“He told himself there couldn’t be anything like ghosts - but he had already seen five of them.” Poor Carella!

Did a ghost kill a man who wrote a bestselling book about ghosts? That’s the case the detectives of the 87th have to deal with, four days before Christmas and Chanukah no less! It's a really cool read, and I think the first book in this series to cross into the supernatural! And I liked it! I wonder if there will be any more like this before the series ends. Mc Bain definitely made it work in this one!

“Carella, not being psychic, didn’t know that everybody in the world had threesomes in mind this holiday season.” ( )

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When you’re up to book 34 in a series, I guess as a writer you’re allowed to play with the formula a bit. That’s something Ed McBain does a few times in the 87th Precinct series, normally to good effect. Book 33, ‘Calypso’, wove a gothic horror story into the normal police procedural format and it worked. ‘Ghosts’ tries to do the same thing with a supernatural tale and, for me at least, comes up short.
The book opens with detectives Steve Carella and Cotton Hawes arriving at the scene of a double murder. The victims are a successful author and one of his neighbours. The writer’s most recent work was an ‘Amityville Horror’ style non-fiction account of a haunting and his (now bereaved) girlfriend claims to have psychic powers. She also looks uncannily like Carella’s wife, Teddy, a fact that allows McBain to muse on infidelity, as he often seems to. It goes without saying that Carella doesn’t succumb to temptation.
The book has a lot of the things that make the 87th books so great - crackling dialogue, a strong mystery, brilliant incidental detail and convincing police work. ‘Ghosts’ is set at Christmas, which allows McBain to throw in some fun scenes about the negotiation within the department on who has to work the 25th. There are also a number of domestic scenes featuring Carella and family, they slow the pace a bit, but they’re so sweet it’s hard to dislike them.
It’s the supernatural elements that drag the book down, they feel uncomfortably shoehorned in and I couldn’t help feeling that had McBain just left them out the book would have been stronger. They make ‘Ghosts’ an interesting experiment, but not a successful one. There’s still a lot to enjoy here, but it’s definitely not one of my favourite 87th Precinct books. ( )

A pop writer is found stabbed to death with nineteen separate wounds, in his locked apartment, and a women is stabbed in front of his apartment building from a single thrust. Are the deaths related? Detectives Steve Carella and Cotton Hawes are drawn into unraveling the mystery, including the apparent robbery of the writer's girlfriend's jewelry. The girlfriend (and her twin sister) look just like Carella's deaf-mute wife, and seem to crave his attention. Meanwhile, it is snowing both in Isola and up in the remote Massachusetts town where the writer's ex-wife drowned. The ghost stuff seemed a little forced to me or I would have rated this a 4. ( )

This is McBain's British mystery moment, with famous authors, psychics, and as the title suggests...you know whats. It's fun, and in a departure for this series, almost totally focused on Detective Carella--more a Carella novel than an 87th Precinct play. Good plotting as usual, with a satisfying wind-up. ( )

My first introduction to both the author and the 87th precinct series. I usually like to start a series on the first book but liked the sound of this so thought I would give it a try.

A woman is found stabbed to death on an icy pavement, whilst inside the adjacent apartment a prominent writer has also been killed. It appears the woman may have been an innocent bystander who had to be killed to protect the killers identity. Steve Carella is assigned the case and soon meets the deceased writers partner, who just happens to be a medium and bares a more that fleeting resemblance to the detectives wife. She begins to have various supernatural predictions that seemingly start to come true. Can he solve the case?

A really well written mystery with a touch of of the ghostly side thrown in for good measure. I have read that this was a bit of detour for the author and not something you would usually find in his books. A book of its time (early 80's) you will enjoy getting lost in the world of the 87th precinct. I enjoyed this so much I went out and bought a few more so I could start at the beginning. ( )