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Rating: 
Summary: Fast, accurate and page turning
Review: It would be nice if some cared enough to quote prof reviewers who actually cared to read the work unlike Ingram's stupid mistake of saying it was Bert Kling who disappears. It was Steve Carella. After 50 some books one would think they could get it right finally. The work is classic McBain. It gives you the feel for police work. Slow where it should be and fast where it should be. He takes us into being part of the team not just a entertained reader. Perhaps that is why he has so many books published. We become a member of the 87th. It is spare writing designed for maxium impact. Never boring except when police work is indeed boring and that only briefly when emotions arise like "TELL US. Quit hedging around and tell us" rises in interviews with witnesses and perps. Steve's disappears and is presumed dead but... well you read the book. I won't snitch. Shame the original Ingram they quoted didn't bother to read it. It is worth it. Ah well their loss not mine or yours if you pick it up.
Rating: 
Summary: Reliable and professional entry in long running series
Review: This case for the detectives of the eighty-seventh precinct is more "concentrated "than usual as it centres on one case ,rather than having the multi-focus plot that is a feature of many series books.
It is a case of murder,the slaying by multiple stab wounds of the model "Tinka Sachs"in her luxury apartment while her terrified five year old daughter "Anna"is playing with "Charlotte" her favourite doll.Steve Carella the lead detective request the help of Bert Kiling still deeply traumatised over the death of his girl friend some five years earlier.
Carella discovers the identity of the killer but before he can divulge this and make an arrest he is attacked ,knocked unconscious and chained naked to a radiator kept alive by his abductor only so he can reveal how he came by the knowledge of the guilty party .
The key lies in the doll and before Kling can bring the case to a conclusion we are taken into the motives behind the killing (drug related)and are witness to the way the resolution of the case helps Kling in thre healing process.
Its tautly told and totally professional .Good police and forensic analysis scenes -as ever in the series;and McBain is always good on the strsses and strains that police work imposes on its practitioners.
As an example of detection its a bit thin-I found the plot device around the doll a little implausible-but a solid workmanlike book that maintains the high standards of this reliable series
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BETTER MCBAINS!!!
Review: Tina Sachs has been killed. Who would do this to a pretty model? Carella is assigned to the case and asked for Kling who is mad at the world over the killing of his girl friend in a previous book. Carella finds out who the killer is and goes to arrest him. Instead he is taken prisoner and put through much punishment and herion shots. Who is the strange girl who keeps bringing Carella food and also giving him the shots? Kling is taken off the case and Myers is given command. They do find tthe killer but is it in time to keep Carella from becoming addicted? This is much better than book nineteen. At least this one involves some police work. I would have given it a five except for several pages of how a doctor treated Tinka Sachs for her drug addiction. I don't think it had anything to do with the case. You knew,in your mind, that Carella had to live to be in the next book but it did hold my attention and I did not want to quit reading.
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