Rating: 
Summary: Let's hear it for the fat man!
Review: "Fat Ollie" Weeks has just finished his blockbuster thirty something (?) page novel "Report to the Commissioner" and is on his way to Kinko's to get it printed when he stumbles across the shooting death of an aspiring politician. If that isn't enough for Ollie, someone has broken into his car and stolen his dispatch case with his book in it. With the help of Carella and Kling of the 8-7, we have the mystery of "Fat Ollie's Book". In classic Ed McBain style we see the detectives of the 87th pursue the case until the killer is found. I found myself laughing throughout this audio presentation, especially with "Emily",the cross-dressing junkie trying to find the diamonds that "Olivia" in "Report to the Commissioner" is on the hunt for. McBain brings a new element in this work, which I think is one of his best since "The Big Bad City". Throughout the book we see how he is able to even make fun of himself and his style in this work (eg "The city and the individuals are fictious; none of the work portrayed is based on routine police investigatory technique"). Well, does Ollie ever find his book? Who killed the councilman and why? Does "Emily" find the diamonds and Olivia Watts? And what about Fat Ollie and the new rookie, Officer Patricia Gomez; how does the 87th precinct's resident bigot fare with this young Puerto Rican officer? The answers to these questions will be found as you listen to the book.
Rating:
Summary: Fat Ollie's Book
Review: "Fat Ollie's Book" is the 52nd novel of the 87th Precinct by Ed McBain. Ollie Weeks, a cop from the 88th Precinct, is called to investigate the shooting of city councilman Lester Henderson at the King Memorial. While Ollie investigates, someone steals his 36-page novel "Report to the Commissioner". He enlists the help of the cops of the 87th Precinct to help in the case since Henderson lived in the 87th. Steve Carella and Bert Kling investigate Henderson's murder while Fat Ollie looks for the drug addict who stole his manuscript. A familiar face returns to the 87th. Eileen Burke, Kling's former girlfriend, joins Andy Parker in a subplot involving a drug deal. Ed McBain has been writing this series since 1956, but he still maintains a first rate series. I think "Fat Ollie's Book" is one of the best in this series by the undisputed master of the police procedural, Ed McBain.
Rating:
Summary: Now this is fun....
Review: Besides thrills,laughter,easy readings,great conversations and a bit of mystery and a lot of suspense,you will get a fine dose of humour.McBain at his funny best.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much of a good thing
Review: Detective/First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks of the 87th Precinct is an incredibly large and tactless bigot. And he has written a book. A whole 36 pages long, this pride and joy is in a briefcase in the back of his car on its way to the copy shop (he's still living back in the days of typerwriters without carbon paper) when he gets a call. Someone has seen fit to murder a popular politician running for mayor. While Ollie is inspecting the scene of the crime and quizzing witnesses, someone smashes his car's back window (right in front of a bunch of uniforms, what would you know?) and makes off with the briefcase.And that, my friends, is only the beginning. While Ollie is out tracking down both a murderer and a thief (and treating readers to a running stream of horrificly unPC comments along the way), the crossdressing hooker who filched the manuscript (which is titled REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER, by the way) takes the little tale at face value ... and starts searching for the captured policewoman therein. FAT OLLIE'S BOOK is full of double meanings on several levels, and Ed McBain (Evan Hunter) gets in hilarious but subtle pokes at nearly everybody -- himself, bestselling authors, literary agents, writers, both sexes, cops and villains, and last but not least, even us humble layperson book reviewers. We all know the fictional city described here, Isola, is supposed to be New York City, and we all know the fictional city described in Ollie's book is supposed to be Isola, and it just gets funnier. McBain has a way with both words and humor that is truly mind boggling. Still ... masterful as this 52nd book in the series is, it's not really a mystery. It reminded me of a cross between Lawrence Block's humorous crime capers and Patricia Cornwell's forage into new territory in HORNET'S NEST and company. Rather than being surprised by twists and turns, the reader is instead denied any suspense by getting to follow all the threads as they grow closer and closer and finally converge. Also, while the no-holds-barred humor starts out funny enough, too much of it turns the story tedious. Halfway through this book I was all set to give it five stars, but by the time I reached the ending my enthusiasm had waned. FAT OLLIE'S BOOK is a great tongue-in-cheek parody and full of laughs, but to me it read like a chocolate dessert -- delightfully sweet in small quantities, but heavy when taken as a whole.
