Cop Hater

Name: Cop Hater
Rating: 3.83 (8774 reviews)
Author: Ed McBain

87th Precinct • Book 1

by Ed McBain

3.83 Goodreads

(8.8K ratings)

160 pages Published 1956 Mystery

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Why You'll Love This

Before procedural crime fiction had a template, McBain invented one — and this lean 1956 debut still hits harder than most modern thrillers twice its length.

Great if you want: gritty ensemble police work over lone-genius detective heroics
The experience: fast, punchy, and relentlessly atmospheric — reads in a sitting
The writing: McBain's prose is terse and unsentimental, with sharp street-level detail
Skip if: dated attitudes toward women and race will pull you out of the story

About This Book

In the blazing heat of a New York summer, detectives of the 87th Precinct are dying—and nobody knows why. When a cop is shot dead in the street, then another, the investigation takes on a desperate, personal urgency that goes beyond ordinary police work. Ed McBain's debut in the series that would define his career drops readers into a city that feels genuinely dangerous, populated by characters who feel genuinely human. The stakes aren't abstract. These are men with partners, habits, enemies, and bad luck, and the question of who wants them dead carries real weight.

What makes Cop Hater worth reading isn't just the puzzle—it's the texture. McBain writes in short, punchy scenes that move like a city itself: fast, crowded, occasionally brutal. He introduced something relatively rare for 1956, an ensemble cast anchored to a single precinct rather than a lone genius detective, and that structural choice pays off immediately in atmosphere and authenticity. The prose is lean without being cold, and McBain's eye for the unglamorous details of police work gives everything a gritty credibility that still holds up.