Amazon.com
Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, and Fat Ollie Weeks having been working the 87th Precinct for more than 40 years, but they're still the top dicks in town for devotees of Ed McBain's absorbing police procedurals.
When a pretty, red-haired, ex-military pilot is killed, the boys in blue blunder around for a few chapters before they unmask her secret life as a drug courier. By then the burglar who broke into Cass Ridley's apartment and stole the "tip" she got for her last run has already tried to spend one of the $100 bills from her stash, attracting the attention of the Secret Service. The "superbill" is phony, and by the time Carella and his crew uncover the international counterfeit ring behind it, McBain has notched up the action with a terrorist plot to bomb Clarendon (read Carnegie) Hall, where an eminent Israeli violinist is performing. There's also a conspiracy involving a publishing company whose sales reps are so venal and violent you might think they were the creation of a writer who blamed them when his last book failed to sell. Not so McBain, who can't have too many complaints in that department. His publisher's reps have been living well for decades on the commissions earned on McBain's books (including those of Evan Hunter, his alter ego).
That he has kept this series going for so long without tricking up the plots, turning his characters into stereotypes, or sacrificing their humanity is a tribute to his authorial gifts: expert pacing, sharp-edged dialogue, authenticity, wit, and confidence. There's only thing getting old in this, his 51st book in an evergreen series: the fictional convention that locates the 87th in a place called Isola instead of midtown Manhattan, where it so clearly is set. --Jane Adams
Book Description
It is Christmas in the city, but it isn't the giving season. A retired Gulf War pilot, a careless second-story man, a pair of angry Mexicans, and an equally shady pair of Secret Service agents are in town after a large stash of money, and no one is interested in sharing.
The detectives at the 87th are already busy for the holidays. Steve Carella and Fat Ollie Weeks catch the squeal when the lions in the city zoo get an unauthorized feeding of a young woman's body. And then there's a trash can stuffed with a book salesman carrying a P-38 Walther and a wad of big bills.
The bad bills and the dead book salesman lead to the offices of a respected publisher, Wadsworth and Dodds. This is good news for Fat Ollie, because he's working on a police novel -- one written by a real cop -- and he's sure it's going to be a bestseller.
Download Description
It is Christmas in the city, but it isn't the giving season. A retired Gulf War pilot, a careless second-story man, a pair of angry Mexicans, and an equally shady pair of Secret Service agents are in town chasing down a large stash of money, and no one is interested in sharing.
The detectives at the 87th are already busy for the holidays. Steve Carella and Fat Ollie Weeks catch the squeal when the lions in the city zoo get an unauthorized feeding of a young woman's body. And then there's a trash can stuffed with a book salesman carrying a P-38 Walther and a wad of big bills.
The bad bills and the dead book salesman lead to the offices of a respected publisher, Wadsworth and Dodds. This is good news for Fat Ollie, because he's working on a police novel -- one written by a real cop -- and he's sure it's going to be a bestseller.
Customer Reviews:
Why couldn't McBain live forever?.......2005-10-24
The first Ed McBain novel I read was the last he ever wrote. Fortunately for me there are more than 50 87th Precinct novels for me to work through: this is my third or fourth.
McBain seems to have written to a formula, but he executed that formula brilliantly. Several stories going on at once. Each of the characters is sharply defined, but a few get extra detail, like Detective Steve Cardella. Cardella has a deaf (yeah, I know: politically incorrect) wife, twins who grow up fast, a sister (in this one) about to be engaged to the prosecutor who let her (and Steve's) father get away with murder, an aging mom who falls in love. Some of the other characters we know nothing about, but like a good movie, McBain keeps them all moving.
This story is about a dashing young woman who winds up naked in an enclosure filled with hungry lions; a lot of dope dealers; a book salesman who winds up very dead in a garbage can; a burglar out for the big score and a few terrorists.
No sense in giving away the whole book: just go read it and have a nice, time courtesy of the late and lamented Ed McBain. It will be a while before we see his likes again.
Jerry
A intricate 57th Precinct marred by Fat Ollie and Carella!.......2004-06-04
A nice solid procedural about counterfeiting is constantly interrupted by silliness. Escaped lions at the zoo, Carella's anger and whining (so out of character) about his mother and sister's choice of beaus, and of course, any story featuring Ollie Weeks is guaranteed to be filled with its share of stupidity. McBain's books are always worth a read, as they are well-constructed, with rock solid plots and a storylines that are always filled with enough complexity to be satisfying, but this is a fairly weak entry.
