87th Precinct

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Created by Ed McBain
Pseudonym of of Evan Hunter
Né Salvatore Lombino
Other pseudonyms include Hunt Collins, Richard Marsten, Curt Cannon, Ezra Hannon, John Abbott, Dean Hudson, Ted Taine, S. A. Lombino, D. A. Addams
(1926-2005)

The boys of the 87th, from the 1961-62  television series.

Long before Barney Miller, long before Hill Street Blues, Homicide, and NYPD Blue, long before Law and Order This and Law and Order That and CSI Whatever and a million other “police procedurals” in various media flooded the world, there was Ed McBain’s 87th PRECINCT series of books and short stories, which featured a rotating cast of big city police detectives dealing with the various crimes that keep them busy.

Nope. Not a private eye series. Not at all.

But the influence of this series upon not just the Shamus Game, but the entire spectrum of crime fiction cannot be ignored or denied —and hence their inclusion here. The attention and detail to actual police work (as opposed to the laissez faire procedural fudging and convenient incompetence that filled up so much of the genre’s past) that most discerning readers now demand, can be laid at McBain’s feet. No longer can actual procedure or forensics be tossed off without a thought merely to advance a plot; tossed away like a used tissue.

McBain didn’t invent the police procedural, of course. Not by a long shot — he followed in the footsteps of folks like Georges Simenon, Lawrence Treat, Hilary Waugh, and radio’s Jack Webb, among others. But McBain set the gold standard.

The series kicked off in 1956 with Cop Hater, although at the time it wasn’t even supposed to be a series. It was just a one-off police procedural, McBain figured. But his editor disagreed, and had McBain rewrite the ending, so that the “hero,” Detective Steve Carella, didn’t die. McBain didn’t even think Carella was the hero.

So what did he know?

But the long-running series soon came to virtually define the genre. The books generally featured the ensemble cast of detectives in a big city police force, and multiple, often overlapping plot lines. Although the books vary in quality, on the whole this was a major series; a classic of American crime fiction that entertained, enlightened and influenced the genre for over five decades (and counting!).

The series has even been called “the greatest sustained literary exploration of New York City in American literature,” but, of course, the biggest joke is that throughout the entire series, New York City isn’t New York City at all. Instead we’re told that the action takes place in Isola. As the disclaimer in every book reads: “The city in these pages is imaginary; the people and places all fictitious. Only the police routine is based on established investigatory technique.”

Yeah, right.

Don’t believe ’em. Isola is 100 per cent New York City, all right, only it’s spun about ninety degrees, with only the names changed to protect the guilty. Isola is Manhattan, Calm’s Point is Brooklyn, Riverhead is the Bronx, Majesta is Queens and Bethtown is Staten Island.

The only reason McBain didn’t actually set the series in the Big Apple is that he didn’t want to get bogged down in the minutae of the NYPD’s ever-changing rules and procedures.

Besides Carella, the mostly recurring characters are Carella’s long-suffering (and occasionally endangered) deaf-mute wife Teddy; and:

  • Detective Meyer Meyer (slow-burning, sardonic, Jewish)
  • Detective Cotton Hawes (handsome, red-headed playa, and would-be ladies man)
  • Detective Roger Havilland (cruel)
  • Detective Andy Parker (a racist thug, and just a bad cop)
  • Detective “Fat Ollie” Weeks (another racist thug)
  • Detective Cotton Hawes
  • Detective Bert Kling (unlucky at love)
  • Detective Hal Willis
  • Detective Arthur Brown
  • Detective-Lieutenant Peter Byrnes (squad commander)
  • The Deaf Man (a master criminal,  and Carella’s nemesis, who appears in the novels The Heckler, Fuzz, Let’s Hear it for the Deaf Man, Eight Black Horses, Mischief, and Hark!

Cop Hater sold well, and before the year was over, two more titles, The Mugger and The Pusher were published, and that was just the beginning. By the time United Artists released the film adaptation of Cop Hater on October 1, 1958, eight novels had already been published. Always prolific, during roughly the same period, the author continued to write short stories focussing on crime, as well as approximately two dozen science fiction stories and four sci-fi novels as S. A. Lombino, Curt Cannon, Evan Hunter, Hunt Collins, Richard Marsten, D. A. Addams, and Ted Taine.

