It's not a mystery, it's a story of survival and triumph. That's what some people say about Romance, a would-be hit play about an actress pursued by a knife-wielding stalker. But isn't it romantic! Before the show can open, the leading lady is really attacked, outside the theater. And before the detectives of the 87th can solve that crime, the same actress is stabbed again. This time for keeps. A.D.A. Nellie Brand moves in for a murder conviction, but Detective Steve Carella is sure she's got the wrong guy, and wrestles for the case with Fat Ollie Weeks, Isola's foulest cop. While Bert Kling interviews witnesses and suspects ranging from the show's producers to the author — who has written novels about cops and knows how it's done — to the lead's lovely understudy, he can't keep his mind off what's happening to him. He's falling in love. With a doctor. Who happens to be a deputy chief surgeon. Who happens to be a black woman. In the city of Isola, nothing is black and white. In the play Romance, no one is guilty or innocent. And in the gritty reality of the 87th Precinct, everyone is in love with something — even if it's only murder.

Detective Steve Carella of the 87th precinct had a pretty complete description of the man he was looking for:

The man was tall, blond, handsome — a powerhouse of strength and sex. Women gave him whatever he wanted.

And he made some strange requests.

After seducing a woman, he would ask her to have a small heart tattooed on her hand, to show the world that she belonged to him.

When the woman had been thus branded as his property — he murdered her.

This mugger is special.

He preys on women, waiting in the darkness… then comes from behind, attacks them, and snatches their purses. He tells them not to scream and as they're on the ground, reeling with pain and fear, he bows and nonchalantly says, “Clifford thanks you, madam.” But when he puts one victim in the hospital and the next in the morgue, the detectives of the 87th Precinct are not amused and will stop at nothing to bring him to justice.

Dashing young patrolman Bert Kling is always there to help a friend. And when a friend's sister-in-law is the mugger's murder victim, Bert's personal reasons to find the maniacal killer soon become a burning obsession… and it could easily get him killed.

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. A gritty, relentless pressure cooker of a thriller, is one of bestselling author Ed McBain’s finest, the ultimate addition to the 87th Precinct series where time threatens to stand still and murder rules the day.

Eighty-six-year-old George Lasser was the superintendent of a building in the 87th Precinct until just recently. Unfortunately his tenure ended in the building’s basement with a sharp, heavy blade of an ax in his head… There are no witnesses, no suspects, and no clues. The wife and son? They’re both a little off-kilter, but they have alibis. Just when Carella and Hawes are about to put the case on the shelf, the killer strikes again. Now the detectives are hot on the trail of a man crazy enough to murder with an ax. One of the 87th Precinct series’ finest installments, is a sharp, intense crime thriller that is classic Ed McBain. hails it as “the best of today’s police stories—lively, inventive, convincing, suspenseful, and wholly satisfactory.

Stan Gifford is the ultimate comedian. A pro through and through, when Stan’s act dies, so does he—in front of forty million viewers from coast to coast, including the 87th Precinct’s Steve Carella. But what seemed to be death by natural causes quickly turns into a case of murder, and Carella must unravel the motivations behind the comedian’s final act. Meanwhile, Cindy Forrest has been working to put herself through college since the sniper who held the city hostage three years ago murdered her father. But now she’s in the crosshairs, and the only thing standing between her and a killer is Detective Bert Kling of the 87th Precinct.

It’s Christmastime and Detective Carella gets assigned three murders — including a bestselling author of ghost stories — and is soon after ghosts, mediums, and a crazed killer.

Here are excerpts from more than 30 years of Grand Master Ed McBain's bestselling 87th Precinct series of police procedurals, featuring some of his most lovable female characters.

Savvy, sexy, and very bad, these are the ladies that plague the 87th precinct. Pregnant hookers, brunettes with bombs, and the fat lady lead the hit parade of femme fatales.

She was a living doll — until she was slashed to death. Detective Steve Carella wants Bert Kling on the case, even though Kling is making enemies of everyone. Then finally even Carella has had it with Kling, and suddenly the detective is missing and suspected dead. The men from the 87th Precinct go full tilt to find the truth. But they really need to find is a little doll — the little doll with all the answers.

Jimmy Harris lost his eyesight in Vietnam. But it was on a cold city street that he lost his life. Somebody chloroformed his guide dog and slit Harris's throat. Detectives Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer of the 87th Precinct shook their heads at the blood and waste of it all, then took the groggy dog back to headquarters, where it told them all it could — nothing.

Jimmy’s blind wife didn't tell Carella much more. And by the next morning, she wasn’t talking at all. She was dead. The only clue Carella could find to the double murder was a nightmare Jimmy had told an Army shrink ten years before... and the detective was too blind to see how a bad dream of sex and violence was the key to the dark places in a killer’s mind.

A killer is out for blood, and it’s up to Detective Steve Carella to bring him in ― but a shocking surprise awaits when a survivor fingers the suspect in a lineup.

They were dead, the husband and wife. Both were shot in the face at close range with a shotgun. The husband, in fact, still had his finger on the trigger, the barrel pointing toward what used to be a significant portion of his head. It was clearly a suicide — or did it just look that way? For Detectives Steve Carella and Bert Kling, what seems to be the truth on the surface often reveals something far different underneath.

A killer is murdering married women and their husbands. But setting up shop in the 87th Precinct was the wrong move. Carella and Kling don’t buy the suicide theory, and soon enough they are on the killer’s trail. The only trouble is the murderous crime wave ripping through the city has gathered momentum.

Here is an irresistibly charming tale, beautifully packaged in a small, illustrated and slipcased gift book. All’s quiet at the 87th Precinct on Christmas Eve... until Steve Carella’s fellow detectives appear with a kid who’s stolen a sheep, a robber with a bagful of gold, two guys fighting over a sack of frankincense, and a young couple who give birth to a baby boy at midnight!

“And All Through the House” was first published in Playboy in December, 1984.

Patrolman Richard Genero couldn’t see clearly the driving rain. The man — or perhaps the tall woman — standing at the bus stop was dressed entirely in black. Black raincoat, black slacks, black shoes, black umbrella which hid the head and hair. A bus pulled to the curb, spreading a canopy of water. The door snapped open. The person — man or woman — boarded the bus and the rain-streaked doors closed, hiding the black-shrouded figure from view. The bus pulled away from the curb, spreading another canopy of water which soaked Genero’s trouser legs.

“Hey!” he yelled after the bus. “You forgot your bag!”

Genera picked up the bag — a small, blue overnight bag issued by an airline. He unzipped the bag and reached into it. Then he gripped the bus-stop sign for support.

The bag held... a severed human hand.

The police lab gave both bag and hand a thorough examination and discovered next to nothing. Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, Meyer Meyer and the other 87th Precinct detectives had a murderer to find, and they had to begin without even knowing who the victim was.

The Missing Persons Bureau files supplied two leads, both of which led nowhere.

Everything that looked even faintly like a clue was checked and double-checked and they all led to the same place — a dead end.

Then, when the break finally came and several clues turned up at once, they neatly contradicted each other. It was the toughest case the 87th Precinct detectives had ever faced.