Really, very entertaining........2004-05-25
This was my first McBain book and I loved it. As an old-time fan of Joseph Wambaugh, I found much entertainment in the character, Fat Ollie. He was animated, but real. I find myself chuckling as I think about him, even while I write this review. The plot was interesting, although the Al-Qaida connection is very spooky (released before 9/11).
I am headed out to get another McBain book as soon as I'm done with this review (Fat Ollie's Book)
Money Makes The Eight-Seven Go Round.......2004-04-28
Ed McBain's 51st entry in the 87th Precinct series shows the author in fine fettle, robust even. It's an enjoyable, somewhat unusual novel, a good page-turner as McBains nearly always are. If it's less than his best, it's not from lack of trying.
Someone is moving funny money through the streets of Isola. A woman gets fed to the lions. A guy turns up dead in a garbage can. A peaceful burglar gets an odd visit from a Secret Service agent. A group of terrorists from the Middle East plot an explosion at a city landmark. Just another day at the office for the 87th Precinct.
There's a lot to chew on here, and like the poor woman in the lions' cage, it ends up getting scattered in many directions. Focus is usually one of McBain's strengths, but after a promising start, it kind of gets lost. Perhaps it is because he wanted to tell a story that had little to do with the 87th Precinct, a story about counterfeiters and spies and terrorists. The novel begins rather oddly on a dirt runway in the American Southwest, and the 87th Precinct detectives don't even show up until the book is well underway. They take a back seat for much of the ensuing narrative, while McBain focuses his attentions on one of his more interesting villains, a nasty coked-out drug dealer named Wiggy The Lid, and a white-shoe publishing house where all is not as it seems.
Even this gets tangled up, however. I'm not sure I understand what happened in the novel, why this person did that, but as best I can tell, the pieces don't all connect in the end the way these books usually do. The resolution feels muddy. There's some noises made about government conspiracies, which frankly reeks of Oliver Stone paranoia but grabs you all the same, then it's just dropped without further mention. "Money, Money, Money" feels like an experiment, at times a worthy one, but as a novel it's more than a den of lions can chew on.
The introduction of a terrorist subplot is notable. The copyright of "Money, Money, Money" is 2001, and I suspected McBain threw the subplot in because of a wish to acknowledge 9/11. Yet "Money, Money, Money" hit the bookstores earlier that summer, which renders his take on a group of al-Qaeda operatives plotting to detonate a bomb in a concert hall rather eerie. "We are teaching them we can strike anywhere, anytime," the terrorist leader explains. "We are telling them they are completely vulnerable."
More eerie is the fact this subplot has no apparent purpose in the novel. It doesn't connect with the other plot threads, except that it seems this particular al-Qaeda group has the benefit of counterfeit cash in funding their deadly work. McBain just throws the terrorist plot in there, it seems, because he sensed it was something important that needed to be dealt with. He was right, of course.
But "Money, Money, Money" is not a better book for this Nostradamian turn. It's certainly interesting, vibrant, readable, at times funny, with Fat Ollie Weeks, the miserably uncouth and bigoted cop, getting more center-stage attention than usual. Reading "87th Precinct" novels is always worthwhile, and this is no exception. But this is no standout, either, however elevated its ambitions.
The master strikes again.......2004-03-10
Ed McBain is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America. His body of work truly makes him a living legend. Whether writing under the name Ed McBain or his alterego Evan Hunter, his name on a book assures it of a certain style and the highest degree of quality writing. His most famous creation has to be the cops in the 87th precinct. Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, Meyer Meyer have been with us for over forty five years. They have aged very slowly over the decades. Yet the all the cases remain immediate to this day. As a body of work, the fifty previous books have been a bit uneven. Some were merely good and some are true masterpieces (such as Nocturne). MONEY, MONEY, MONEY represents the fifty first volume of this classic series. It is not the very best one but still is far better than the vast majority of books written last year.