Rating:
Summary: High Quality
Review: Ed McBain is a master at this kind of writing, and he sure doesn't fail us here.
The story revolves around a couple of crimes, but the focal point is the lead detective's book manuscript that has been
stolen during the course of a murder investigation. All the while "Fat Ollie" is working on the murder, he is also dreaming of a better life as a famous mystery writer, and all he has to do is recover his stolen manuscript. So he is pursuing all
those goals at the same time, and, then, for some unknown reason, he seems to attract the attention of a new female cop.
Fat Ollie has a lot going on, and he seems to bounce from one
aspect of the case to another seamlessly, so the reader is
swept up in his pursuits.
All the details of a nice story are here, the characters ring
true, and McBain makes all of it flow along nicely, and
the reader will want to keep going to learn how it will all come out.
All nicely done, and this is a good, recommended read.
Rating:
Summary: Another winner from the 87th Precinct
Review: Ed McBain likes the titles of his 87th Precinct series to bear more than one meaning, and "Fat Ollie's Book" is no exception. Fat Ollie Weeks, detective of the neighboring 88th Precinct, stands at the center of this novel, having caught the call on the murder of an aspiring politician. Fat Ollie, not an incompetent detective but quite willing to let others carry the load if circumstances warrant, shifts the burden of the investigation to Steve Carella and Bert Kling while he pursues a case far more important to himself - the theft of the sole existing copy of the manuscript of, well, Fat Ollie's book, a detective thriller written by him to cash in on the lucrative fiction market dominated by a bunch of women amateurs who wholly lack his real world expertise and insights. The book took him months to write, too, at least three or four months, all thirty-six pages of it, and he wants it back, no matter the effort required or whose toes must be stomped on. Fat Ollie, it should be said, is a racist, but that is an inadequate description. He is also an ethnic, religious, and sexist bigot. He despises, in short, everyone not exactly like himself. Come to think of it, he also despises anybody who IS like himself. Oblivious to the insults he showers upon others and sensitive to slights from others, he nonetheless is not absolutely without a touch of oafish charm, just enough to intrigue a Puerto Rican uniformed female cop caught up in the murder case and just enough to keep the reader interested in such an otherwise unsympathetic protagonist. As usual in the 87th Precinct novels, the plot twists around itself, sweeping up a collection of odd characters marching unknowingly to inevitable interaction and intermeshed fates. Along the way, we get to read - in short doses - Ollie's truly dreadful attempt at literary creation, so bad as to become bizarre fun. And we follow the developing stories of McBain's familiar stable of detectives from the more than fifty novels that have preceded this one. No 87th Precinct fan should miss this one, another top-notch entry in this series filled with dark humor.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: Ed McBain serves up a couple of plot lines in "Fat Ollie's Book"---#52 in the 87th Precinct series. Ollie's completed novel is stolen from his vehicle while he catches the call on a murdered political activist. The outrageously outspoken Ollie tries to track down the book while joining up with all the regulars and irregulars from the 87th to solve the murder. The book thief thinks the manuscript is actually a police report that will lead him to a fortune. He provides the comedy of errors. It is a good big city police procedural. As expected, the crew from the 87th is in top form and the dialogue is crisp and provocative. Always entertaining, consistent activity and lots of the equal opportunity bigot Ollie Weeks---perhaps a bit too much humor and not enough drama---but still fun.
