Cop Hater by Ed McBain

I don't read that much detective fiction but when I do I've always liked the hard-boiled or the noirish. Oddly I've never picked up an Ed McBain before, despite being a big fan of one of the writer's other pseudonym's Evan Hunter, whose 50s jazz noir "Second Ending" is even more a favourite than "Blackboard Jungle" (the template for the notorious "Rock Around the Clock" film.) I picked up "Cop Hater" as its the first of his 87th Precinct novels. In an introduction to this reissue he talks about how he had the idea to write a series of books about a group of cops rather than a single cop or detective - and how any "murder" story tended to be a bit fake when the protagonist was anyone other than a cop - e.g. a private detective.

"Cop Hater" has the same clipped style I remember from the Hunter novels, but though a genre book, its not all about the action. Starting with the murder of a plain clothes policeman, this novel puts the precinct at the centre of the action - as the various cops we are introduced to are all potentially lined up as the next to be killed by the "cop hater." Yet McBain moves out of the precinct and into the homes of the men who have to keep the city safe. They are all individuals with their own personalities and home lives. Steve Carella and Hank Bush are the duty detectives who go out to find out why the first cop was murdered in cold blood. They find the smallest of clues: half of a footprint. First of all they think the answer must be in the files - particularly when the partner of the first cop is also killed. Yet they can't find any examples of motive.

The city - a city like New York in its size and ethnic mix, with a river running through it - is as much a character as any of the cops. Its the summer of a heatwave, and the heat makes everything seem hard work. The city newspaper, a scandal rag, is desperate for an angle, and wonders if its teenage gangs who have killed the cops. One journalist, Savage, starts taking things into his own hands, acting as an agent provocateur, leading to another cop being injured with a zip gun from one of the teenagers.

Carella is in love and his girlfriend, Teddy, is a deaf mute. He has promised to marry her, but like all cops' wives and girlfriends she fears for him not coming home. Meanwhile Carella can't get out of his head images of his partner Bush's descriptions of his florid wife, Alice, who always wears black lingerie. This is a book that is determined to be a raw and edgy read, and that kind of edge is what makes the book still highly readable so many years on. The 87th Precinct stories would continue throughout McBain's long career, all set in the same district of this imagined city.

It's been a really refreshing read - McBain's approach influencing later police dramas like "Hill Street Blues" whilst at the same time taking inspiration from "Dragnet" but taking things in his own gritty direction. I'm sure I'll look to reading some more after finally getting round to this "debut" episode.