Book info

• Title Ten Plus One
• Author Ed McBain
• Year 1963
• Genre Mystery

When Anthony Forrest walked out of the office building, the only thoughts on his mind were of an impending birthday and a meeting with his wife for dinner. And a deadly bullet saw to it that they were the last thoughts on his mind. The problem for Detectives Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer of the 87th Precinct is that Forrest isn’t alone. An anonymous sniper is unofficially holding the city hostage, frustrating the police as one by one the denizens of Isola drop like flies. With fear gripping the citizenry and the pressure on the 87th mounting, finding a killer whose victims are random is the greatest challenge the detectives have ever faced—and the deadliest game the city has ever known.

Thoughts

I’ve had to skip a few of the 87th Precinct series because the books aren’t available in a Kindle version, but that’s not too much of an issue as time moves slowly in these novels. All the main characters are there, but most are only referenced as this one revolves around Carella and Meyer dealing with a particularly tricky case.

When a sniper starts taking down random people, how do you find the connection between them? I really enjoyed how this story unwound, although the final conclusion seemed totally crazy and so sad. When he says: “It never occurred to me,” oof, that’s harsh.

This was perhaps missing some of the more personal pieces that have been interesting in other books, and the city certainly didn’t get as much character time as it normally does, but even so, I thought this was a great little story.

Rating: 4 / 5