Review: Til Death, by Ed McBain

The 9th book in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series may be the weakest link in the chain so far. The beginning is promising: Detective Steve Carella’s sister is getting married and on the morning of her wedding day, her groom is sent a box. Inside the box is a black widow spider. But it goes down from there – the threat is never quite threatening enough, and the villains not quite villainous enough. Though McBain is sufficiently liberal for the 1950s (he has likeable characters from various ethnic groups) the book slips over into Mickey Spillane territory in its depiction of women. And it becomes increasingly clear by this point that McBain hasn’t figured out a way for Carella’s wife Teddy, a deaf-mute, to communicate in any other way than very basic facial expressions. Some of this will change as the series progresses, but this book more than most of the other early ones, is very much of its time — unfortunately.