Cassandra Jean Ridley, ex- Gulf War pilot, is trying to make a quick buck. She has agreed to fly drugs out of Mexico under radar for a cool quarter of a million dollars. The work, though not without risk, appears quite easy. In fact, life is great until Cass is robbed by a burgler who makes off with two of her fur coats and some cash she was given. This eventually leads to a run in by the burgler with the treasury department questioning whether the cash is counterfeit. All roads lead back to Cass.
Carella and Fat Ollie Weeks investigate the death of a woman mauled and eaten by the lions in the local zoo. Her death appears drug related and after finding the body of a bookseller in Diamondback, the "almost exclusively black section of the city" their investigation takes them to the doors of Wadsworth and Dodds , a book publishing company that sells books that nobody wants to read.
One of the major strengths of Ed McBain's writing style is his propensity for creating unforgettable characters. He does so through dialogue and descriptions. For example, Steve Carella is always described as having "eyes that slant downward giving him a sort Chinese appearance, though he certainly wasn't Oriental". Meyer is bald and Cotton has a white stripe through his red hair where he suffered a knife injury many years ago. The dialogue is extremely realistic and powerful. The story is quite fast paced which is another McBain trademark vs. the more languid introspective writing of Evan Hunter. In this volume, however, I think McBain may have been attempting to do a bit too much as another plot gets intertwined into the primary investigation. This leads to some improbable coincidences. Nonetheless, nobody writes as good as McBain even when he is not quite at his best.
Book Description
What causes an earthquake? When will another big shock shake Tokyo or Los Angeles? Can people create deserts? How are the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect interlinked? Is global warming a force of nature—or of man? This compelling and informative book, illustrated with marvelous photographs and specially commissioned artwork, explains the latest scientific insights into these questions. Each force of nature is separately fitted into the jigsaw puzzle of global environmental change. The revised edition of this widely praised book draws on the dramatic evidence of recent years to evaluate the state of the planet—and man's effect on it—in the new century. 275 illustrations, 135 in color.
Average customer rating:
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Read About Hurricanes (Read About)
Sally Morgan
Manufacturer: Copper Beech
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
 Earthquakes & Volcanoes | Nature | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Hurricanes | Atmospheric Sciences | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0761311742 |
Average customer rating:
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Earthquake Weather: Poems (Sun Tracks)
Janice Gould
Manufacturer: University of Arizona Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General | Native American | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
20th Century | Poetry | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Poetry | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
United States | Single Authors | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
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Star Quilt
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Original Fire : Selected and New Poems
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Riding the Earthboy 40
ASIN: 0816516103 |
Book Description
Witness the amazing power of hurricanes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters with this all-new addition to the Eyewitness series.
Book Description
Earthquakes, volcanoes, fires and floods -- discover the awesome power of nature unleashed! These 48-page books about fascinating subjects like pirates, mummies, and volcanoes are for proficient readers who can understand a rich vocabulary and challenging sentence structure. In addition to the stunning photographs, informative sidebars, and glossary, readers will find archival photographs and paintings. Averaging 4,500 to 5,000 words in length, Level 4 books are 40 percent pictures and 40 percent text. The Dorling Kindersley Readers combine an enticing visual layout with high-interest, easy-to-read stories to captivate and delight young bookworms who are just getting started. Written by leading children's authors and compiled in consultation with literacy experts, these engaging books build reader confidence along with a lifelong appreciation for nonfiction, classic stories, and biographies. There is a DK Reader to interest every child at every level, from preschool to grade 4.
Customer Reviews:
Volcanoes and Other Natural Disasters.......2003-10-24
Quentin Volcanos & other Natural Disasters
This book is called Volcanoes & Other Natural Disasters. This is an excellent book. It tells us about terrible events like,bushfires,and volcanoes.
There's volcanoes in Pompeii,Italy and Martinique,Caribbean. There's floods in the Yellow River of China. Earthquaks in San Francisco,California, and Libson,Portugal. Hurricanes in Long Island,New York. Avalanches in Yungay,Peru. Last,bushfires in Southern Australia.
They are all very dangerous events. They either kill,injure,or leave millions of people homeless. It tells us how to prevent them. Did you know that,children in Japan and California sleep flashlights next to their beds to save them in case of an earthquake?
This is an excellent book. I hope you read this book. If you want to be a weather reporter or a scientist,read this non-fiction book.
