The reason I write police procedurals goes back many moons to my introduction to the genre. At the time, I didn’t have a burning desire to write them, just enjoyed the hell out of reading the stories featuring cops who always got the bad guys.
It started with Ed McBain.
A section of his bio reads that because of his many books and screenplays he inspired generations of writers, so it wasn’t just me. 🙂
As Evan Hunter, his real name, he wrote The Blackboard Jungle, which was a huge hit in print and on screen. At the time, few people, including me, didn’t know the two authors were really one. If you haven’t read or seen The Blackboard Jungle, I highly suggest you remedy that at some point soon. Right now it’s only $2.99 for Kindle. That story is amazing.
When I read Cop Hater, the first book in McBain’s 87th Precinct Series, I was hooked on the writing and the story that had an ensemble cast. I love the way he interwove the officers’ personal lives with the main plot of each book, so it was like episodic television in print. The crime(s) always take center stage, but McBain often connected an aspect of the investigation to something in a subplot that added another dimension to the characters and the stories. The series is based on the work of the police detective squad of the 87th Precinct in the central district of Isola, a large fictional city standing in for New York City.
All the characters in the stories are unique, and McBain had a deft way of presenting them all. Detective Steve Carella, a dedicated, honest police officer is a major character in the series, often at the center of the main mystery in the books. We meet him as a young newlywed with his deaf-mute wife Teddy, and watch his family grow as they raise three children.
In most of the books, Carella works alongside detectives Cotton Hawes, Hal Willis, Bert Kling, and Meyer Meyer who brings a dose of cynicism to the investigations. They’re all fully developed characters with strengths and weaknesses and their own little quirks, like Kling being a little too eager and zealous, and Meyer fielding jokes about his name. They’re also dedicated cops who don’t give up no matter the dangers they face.
Prior to starting this series, I’d been reading a lot of John D. McDonald’s Travis McGee books that debuted with The Deep Blue Goodbye, and right away I noticed a difference in style. McDonald wrote long passages of introspection interspersed with the action, and that was enjoyable as I connected with the McGee philosophy. McBain wrote at a faster pace, with bits of introspection dropped in to let the reader know about the other side of the character. Also enjoyable.
I’ve always had an interest in law-enforcement, so after reading so many of the 87th Precinct books, I decided to try my hand at writing a police procedural. Don’t ask me why that idea popped into my head. Prior to that I’d only written nonfiction and one small young adult novel that still languished on a floppy disk somewhere in my office at that time. So I proceeded to do research. A friend, Tim Husky, who was a DeSoto, TX detective, introduced me to officers he knew in Dallas who agreed to interviews, and I toured facilities with the DPD press liaison to see the places my characters would be so I could accurately show the department.
In addition to that research, I went back and reread some of the 87th Precinct stories as a primer on how to write unique characters and set a rhythm for the pacing.
The 87th Precinct series is one of the longest running crime series in literary history, spanning 55 titles and the years 1956 to 2005. While my Seasons Mystery Series may never reach the audience McBain’s books did, readers have enjoyed the various books that started with Open Season, introducing Dallas detectives Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson, unwilling and unlikely partners. Embroiled in a serial murder case, the detectives must come to terms with public and personal racial unrest as they track a serial killer who has his own race card to play. This title is permanently priced at only .99 for Kindle and is available for Kindle Unlimited.
The second in the series is Stalking Season where the detectives are pitted against a most sadistic and elusive killer. It garnered a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly: “. . . gripping second mystery featuring Dallas, Tex., police detectives Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson. . . . The relationship between the women is just as absorbing as the search for the killer. Few readers will anticipate the closing twist.”
For a limited time Stalking Season will be on sale for Kindle at .99, so if you haven’t met these tough Dallas detectives, now’s a good time to start the series.
*** Sale ends 12-08! ***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s all from me for today, folks. Hope you enjoyed getting to know a little about Ed McBain’s awesome books and the influence they had on me. Whatever the week ahead holds for you, I hope there is a bit of fun and relaxation as part of it. Be safe. Be happy.