Eight Black Horses - Couverture souple

Ed McBain was a pen name of the successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter. Born in New York, McBain served aboard a destroyer in the US Navy during World War II. After earning a degree from Hunter College and briefly teaching high school, he worked for a New York literary agency; his clients included Arthur C. Clarke and P.G. Wodehouse. In 1954, his novel The Blackboard Jungle was published under his legal name, Evan Hunter. His 87th Precinct series is one of the longest running crime series ever published. McBain was also a screenwriter; he adapted a short story into Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, and wrote for Columbo as well as the NBC series based on his books, 87th Precinct. The Mystery Writers of America gave him the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1986, and he was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. He passed away in 2005, but his writing remains popular to this day.

Finding a dead body was not unusual for an autumn night in the 87th Precinct. But this young woman’s body was naked—and potentially related to the series of odd missives received at the station house. All signs point to the Deaf Man’s return, this time with a plot more diabolical than even the jaded policemen could imagine. He’s been sending them mysterious pictures of police equipment: nightsticks, helmets, black horses, and more. But what did they mean?

Detective Steve Carella would be one of the first to find out, but only after he discovered that the Deaf Man was impersonating him, which leads to more violence. Now, Carella and his fellow officers must face down the Deaf Man in a lethal confrontation: a confrontation more surprising, shocking, and explosive than anything the cops of the 87th Precinct have ever experienced.

Eight Black Horses is an inventive, tightly woven 87th Precinct novel—and it’s Ed McBain at his incomparable best.