Rating:
Summary: Another winner from the grand master of mystery writers
Review: Every time I read an Ed McBain novel (and I've probably read half of the more than 50 he's written, each a gem), I wonder why it's not sitting atop a best-seller list (arbitrary as those lists may be). Mystery-lovers of the world, take notice! McBain (aka Evan Hunter) is a brilliant writer, the kind who dreams up ingenious plots and then populates them with an array of diverse characters, filled with spunk and armed with witty banter, who will make you laugh out loud and might - just might - even cause you to shed a tear or two. In this latest winner, Detective Oliver Wendell "Fat Ollie" Weeks of the 88th Precinct has written his first novel - a police procedural. Unfortunately, just as he's taking his precious tome (all 36 - yes, 36 - pages of it) to be photocopied (somehow Fat Ollie hasn't seen fit to purchase a computer), he gets called to a murder investigation, and wouldn't you know it, someone filches the sure-to-be-a-best-seller (!) from the back of his squad car while he's off fighting crime. Can Fat Ollie find time to recover the manuscript while solving the murder of a political up-and-comer? Heck, should he even be concentrating on the murder when the fruit of his labor has disappeared? Truth and fiction are tightly intertwined as Fat Ollie teams up with the boys from the nearby 87th Precinct (familiar to and well-loved by McBain fans everywhere) to figure it all out. McBain's sense of humor is beyond priceless, if that's possible, and this story is a grand piece of entertainment. I enjoyed every page. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Fat Ollie is Back
Review: Fat Ollie is back and so are the "boys' of the 87th Precinct. The Precinct fans who only met Ollie as a loudmouthed, grossly fat smelly bigot from the 88th, will be surprised to meet Ollie as a bona fide writer of fiction. As usual, McBain spins the yarn in an entertaining, folksy style, tying together action and comment in a fast paced, amusing fashion. Some unusual things happen in this saga, such as Ollie's romance with rookie cop,wherein we find out that Ollie, like many "big" men, is a good dancer, light on his feet, a TV "talent" has a crush on Carella, and Kling encounters Eileen Burke on the 87th's turf.
All in all, it is a typical McBain--fast paced, entertaining, humorous, with an occassional insight into human nature.
If anyone wants escape literature, there's no better.
Rating: 
Summary: Eh, McBain can do better.
Review: Fat Ollie's book that he had just written and was taking off to Kinko's to get copied is stolen out his police cruiser while he is investigating the murder of a city councilman running for mayor. Although the victim was murdered in the Eight-Eight he actually lived in the Eight-Seven so Ollie gets Carella and Kling from the Eight-Seven to help out in the investigation. Help out? More like do most of the investigation and actually find the perp. While Carella and Kling are busy tracking down leads on the murderer, Ollie is busy trying to track down who stole his book. And a brand-spanking new rookie who just might possibly go dancing with Ollie one day, hands Ollie, Carella and Kling the clue that allows them to nail the killer. I found this book quite an amusing way to spend an afternoon (yup that is all it took me to read it, Gertie). However while it was a pleasant afternoon read, I could only give it 3-stars. I've read all the 87th precinct novels and found over the years that I enjoy the detectives of the Eight-Seven, their cases and their personal lives. I, however, don't like Ollie Weekes and am dismayed that he's playing an increasingly larger (no pun intended) role in the series. And it isn't because of his bigoted views, although they play a part, it is because he's not an interesting character. He's one-dimensional and has not a single quality that makes him an interesting "person" to read about for several hours. I read books where an unsympathetic character is made compelling because the author has infused a little glimmer of humanity into their personalities that keep them from being completely flat. McBain has not done that for Ollie for me. If McBain had done for Ollie what Bochco/Milch et. al. did for Andy Sipowicz, then I'd have enjoyed this book much more. So to have this flat, unsympathetic caricature as the main character, really, in this book makes the book lose quite a bit of luster for me. I liked the case of the murdered councilman and the police work that lead to the capture of the perp. And the interwoven misunderstanding where the person who stole Olie's book thinks it is true is kinda amusing. Yet, I can't help but think there was something a little too frothy and a bit elusive about the whole thing. I kept wishing for a bit more meat, a bit more bite, remembering back fondly to books in the series that really got me hooked on the 87th Precint: such gems in as "Lady, Lady, I Dit It", "Shotgun", "Tricks" and "Lullaby." I did like the reintroduction of Eileen Burke, a character that I loved back in the earlier books. And while I enjoy Bert's current relationship with Sharyn, I can't help but wonder if his old flame may cause Bert some romantic angst. Bert's romantic woes have always been a very popular draw in this series for me. And finally, I can't help but be a bit turned off by McBain's somewhat intrusive semi-editorial third-voiced comments pooh-poohing political correctness. These have been happening with much more frequency starting about the time "Mischief" came out. Just tell the darned story. If you don't like the fact that a hearing impaired person is called "impaired," then use a better word, you're a writer!
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