Rating: 
Summary: The Frumious Bandersnatch
Review: "The Frumious Bandersnatch" is the 53rd novel in the exceptional 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain. Barney Loomis, CEO of Bison Records, throws a party on a boat to launch the career of pop singer Tamar Valparaiso. As Tamar finishes doing a live performance of her video "Bandersnatch", 2 masked men storm the boat and kidnap her. Steve Carella of the 87th takes the call and he and Cotton Hawes begin to investigate. At Barney Loomis' request Carella is asked to join a special elite task force known as "The Squad", comprised of policemen and FBI agents, to investigate the kidnapping. The kidnappers contact Loomis requesting $250,000 ransom and asking that a cop come with Loomis when he drops off the money. Carella goes with Loomis and they drop off the money. The kidnappers get greedy and ask for another $750,000. Carella quits the task force but he and Hawes remain on the case and they are instrumental in solving it. Fat Ollie Weeks from the 88th is in this novel but is not involved in the case. The book follows his personal relationship with fellow cop Patricia Gomez. This series began in 1956, yet 48 years later it is just as fresh as it has always been. Ed McBain is still the master of the police procedural. "The Frumious Bandersnatch" is an excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: The Frumious Bandersnatch
Review: "The Frumious Bandersnatch" is the 53rd novel in the exceptional 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain. Barney Loomis, CEO of Bison Records, throws a party on a boat to launch the career of pop singer Tamar Valparaiso. As Tamar finishes doing a live performance of her video "Bandersnatch", 2 masked men storm the boat and kidnap her. Steve Carella of the 87th takes the call and he and Cotton Hawes begin to investigate. At Barney Loomis' request Carella is asked to join a special elite task force known as "The Squad", comprised of policemen and FBI agents, to investigate the kidnapping. The kidnappers contact Loomis requesting $250,000 ransom and asking that a cop come with Loomis when he drops off the money. Carella goes with Loomis and they drop off the money. The kidnappers get greedy and ask for another $750,000. Carella quits the task force but he and Hawes remain on the case and they are instrumental in solving it. Fat Ollie Weeks from the 88th is in this novel but is not involved in the case. The book follows his personal relationship with fellow cop Patricia Gomez. This series began in 1956, yet 48 years later it is just as fresh as it has always been. Ed McBain is still the master of the police procedural. "The Frumious Bandersnatch" is an excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: How Do You Spell That....?
Review: Before you buy the book, you have to find the book. Asking for it yields its own little joys. "Frumious Bandersnatch please," a gentle query to a clerk who responds with a sparkle in the eye born either of interest or befuddlement. A kind of secret, privileged conversation ensues between buyer and seller, an academic treatise on the etymology of the title, Lewis Carrol and Monty Python. So you buy the book and the story flies by as is usual with McBain and the 87th Precinct, wholly satisfying except for it being over too soon. The wait for the next one begins immediately. A brilliant man once said, "After a time you may find that 'having' is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as 'wanting.' It is not logical, but it is often true." Brilliant, but never read McBain.
Rating:
Summary: still the best
Review: Bison Records' Barney Loomis sets up a special event on a yacht to launch his latest find Tamar Valparaiso to stardom. Tamar lip-synchs her debut CD Bandersnatch aboard the rented River Princess with the media along. All seems well as the vessel sails along the river until Hussein and Arafat abduct the star. The media and the police wonder if perhaps Barney set up the ploy as a publicity stunt, but he insists that he did not and displays much anger. 87th Precinct Detective Steve Carella begins investigating, but almost immediately has to deal with an FBI led joint task force consisting of every bigwig wanting publicity in the nearby universe. The kidnappers demand a ransom to return the future superstar while the Feds try to keep Steve off their Squad. However, Barney demands Steve and the locals remain active as he believes they have a better chance of rescuing his diva because unlike the Squad they are not concerned about looking good in the media. It has been five decades with over fifty novels, yet the 87th Precinct books are always among the best police procedurals on the market. The latest tale is superb with a delightful and cleverly conceived investigation at its center. However, that is lightened by Fat Ollie's dating and homage to Lewis Carroll. Alice and her Looking Glass company provide a wonderful foundation to the relationships within the task force and within the three kidnappers (one more in a Bush mask) and their victim as well as between the two groups. Even the Queen of Hearts knows that Ed McBain is the best and he proves that once more with the fabulous FRUMIOUS BANDERSNATCH. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Bandersnatch not up to snuff
Review: Compared to the other 87th precinct books, this one was not satisfying. There were several loose ends, though not the titillating kind that make me desperate for the next volume, just unaccounted for characters and plotlines. For us die hard fans, its still worth a read. Its not terrible like the last two Patricia Cornwell books. A side note: Maybe I just didn't notice before but McBain makes up his own words in Bandersnatch. Is there a whole list of McBain-isms?
