FFB: KILLER’S WEDGE (1959) by Ed McBain

The Killer's Wedge is McBain riffing on the locked room mystery in several ways.... and commenting on them in a way that we would call Meta these days. The two plot lines involve a dead man in a locked room who looks to have killed himself and a group of 87th Precinct Bulls trapped in a squad room while a woman waits to kill Det. Steve Carella with a .38 Special and a jar of Soup (nitro). The action takes place over the course of 1 day, mostly the afternoon, and it tense and driving.  


Carella wrestles with the suicide squeal, the rest of the squad wrestle with how to escape the trap they have been placed in.  It's a fast, punchy read that shows what a limited story in a small setting can be and still keep the larger story of the 87th Precinct moving along. McBain knew how to keep the pages turning and his readers waiting for the next installment. As with earlier installments in the series the book a product of the market of the time, 160 pages of sparse proses telling two simple stories and at the same time fleshing out the world of the 87th Precinct... well worth checking out, and I hear tell that Amazon is going to start reprinting the series in the near future for anyone that wants to check it out.


another look at the book can be found HERE. Patti Abbott advises that this weeks links are going to be collected by  Brian Lindenmuth at SPINETINGLER