Picked this book up in an op shop in Frankston. I bought it for the cover and the age of the book, it’s very distinctive as having been published in the early 1960s. I love it for that alone, everything else is a bonus.

Ed McBain published under several pseudonyms, including that of McBain as he was actually born Salvatore Albert Lombino. This book is one of 55 police procedural novels written by McBain about the 87th Precinct in a fictional area called Isola. When I saw the name ‘Isola’ I automatically translated it to ‘island’ but didn’t make the connection to his Italian antecedents until I read about his name change.

It’s a good little book, 184 pages packed with clues and red herrings in a book small enough to fit into a jacket pocket. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to The Killer’s Choice another book from this series I bought at the same time.

While the cover is gorgeous it doesn’t actually fit the description in the book.  Yes, the lady is lying on the floor surrounded by books a detective kneeling by her side, but she’s not wearing blue. The way she’s described it’s as if she’s wearing a red blouse but it turns out the blouse is white but doused in blood. If you look at the photo she’s wearing a blue dress and there’s no blood, but she was shot! I do wonder if this is due to some sensibilities at the time and not being able to depict blood openly.

But the description of the what’s happening on the cover makes a good lesson. McBain starts by saying ‘She was wearing a red blouse.’ in a paragraph by itself to isolate it from everything else, then describes her other clothing, how she’s lying and finally, her books including the titles. Then, buried after the titles in the middle of the paragraph we’re told that the blouse isn’t red and that ‘A corner that had pulled free from the black skirt showed white.’ Finally, we’re told about the holes in her body and that the red blouse is actually red from blood, her blood. It’s very cleverly done.

Today I’m taking the time to use a new feature, you’ll notice some extra information at the top of this article linking to some things that will build up over time. This means I’m now losing the link to Booktopia where you can buy the book and give me squillions of cents to help cover the costs associated with this website (only 7.5% of your purchase if you buy within 24 hours of clicking on the link but every cent helps.)