The film Cop Hater was so followed by The Mugger (1956) and The Pusher (1958). They were okay, but definitely B-films.  Meanwhile, the TV series 87th Precinct made its debut in 1961. It featured Robert Lansing as Det. Steve Carella and Gena Rowlands as Teddy. It also featured Norman Fell, Ron Harper and Gregory Walcott. Although well-received by critics (particularly Rowlands’ performance) it only lasted one season. At least two comic books were rushed out by Dell, rushing to cash in.

To their credit, the comics weren’t quickie recycled TV episodes; in fact, they were relatively “adult” for a “good” publisher like Dell. The first was drawn by Bernie Krigstein, who is so well known for his E.C. horror work, and is truly a bizarre visual excursion. The second deals in great detail with drugs, and may be drawn by one of the artists who also did the Michael Shayne books, another short-lived series which Dell decided to take a similar approach to.

Meanwhile, the film adaptations kept coming. It was the fourth adaptation of an 87th Precinct novel, 1959’s King’s Ransom, that really caused a buzz. Directed by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurasawa, Tengoku To Jigoku (known in English as “High and Low”) and starring Toshiro Mifune, this was no B-film, but a big budget tour-de-force, relocated to Tokyo. Arguably the most acclaimed of McBain adaptations, and one of Kurasawa’s best films, it served notice that not only could a great movie be made from the 87th Precinct, but that Isola itself had become transferable around the globe. In the years to come, Isola would become Montreal, Nice, Boston, Tokyo again, and — if you believe McBain’s claims — the unnamed city that television’s long-running Hill Street Blues was set in.

But beyond that, even with Isola still stateside, the books and stories (and various film and television adaptations) kept coming, regular as clockwork. And McBain played around, endlessly improvising like a jazz man, tinkering with the formula. He killed off characters, he brought in new ones, tackled social and cultural issues, delved into comedy (Fuzz), politics (Hail to the Chief), the supernatural (Ghosts). By the time the final entry in the series, Fiddlers,  came out in 2005, it was the 54th novel in the series; an astounding run that lasted almost fifty years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Most folks know Ed McBain is, of course, the pseudonym of Evan Hunter. But that’s also a pseudonym, it turns out. He was born Salvatore Lombino in 1926. Besides McBain, he has also written under the pseudonyms Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Richard Marsten, and John Abbott. Hunter’s first book, The Blackboard Jungle, (1954), became the basis for the 50’s film classic of the same name. As McBain, he also wrote a series featuring Florida attorney and P.I. wannabe Matthew Hope. In fact, Steve Carella and other members of the 87th play a pivotal part in the final Hope novel, The Last Best Hope. He’s created some memorable eyes, too, including Ben Smoke, Matt Cordell/Curt Cannon and Dudley Sledge. McBain has won numerous awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the CWA’s Diamond Dagger Award.

   

RUMOUR

  • McBain allegedly had a final 87th novel, Exit, in the can, to be published only after his death. The last one 87th Precinct novel published was Fiddlers, in 2005, the year of McBain’s death, and no other 87th Precinct novel has surfaced, so at this point it looks like it was only a rumor, or perhaps wishful thinking on the part of his millions of fans, much like John D. MacDonald‘s A Black Border for McGee.

