1958 police procedural, sixth in the 87th Precinct series. A
blackmailer is shot in a drive-by; the 87th has to find out which of
his victims did it.
Which should be exciting, but it didn't quite grab me. I feel
McBain is writing more to his publisher's demands than to produce a
good book; they demanded a single detective and more sex, and here we
have the return of Cotton Hawes, happily sleeping with nearly every
vaguely attractive woman in the book and lusting after the rest. (Does
he have any other personality beyond "a bit careful after he nearly
got Carella killed last book"? Not that you'd know from this.)
Beyond that, it's all very routine stuff. Perhaps in 1958 it could
have been considered shocking that a politician's wife might have
modelled nearly nude once, but here it's just a subject for leering.
There are four sources of money in the victim's bank account, and
three of them get tracked down and eliminated as the killer; then
Hawes makes a leap of faith and turns out to be right (but not quite
right enough to avoid a final tense scene).
This was the last book of McBain's (Evan Hunter's) second three-book
contract. It's not terrible, but it's very dated and has the feel of
trying to sound authentic while not actually writing about something
the author knows. I'm still waiting for the series to "get good", as I
am assured it does.