantage for the reader to
have read recent books in sequence, as this one is a direct sequel to last
year's Money, Money, Money, in which Ollie has two ambitions in life – to
learn three tunes on the piano and to write a mystery novel.
A local politician has decided to run for mayor of Isola – a thinly disguised
New York City – but gets shot in the theatre where he is to make his opening
speech. This is in the 88th area, so Ollie gets the shout, but the guy lives in
the 87th, so Carella and company also get in on the investigation. However,
to Ollie, the main disaster is not the murder, but the fact that the only copy
of the manuscript of his precious novel is stolen from his car, left outside the
theatre. It has been nicked by a transvestite heroin addict, who thinks that the
events described in it are coded account of the whereabouts of a cache of
stolen diamonds. A cast of cops, whores, junkies and winos keep the story
bowling along, with plenty of what the jacket blurb rightly describes as
'fabulously politically incorrect' comments about the multi-racial inhabitants
of the city.
Ed Mcbain has been writing novels since 1954 and I only wish he could go
on doing so for another half-century.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