NOVELS

SHORT STORIES AND NOVELLAS

  • “The Empty Hours” (1960, Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #1; also 1962, The Empty Hours)
  • “Storm” (1960; also The Empty Hours)
  • “Murder on Ice” (November 1961, Argosy)
  • “J” (1961, also The Empty Hours)
  • “Eighty Million Eyes” (May 1966, EQMM)
  • “Nightshade” (August 1970, EQMM)
  • “Sadie When She Died” (1972, also Criminal Elements)
  • “And All Through the House” (Playboy; also 1984, Mystery Guild promo item)
  • “Reruns” (January 11-17, 1987, TV Guide)
  • “Merely Hate” (2005, Transgressions)

COLLECTIONS

FILMS

  

  • COP HATER | Buy this DVD | Watch it now!
    (1958, Barbizon/United Artists)
    75 minutes
    Black & White
    Based on the novel by Ed McBain
    Screenplay by Henry Kane
    Directed by William Berke
    Produced by William A. Berke
    Associate producer: Lee Gordon
    Original music by Albert Glasser
    Actually set in Manhattan
    Starring Robert Loggia as DETECTIVE STEVE CARELLI
    Also starring Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Shirley Ballard, Russell Hardie, Hal Riddle, William Neff, Gene Miller, Vincent Gardenia, Jerry Orbach
    Loggia’s first appearance as “Carelli, with Jerry “Law and Order” Orbach making his debut as gang leader, “Mumzer.”
  • THE MUGGER | Buy this DVD | Watch it now!
    (1958, Barbizon/United Artists)
    74 minutes
    Black & White
    Based on the novel by Ed McBain
    Screenplay by Henry Kane
    Directed by William Berke
    Produced by William A. Berke
    Associate producer: Lee Gordon
    Original music by Albert Glasser
    Actually set in Manhattan
    Starring Kent Smith, Nan Martin, James Franciscus, Stefan Schnabel, Dick O’Neill, John Alexander, Arthur Storch, Bert Thorn, Albert Dannibal, Dolores Sutton, Beah Richards, George Maharis, Michael Conrad
  • THE PUSHER
    (1960, Milford/Carlyle Productions)
    Black & White
    Based on the 87th Precinct novel by Ed McBain
    Screenplay by Harold Robbins
    Directed by Gene Milford
    Produced by Sidney Katz, Gene Milford
    Starring Robert Lansing as CarelliKathy Carlyle, Felice Orlandi, Douglas Rodgers, Sloan Simpson, Sara Amman, Jim Boles, John Astin
  • TENGOKU TO JIGOKU | Buy this DVD | Buy the Blu-Ray | Watch it now!
    (English title: High and Low; aka “Heaven and Hell,” “The Ransom”)
    (1963)
    Based on the novel King’s Ransom by Ed McBain
    Written by Kira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijiro Hisaita & Ryūzō Kikushim
    Directed by Akira Kurasawa
    Set in Tokyo
    Starring Toshiro Mifune
    Mifune plays a wealthy business executive whose chauffeur’s son is kidnapped by a gang of criminals who mistake the boy for Mifune’s kid. Now he has to decide whether to pay the ransom for somebody else’s child, or use the dough to close a critical business deal. The most acclaimed of all McBain adaptations.
  • SANS MOBILE APPARENT | Buy this DVD 
