Fat Ollie's Book
A Novel of the 87th Precinct
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
This lively novel—the fifty-second in the award-winning 87th Precinct series—follows the exploits of Ed McBain's most beloved and foul-mouthed detective, Fat Ollie Weeks.
All at once, Fat Ollie Weeks had a truly brilliant idea...
But as any real writer could tell you, that's how inspiration strikes -- with the sudden force of a violent crime. Known more for his foul mouth and short temper than his way with words, Detective Weeks has written a novel. But just as Isola is rocked by the murder of a mayoral candidate, the only copy of Ollie's manuscript is stolen -- and an all-too-real adventure begins as a thief follows Ollie's fictional blueprint to find a $2 million cache of nonexistent diamonds. Now, the 87th Precinct races to bring poetic justice to a cold-blooded assassin -- and someone's about to add another chapter to the colorful career of Ollie Weeks, a cop who's never played by the book....
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Even when MWA Grand Master McBain (aka Evan Hunter) isn't in top form, he is very good and such is the case with this 87th Precinct novel, which really belongs to Det. Oliver Wendell Weeks of the 88th Precinct. Fat Ollie, of the gross appetite and the even grosser ignorance of political correctness, played a surprisingly heroic role in the last 87th Precinct novel, Money, Money, Money (2001). Now he claims star billing and repayment of a debt owed by Det. Steve Carella. Two major crimes occur at almost the same time: the shooting of Councilman (and possible mayoral candidate) Lester Henderson as he is getting ready for a rally and the theft of the just completed manuscript of Ollie's first novel, Report to the Commissioner. Ollie enlists Carella's help (Henderson lived in the 87th) and pursues both the murderer and the thief. McBain's broad humor is much in evidence as he pokes fun at detective novels and their readership through excerpts from Fat Ollie's ponderous book. On the other hand, Ollie's outrageous bigotry, like that of TV's Archie Bunker, never seems to hurt or offend anyone and palls over an entire novel. Still, McBain creates wonderfully strange characters, like the transvestite hooker who latches on to Ollie's book, and crimes that are somehow ingenious, stupid and utterly convincing. FYI:McBain is the only American to have received the British CWA's highest award, the Diamond Dagger.
