Tag Archives: 87th Precinct

Reviews

Watching old TV: ’87th Precinct’

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Reading an 87th Precinct novel by Ed McBain recently reminded me that there was a TV series, long ago, which I remembered enjoying – even before I knew the books existed at all. I checked it out and found and watched it on YouTube. And it’s not bad at all.

One major departure from the books is that the pretense of a fictional city is dropped entirely. This 87th Precinct is set solidly in Manhattan. The fairly large cast of the books is trimmed back here – we have Steve Carella (Robert Lansing), Meyer Meyer (Norman Fell), Bert Kling (Ron Harper) and Roger Havilland (Gregory Walcott). Although I’ve read several of the novels, I’d forgotten the character of Det. Havilland altogether. Wikipedia tells me that he’s a corrupt and unpopular cop in the books, but here he’s a good guy, kind of like Cotton Hawes, who doesn’t appear at all until a single episode late in the series (it only lasted one season). Gina Rowlands is also there as Teddy, Steve Carella’s deaf wife.

The casting could be worse. This was the first role I ever saw Robert Lansing in, and he became one of my favorite actors (though from what I’ve read of him, he wasn’t popular with the people he worked with). Ron Harper as Bert Kling looks about right – blond and young. Norman Fell as Meyer is a disappointment. Meyer in the books is a complex character with an ingrained stoicism dating back to traumatic antisemitic violence in his childhood that caused him to lose all his hair. He’s a large and strong man. Fell did not shave his head for the part (that was pretty rare in those days) or bulk up, but it’s not just that. Fell was primarily a comic actor, and he plays Meyer that way –downbeat Jewish comic relief. Not entirely, but mostly. (Meyer has never had justice done to him on the screen, as far as I know.) Gina Rowlands was lovely, but a blonde rather than black-haired as Teddy was in the books.

The scripts are based on the original novels, whittled down for the time available, with roles switched for the actors on hand. In terms of storytelling, it was really very good, adult television for the 1960s, and it deserved a longer run. Some familiar actors show up – Robert Vaughn as “the Deaf Man,” Robert Culp as a psychopath, and Leonard Nimoy as a young heavy.

Bottom line: Pretty good show. Worth a watch.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Hark!’ by Ed McBain

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It had been many years since I’d read a novel by the late Ed McBain (who was actually Evan Hunter, which name was itself at first a pseudonym for Salvatore Lombino, who legally changed it to Hunter). I was a fan of McBain’s 87th Precinct novels for a long time, but Eight Black Horses offended me. It had to do with a rapist who was targeting pro-life women, and at one point the author had a policewoman musing that she thought both sides were wrong. I thought it was awfully generous of McBain to concede that pro-lifers were no worse than rapists, and stopped reading the series.

But Hark!, an 2004 87th Precinct book, came up on a deal recently, and I figured, after all we’ve been through since, Eight Black Horses was actually pretty mild stuff. I figured I’d give it another chance.

Verdict: Hark! wasn’t bad, but I don’t like McBain’s writing as much as I used to.

The 87th Precinct books are set in a city called Isola, which is obviously New York City under an assumed name. The central character has always been Detective Steve Carella, but a regular cast of other detectives supports him. A recurring character in many of the books has been a criminal called “the Deaf Man.” The Deaf Man is a genius, and bears a grudge against the 87th. So he periodically reappears sending them mocking messages that provide cryptic clues to whatever major score he’s planning on their doorstep in order to prove how dumb they are.

This time he’s sending them hand-delivered notes containing quotations, mostly from Shakespeare. Much of the book consists of the detectives brainstorming what the messages might mean. There seem to be recurring themes of word reversals, palindromes, and anagrams. Also hints about books. But there really isn’t enough information to guess, which is just the Deaf Man’s game.

Several subplots involve man-woman relationships. Steve Carella is planning a double wedding – remarriages for his widowed mother and his sister. Detective Burt Kling is dating a black doctor, and feeling the social pressure. Detective Cotton Hawes is dating a television reporter and wondering whether she cares more for him than for her career. Another detective is dating the only woman on the squad. Even the Deaf Man is living with a prostitute who’s helping him with his scheme but may be smarter than he assumes.

But the best part of the book, for me, was a small subplot involving a detective from another precinct named Fat Ollie Weeks. Fat Ollie is a perfect comic relief character – he’s fat (of course), and he’s not too bright. His ideas of police procedure are Neanderthal, and he’s a bigot and a sexist. But recently he started dating a Hispanic woman cop, and he’s finding better impulses blossoming within him, to his own surprise and discomfort. Also, he’s working on writing a novel which is apparently pretty good.

Hark! was an okay novel, but I found it a little slow, and all the police brainstorming got a bit wearying (though there were amusing moments of cop ignorance about Shakespeare). I was reminded how society has changed during a scene where a superior is apologetic for asking the woman detective for “a woman’s point of view.” Back then that kind of talk was considered sexist — today the woman’s point of view is considered the only acceptable point of view.

Also, I rebel against the whole idea of the Deaf Man. At the beginning, Ed McBain’s books were praised for their authentic descriptions of police procedure. But the Deaf Man is pure Hollywood. Real criminals don’t act like that, or so I’ve been informed.

Still, Hark! wasn’t bad, in its way.