    (aka “Senza movente,” “Without Apparent Motive”)
    (1972, Cinétel/Euro International Film/Président Films)
    100 minutes
    Based on the novel “Ten Plus One” by Ed McBain
    Screenplay by Philippe Labro, Jacques Lanzmann
    Directed by Philippe Labro
    Produced by Jacques-Eric Strauss
    Original Music by Ennio Morricone
    Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant as Stéphane Carella
    Also starring Dominique Sanda, Sacha Distel, Carla Gravina, Paul Crauchet, Laura Antonelli, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Stéphane Audran, Gilles Ségal, Pierre Dominique, Erich Segal, Jean-Jacques Delbo, André Falcon
    French/Italian co-production about an investigation into a string of murders comitted in Nice. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays the lead detective “Stéphane Carella.”
  • FUZZ | Buy this DVD  | Buy the Blu-Ray
    (1972, United Artists)
    92 minutes
    Screenplay by Evan Hunter
    Based on the novel by Ed McBain
    Directed by Richard A. Colla
    Produced by Jack Farren
    Starring Burt Reynolds, Jack Weston, Tom Skerritt, Yul Brynner, Raquel Welch, Peter Bonerz, Steve Ihnat, James McEachin, Bert Remsen
  • LES LIENS DU SANG | Buy this DVD
    (aka “Blood Relatives”)
    (1978, Cinevideo-Filmel/Classic Film Industries)
    100 minutes
    Based on the 87th Precinct novel, Blood Relatives, by Ed McBain
    Screenplay by Sydney Banks, Claude Chabrol
    Directed by Claude Chabrol
    Produced by Denis Héroux, Eugène Lépicier
    Associate producer: Claude Léger
    Executive producers: Michael Klinger, Julian Melzack
    Set in Montréal
    Starring Donald Sutherland as Carella
    Also starring Aude Landry, Lisa Langlois, Laurent Malet, Stéphane Audran, Walter Massey, Micheline Lanctôt, Donald Pleasence, David Hemmings, Ian Ireland, Guy Hoffman, Marguerite Lemir, Gregory Giannis, Jan Chamberlain
    Canadian/French production with Donald Sutherland as Carella. Isola becomes Montreal, where it was filmed. Akira Kurosawa (who directed  High and Low, proclaimed this film “the best of all Ed McBain adaptations”.
  • KÔFUKU
    (aka “Lonely Heart “)
    (1981)
    105 minutes
    Based on the 87th Precinct novel Lady, Lady, I Did It by Ed McBain
    Screenplay by Shinya Hidaka
    Directed by Kon Ichikawa
    Cinematography Kiyoshi Hasegawa
    Produced by Hitoshi Ogura, Toshio Sakamoto
    Starring Yutaka Mizutani, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Rie Nakahara
  • HIGHEST 2 LOWEST
    (2025, AppleTV+/A24)
    Based on the novel King’s Ransom by Ed McBain
    and the 1963 film High and Low by Kira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijiro Hisaita & Ryūzō
    Screenplay by Alan Fox
    Directed by Spike Lee
    Starring Denzel Washington
    Also starring Jeffrey Wright, Ice Spice, ASAP Rocky, Ilfenesh Hadera, Kevin D. Benton, José Báez, Parade Gore, Evyn George, Holden Goodman, Manny Joseph