Rating:
Summary: McBain takes on the music industry.
Review: Few authors could get away with a title like "The Frumious Bandersnatch." "Bandersnatch" refers to a debut album featuring a sensational new talent named Tamar Valparaiso. Barney Loomis is the CEO of Bison records, and he has a great deal of money and prestige riding on Tamar's album. Loomis decides to invite the music industry's movers and shakers to a launch party aboard a luxurious yacht. Tamar will act out scenes from her video during the party and Loomis hopes that the publicity will help send Tamar's album into the stratosphere. The assembled guests aboard the yacht are shocked when Tamar is suddenly kidnapped. Who abducted her and what do the kidnappers want? Detective Steve Carella catches the case, and he is dragged into working with a Joint Task Force that includes some condescending federal agents. In this novel of the 87th precinct, McBain takes a satirical look at the shallow people who market talent for the music industry. He also exposes the graft and the political machinations that get the maximum amount of radio airtime for a new song. Money talks and there is a great deal of money to be made in the music business. The cast of characters in "Bandersnatch" is large and varied. Carella is a good cop who refuses to be manipulated by the big boys. He and his colleagues in the 87th precinct rely on reliable, old-fashioned detective work to solve cases. For comic relief, Fat Ollie Weeks is enjoying a romantic interlude with his new lady friend, Patricia. Tamar Valparaiso is a lovely young girl who is thrilled to be on the brink of stardom. The villains of the piece are stupid, cruel, and selfish, a dangerous combination. McBain juggles all of these characters with his usual wit and grand style. "The Frumious Bandersnatch" is an engrossing detective novel with a slam-bang ending that brings home the perils of greed and unbridled ambition.
Rating: 
Summary: Loopy Title, Tough Read
Review: Fifty-three novels into his 87th Precinct police mystery series, Ed McBain seems bored with the gang at the precinct house. "The Frumious Bandersnatch" gives only desultory service to the 87th Precinct trademark situation of detectives working on separate cases, focusing on a single crime, the kidnapping of a pop singer on the rise, who is adapting Lewis Carroll for the hip-hop generation. Hence the title. Diving in, you might think "The Frumious Bandersnatch" is one of the 87th's more comic outings, given its goofy name and the focus on the cult of celebrity surrounding this particular case. It's not especially intriguing as mysteries go. The singer is plucked off a yacht by a pair of masked intruders just as she finishes a lip-synched dance routine for a music industry crowd and a local TV news camera team. It takes 50 pages for the crime to occur, then another 100 pages for the kidnappers to call with their demands, while McBain lavishes his attention on the music industry and our culture of complaint. 87th Precinct detective Steve Carella finds himself used as an errand boy by a joint FBI/police task force, while the rest of the precinct is left on ice. McBain does use one interesting character I haven't seen before, a former police academy buddy of Carella's named Corcoran who runs the police side of the task force and has gotten too big for his britches in his new post, ordering his old friend around and insisting on being called "lieutenant." This bit of intraservice rivalry is well played out, especially when the 87th jumps into action late in the book to try and break the case ahead of the task force. But there's not much else to be said for "Bandersnatch." It has a remarkably sour conclusion for the jocular set-ups, as if we aren't expected to care about any of the characters McBain has taken such pains in sketching. The familiar faces of the 87th Precinct seem a fey bunch now. About the only character other than Carella that McBain lingers on is the crude bigot Ollie Weeks, who works out of another precinct. In the last book, "Fat Ollie's Book," we watched him try to write a novel and begin to romance a patrolwoman of Puerto Rican extraction. This time, McBain foregoes any crimesolving role for Weeks and just plays out their romance, a first for the 87th series and not a successful one. Meanwhile, 87th Precinct detective Cotton Hawes starts a romance with a television news reporter. It's a little disconcerting watching the book series that gave lessons to "Hill Street Blues" and "CSI" suddenly aping "Friends," but that's what's here. For the last few books, McBain has been moving away from the standard 87th Precinct formula, maybe because he's seen it imitated too often. There's nothing wrong with experimenting; sometimes, as with "Fat Ollie's Book," it pays off. But I'd like a new 87th Precinct novel that starts with Homicide dicks Monoghan and Monroe making bad jokes over a body waiting for the ME to pronounce it dead, puts Eileen Burke in harm's way as a decoy prostitute, nearly allows Andy Parker to botch everything, and gives Meyer Meyer something more to do than sip coffee. That's the way it used to be, when the series was great. McBain has lost none of his wit or punch, but he could do with more engagement. Maybe a trip back to square one is in order.