Eyewitness Readers Volcanoes and other Natural Disasters.......2000-10-06
This reader is jam-packed with disaster stories and the science and geography that caused the event. My children love real stories above those that are made up. More school subjects are covered and History has become a bit more interesting. What more can I say but WOW!
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Our Changing Planet: How Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Weather Shape Our Planet (Scholastic Voyages of Discovery. Natural History, 17)
Scholastic Books
Manufacturer: Scholastic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Astronomy & Space | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books | Aeronautics & Space | Astronomy | Fiction
Nonfiction | Environment & Ecology | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Science & Technology | Teens | Subjects | Books
Ecology | Science & Technology | Teens | Subjects | Books
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Paint and Painting: The Colors, the Techniques, the Surfaces : A History of Artists' Tools (Scholastic Voyages of Discovery : Visual Arts)
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The Art of Sculpture: Visual Arts (Voyages of Discovery No 7)
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Musical Instruments: From Flutes Carved of Bone, to Lutes, to Modern Electric Guitars (Scholastic Voyages of Discovery : Music and Performing Arts)
ASIN: 0590476513 |
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Natural Disasters: Atlas in the Round (Atlas Around the World)
Clare Oliver
Manufacturer: Running Press Book Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Earthquakes & Volcanoes | Nature | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Social Services & Welfare | Poverty | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Geography | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 076241037X |
Book Description
Firey volcanoes, furious floods, earthquakes, blizzards, twisters, meteor-impacts, and more! From the depths of the earth to threats from space, this book explores the natural world and all its deadly forces. Complete with historical records, recent events, scientific explanations, and inspiring survival stories this book is your complete source on the incredible powers of nature.
Book Description
Why are twisters so dangerous? What makes floods happen in a flash? What was the Dust Bowl? How big can waves get? Find out the answers to these and many more questions about volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and extreme weather. A wealth of information is backed up with stunning, high-quality artwork, fun facts, and lively cartoons. The best-selling I Wonder Why series has always been the perfect place for children to find the answers to their questions. With their quirky style and informative text, these books are great for gripping the imagination and developing reading skills.
Amazon.com
The Fisher King of the American West, Scott Crane, has been killed, and 14-year-old Koot Hoomie Parganas's perpetually bleeding wound makes him the most likely candidate for a supernatural successor. But the king's body has not yet begun to decay, and as long as there is a chance that he can be restored to the throne, his right-hand man, Archimedes Mavranos, is willing to risk all to revive Crane. But to do that he'll need the help of the woman who killed Crane, plus that of a recently widowed winemaker who has been touched by the god Dionysus, and the cooperation of Parganas's reluctant foster parents. Chances are they'll all die in the process, but unless Crane can be revived they'll probably all die anyway.
Book Description
A young woman possessed by a ghost has slain the Fisher King of the West, Scott Crane. Now, temporarily freed from that malevolent spirit, she seeks to restore the King to life.But Crane's body has been taken to the magically protected home of Pete and Angelica Sullivan, and their adopted son, Koot Hoomie. Kootie is destined to be the next Fisher king, but he is only thirteen years old--too young, his mother thinks, to perform the rituals to assume the Kingship. But not too young, perhaps, to assist in reuniting Scott Crane's body and spirit, and restoring him to life.
Customer Reviews:
Super Reader.......2007-08-31
I definitely didn't know when I read this that there were other related books, I just picked it up as the title looked interesting. It didn't leave me too hopelessly lost or anything, as the main plot thrust was having to replace a dead guy as the Fisher King.
The new one is a kid everyone is looking for, complete with supernatural type weirdness around.
An unworthy sequel to Last Call.......2006-02-15
This novel sucks. That's all I'm going to write about it.
