About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

FAT OLLIE'S BOOK
by Ed McBain
Orion, December 2003
291 pages
5.99GBP
ISBN: 0752842765


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I have somehow navigated 20 years of reading crime novels without ever picking up an Ed McBain book. I'm pleased to say I have finally seen the error of my ways.

I'm told by those who are confirmed McBain fanatics, that the earlier 87th Precinct books are better. All I can say is that FAT OLLIE'S BOOK is a cracking read and that I am looking forward to some truly quality reading when I root out those earlier tales.

McBain's a consummate storyteller and should be read by anyone wanting to know how to structure a novel. He's slick, he's funny, but still brings you up short with sharp little jibes at casual racism. McBain manipulates multiple point-of-view very neatly -- there was just one moment in the whole book where I had to pause for a minute to work out who was speaking. And the dialogue fairly crackles on the page. McBain can do cops sniping and bitching at each other. He can do two lovers talking tenderly without seeming cheesy. And he does dry humour with the best of them.

The Fat Ollie of the title is Detective First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks. Politician Lester Henderson has been shot dead in a theatre and equal opportunities bigot Ollie is on the case. But he has more than murder on his mind. His life's work -- a detective novel -- has been snitched from his car by some low-life scum and Ollie wants it back. We're treated to extracts of Ollie's, um, epic as gormless thief and drug addict Emilio assumes he's found a genuine police report and can use it to his advantage to track down some hidden diamonds.

The plot is almost secondary to the wonderful raft of characters. Ollie stays just this side of slapstick and OTT. There's family man Steve Carella and his gorgeous deaf and dumb wife Teddy. And my favourite is the keen but faintly bemused rookie cop Patricia Gomez. I just have to read the next book to find out how Ollie -- not the kind of man you want to spend time with at the dinner table -- gets on when this unlikely pairing hook up for a date.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, January 2004

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]