Book info

• Title The Pusher
• Author Ed McBain
• Year 1956
• Genre Mystery

A bitterly cold night offers up a body turned blue—not frozen, but swinging from a rope in a dank basement. The dead teen seems like a clear case of suicide, but Detective Steve Carella and Lieutenant Peter Byrnes find a few facts out of place, and an autopsy confirms their suspicions. The boy hadn’t hung himself but OD’d on heroin before an unknown companion strung him up to hide the true cause of death. The revelation dredges up enough muck to muddy the waters of what should’ve been an open-and-shut case. To find the answers to a life gone off the rails, Carella and Byrnes face a deep slog into the community of users and pushers—but a grim phone calls discloses that very community already has its claws in a cop’s son. A new pusher is staking a claim right under the 87th Precinct’s noses, and it’s up to Carella and Byrnes to snag the viper before it poisons their whole lives.

Thoughts

The third book in the 87th Precinct series and what an intriguing one. The cast of characters expands again, and we focus in on a death that looks like it should be a suicide but probably isn’t. Drugs are behind it, and the detectives are tasked with chasing down whoever is supplying and causing all the problems.

I really find these books easy to read and enjoyable to whip through. They’re short and to the point, occasionally a little sexist, but that’s somewhat down to the time they were written. As with the previous two, the city itself becomes a character, living and breathing, bringing joy and terror in equal measure.

I enjoyed it, even the tense ending, and then particularly liked the author’s note at the end. I hate reading an introduction that spoils everything that comes after, but reading notes at the end of a book are so much more interesting. Very well done.

Rating: 4 / 5