TELEVISION

  • CLIMAX! (1954-58, CBS)
    An American television anthology series specializing in thriller and suspense stories that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa.

    • “The Deadly Tattoo” (May 1, 1958)
      Based on The Con Man by Ed McBain
      Adapted by Oliver Crawford
      Directed by Paul Nickell
      Starring Peter Graves as STEVE BAXTER
      Also starring Olive Deering, Anne Francis, Henry Silva, Anna Mae Wong
  • KRAFT MYSTERY THEATRE
    • “Killer’s Choice” (June 11, 1958)
      Based on the novel by Ed McBain
      Adapted by Alvin Boretz
      Directed by Paul Bogart
      Starring Michael Higgins as Carella
      Martin Rudy as Meyer Meyer
      and Joan Copeland as Louise (Teddy in the books)
      Also starring Staats Cotsworth, Joanne Linville
    • “The 87th Precinct” (June 25,  1958)
      Based on characters created by Ed McBain
      Adapted by Larry Cohen
      Directed by Paul Bogart
      Starring Robert Bray as Carella
      Martin Rudy as Meyer Meyer
      and Joan Copeland as Louise (Teddy in the books)
      Also starring Pat Henning, Salome Jens, Joseph Sullivan
      Cohen would return to the McBain fold in the 90s when he adapted Ice and Heat for NBC. 
  • 87th PRECINCT | Buy the complete series on DVD
    (1961-62, NBC)
    Series
    30 60-minute black and white episodes
    Created by Ed McBain
    A Hubbell Robinson Production with MCA Television
    Starring Robert Lansing as Det. Steve Carella
    Norman Fell as Det. Meyer Meyer
    Ron Harper as Det. Bert Kling
    Gregory Walcott as Det. Roger Havilland
    and Gena Rowlands as Teddy Carella
    Guest Stars: Jack Albertson. Beverly Garland, Robert Culp, Dennis Hopper, Jeanette Nolan and Peter Falk
    Lansing reprises role from 1960 feature film The Pusher.
  • ED McBAIN’S 87th PRECINCT: LIGHTNING | Buy this video | Buy this DVD
    (aka “Ed Mcbain’s 87Th Precinct”)
    (1995, NBC)
    Based on the novel by Ed McBain
    Teleplay by Mike Krohn and Daniel Levine
    Directed by Bruce Paltrow
    Associate producer: Joe Del Hierro
    Executive producer: Diana Kerew
    Starring Randy Quaid as Detective Steve Carella
    Alex McArthur as Detective Bert Kling
    Ving Rhames as Detective Artie Brown
    Eddie Jones as Byrnes
    Alan Blumenfeld as Detective Ollie Weeks
    Ron Perkins as Detective Meyer Meyer
    and Steven Flynn as Henry ‘Lightning’ Lytell
    Also starring Johann Carlo, Tracy Middendorf, Mary-Joan Negro, Alison Moir, Steve Park, Deanne Bray, Richard Portnow, Dayton Callie, Christopher Darga, Marquita Terry, Juney Smith
    By most accounts, Quaid, an often great actor, is totally miscast in this one.
  • ED McBAIN’S 87th PRECINCT: ICE | Buy this DVD
    (February 18, 1996, NBC)
    2 hour made-for-television movie
    Based on the novel by Ed McBain
    Teleplay by Larry Cohen
    Directed by Bradford May
    Associate producer: Erik Storey
    Executive producer: Diana Kerew
    Starring Dale Midkiff as Det. Steve Carella
    Joe Pantoliano as Det. Meyer Meyer
    Paul Johansson as Det. Bert Kling
    Andrea Parker as Det. Eileen Burke
    Judah Katz as Andy Parker
    and Michael Gross as Lt. Byrnes
    Also starring Dean McDermott, Andrea Ferrell, Diane Douglass, Lisa LaCroix, Christopher Kennedy, Laura Catalano
    Toronto posing as Isola. About as gritty as a vanilla milkshake. McBain deserves better.
  • ED McBAIN’S 87th PRECINCT: HEATWAVE | Buy this DVD
    (1997, NBC)
    Based on the novel by Ed McBain
    Teleplay by Larry Cohen
    Directed byDouglas Barr
    Associate producer: Erik Storey
    Executive producer: Diana Kerew
    Starring Dale Midkiff as Det. Steve Carella
    Paul Ben-Victor as Det. Meyer Meyer
    Paul Johansson as Det. Bert Kling
    Erika Eleniak as Det. Eileen Burke
    Andrea Ferrell as Teddy Carella
    and Michael Gross as Lt. Byrnes
    Also starring Ron Kuhlman, Marc Gomes, Louise Vallance, Annie Kidder, Ian D. Clark, Lynne Cormack, Julie Stewart , Richard Fitzpatrick, Carolyn Dunn, Nancy Leishman, Victor Ertmanis, Mung-Ling Tsui
    It’s still Toronto.

COMICS

 

  • 87th PRECINCT
  • (1961-62, Dell)
    Based on the novels by Ed McBain
    Artists: Bernie Krigstein
    • (April-June 1962, #1)
    • (July-September, 1962, #2)

HUH?

  • For some reason, Amazon’s ambitious series of print, audio and digital reissues that occurred in the 2010s skipped over the 1965 novel Dolls, not even acknowledging it in there series listing. Not sure if it was an oversight, some legal reason, or if the content somehow had become so controversial almost half a century after it was initially published, but in updating the list above, I’ve come across several others that at least are listed, although they didn’t quite get the full Thomas & Mercer/Audible/Kindle reissue treatment either. These titles include Fuzz (1968), Romance (1995), Nocturne (1997), The Big Bad City (1999), and The Last Dance (1999).

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Report submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Comic info contributed by Don McGregor. Web links provided by Bluefox808, who frequently finds himself in an Isola state of mind…

Published

One thought on “87th Precinct”

  1. Ed McBain’s paperbacks were among the first crime stories I read, at twelve or so, as a result I’ve mostly forgotten them… been thinking about digging in again.

    Reply

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