This is NOT for the beginner.......2005-08-08
I'll say this now, if you're sitting here shopping for new books and you've heard a little bit about this Tim Powers guy and you want to give him a shot because everyone says he's really good (and he is) and this is the book that you want to use as an introduction to him . . . you're doomed. There's just no good way to put it. For the newcomer, unless they're really good at reading between the lines, this book is going to come across as impenetrable. Not that it isn't good, but new readers are going to feel like they've missed something. Powers doesn't do many sequels to his books, most of his stuff is standalone, but this time he decided to merge some threads from other novels. In the novel prior to this Expiration Date, he introduced some urban fantasy stuff about ghost swallowing and the general rules about haunts and so on, as well as introducing Koot Hoomie and his adopted parents, Pete Sullivan and Angelica. Meanwhile in the now classic (and written some time ago) Last Call, Powers told the story of Scott Crane and how he became the Fisher King, the ruler of the West Coast (and so on and so forth). So this novel is basically a sequel to both those novels as Powers rams the two plotlines together. What happens is that Scott Crane is murdered by a woman apparently possessed by ghosts and Kootie is tapped to be the next king. However he's too young and not really prepared for it and so one of the Crane's loyalists, Arky, comes up with a plan to restore him to life. Confused yet? What follows then is a narrative that seems both ponderous and breakneck as new characters start to mingle with old, with two new catalysts for the plot, Janis Plumtree (the murderer) and Sid Cochran, who just lost his wife and has some history with the god Dionysus. Plumtree is supposed to be possessed but is mostly just someone with Multiple Personality Disorder, constantly switching from one to the other (in a way that reminded me of Crazy Jane from Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run, except that Plumtree's don't have superpowers). The two of them meet in a mental hospital, but escape due to a convenient earthquake and from there hook up with the rest of the cast. It's hard to review this book without describing most of the setup of the plot because if I don't I feel like I'm losing context but at the same time there just seems to be no way around it. Powers' streamlining of the two earlier books is neat and fairly seamless but all the fancy stuff just seems to come at the expense of his normally complex plotting and we're left with something turgid, with the characters lurching from one scene to another. As long as you keep a handle on the main plot, you're all right but once sideplots start getting dragged in things start getting confusing since it's hard to say how relevant they are. Plus, a lot of the plot seems to consist of "plot coupons" where the characters have to gather special objects that will help them for no other reason than the plot requires it. Some of this confusion might be because I haven't read Last Call in years (or Expiration Date, though that was sooner), so that the stuff with the god Dionysus isn't too clear and I really wasn't clear what significance Armentrout had to the plot, except he was somebody to chase the other characters around (and that mannequin thing was weird), and I really don't know who half the other nameless people who were chasing the cast around were, either. Basically this is a book where you just have to "go with it" and hope that it will all make sense by the end and Powers is enough of a professional to keep things moving adequately so that you don't spend too much time worrying about the stuff that just doesn't seem to work. But while his other books felt tighly constructed and taut, this one has a more rambling feel to it and suffers a little bit for it. Not that there aren't bright spots, the relationship between Cochran and Plumtree (and her several personalities) is cute, the constant barrage of nifty ideas about ghosts is always fun, and I like how Powers does urban fantasy effortlessly, so that you could believe all this magic stuff is going on right alongside the "real world". The down side to all of this is that instead of getting a dazzling book (which is what we're used to) we get something that's merely "good". And as an introduction to the world of Tim Powers, it's terrible, but as a nice continuation of the lives of characters we've already met, it does that well and for longtime readers it might be worth it just for that.
good - but I expected more...........2003-04-12
I loved his previous two books -- Last Call and Expiration Date -- but found Earthquake Weather, where the ghost gobbling and Fisher King storylines have been merged, heavy going at times. Set in the American West, this book still manages some classic Powers moments and should still be read if you're a fan.
Ensure you read Last Call and Expiration Date first - both are highly recommended. If you don't really enjoy them, you'll probably want to give this one a skip.
Maybe I should have been drunk to read this.......2001-12-04
If you haven't read the first 2 novels in the series, don't even begin to attempt this one.
"Last Call" and "Expiration Date" were all time classic novels, but this sequel was too complicated (even by Powers' standards) and slow moving for my liking.
However, the story does have its moments, and wading through the book will have some rewards for fans of his previous novels.
Books:
- More Annotated Alice: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
- More Than Sex: Reinventing The Black Male Image: Reinventing the Black Male Image
- Mulligan Stew (Irish Eyes Romance)
- Obstruction of Justice
- On a Night Like This
- Perfect Timing (Dafina)
- Peripheral Reaches
- Plantation: A Lowcountry Tale
- Pocho
- Pronto
Books Index
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The Frumious Bandersnatch: A Novel of the 87th Precinct (87th Precinct Mysteries)
Fat Ollie's Book: A Novel of the 87th Precinct (Paperback)
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Hark! : A Novel of the 87th Precinct (Mcbain, ed)
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