Rating: 
Summary: And James Gandolfini as Ollie Weeks . . .
Review: I don't know who does his research for him, but McBain pulls it off again, another vivid and believable milieu, this time in the field of recording, producing and distribution of dance music. He must be in his 70s but he has a remarkably young attitude, and his description of the pop single "Bandersnatch" by his fictional heroine, Tamar Valparaiso, is totally convincing to the point that you'll believe it could be in heavy rotation on MTV (if they still played videos). Tamar would be a great part for Jennifer Lopez, even if she is a bit too old to play her properly, and she wouldn't like what happens to her in the course of the script. I hope this is the first of a whole new "Lewis Carroll" series for the 87th Precinct. It isn't McBain's best book by any accounting--for me, the best run was the long list of vintage novels from the late 70s through late 80s, from Calypso through Heat, Ice, etc, when he could do no wrong. But this is the best of the recent crop of titles. Hooray for a great grand master!
Rating:
Summary: And James Gandolfini as Ollie Weeks . . .
Review: I don't know who does his research for him, but McBain pulls it off again, another vivid and believable milieu, this time in the field of recording, producing and distribution of dance music. He must be in his 70s but he has a remarkably young attitude, and his description of the pop single "Bandersnatch" by his fictional heroine, Tamar Valparaiso, is totally convincing to the point that you'll believe it could be in heavy rotation on MTV (if they still played videos). Tamar would be a great part for Jennifer Lopez, even if she is a bit too old to play her properly, and she wouldn't like what happens to her in the course of the script. I hope this is the first of a whole new "Lewis Carroll" series for the 87th Precinct. It isn't McBain's best book by any accounting--for me, the best run was the long list of vintage novels from the late 70s through late 80s, from Calypso through Heat, Ice, etc, when he could do no wrong. But this is the best of the recent crop of titles. Hooray for a great grand master!
Rating:
Summary: Priceless!
Review: I have always been more impressed by the humor in the 87th Precinct mysteries than the police procedural. For instance, in FRUMIOUS BANDERSNATCH, McBain uses Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" to create a single used in a video as a sendoff for a new singing sensation, Tamar Valparaiso. This gives McBain a chance to lampoon music critics, TV entertainment news, and civil rights advocates who carry political correctness too far.
The plot revolves around the kidnapping of Tamar off a river yacht. Steve Carella soon finds himself playing second fiddle to the FBI and their advanced technology. But, surprise of all surprises, Tamar's record producer insists on Carella accompanying him when he pays the ransom.
Something else you usually get when you read the Grand Master is a brutal twist when you least expect it. He will stop at nothing. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't killed off Carella by now, especially since he's been working at the 87th for something like fifty years.
All of the above would not make a great mystery. This is also a character vehicle. Ollie Weeks furnishes the sub plot, still romancing his fellow police officer, Patricia Gomez. A while back McBain made up his mind he was going to transform the mysogynistic, racist Weeks into an almost likable human being, but rather than do it all at once he's been chipping away at the big fellow for two, three books now. First off, Ollie decides to take music lessons, then he writes a book, a police procedural of course, and now he's dating a Hispanic police officer and learning how to play "Spanish Eyes" for her. He even takes her to see a movie about the making of Richard III.
McBain pretty much telegraphs the resolution of this mystery when Tamar's record goes through the roof, but the interplay between the characters, as they say in those credit card commercials, is priceless.
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