Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Killer's Wedge

Another early Ed McBain novel, Killer's Wedge shows the beginning of a more interesting voice, with some occasional nice figurative language.  ("The clock on the squadroom wall, white-faced and leering, threw minutes onto the floor where they lay like the ghosts of dead policemen.")

But the plot!  It's hard to believe that it was plausible, even in the 1950s, for one person to hold up a whole squadroom of detectives for a whole day.  The major virtue of this book is that it's so short that before you bother analyzing it, it's over & done with.

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