Why You'll Love This
A serial killer who breaks every profiling rule is the most unsettling kind — and McBain makes it personal.
- Great if you want: classic procedural craft from a master of the genre
- The experience: brisk and no-nonsense — McBain never wastes a page
- The writing: McBain's dialogue is razor-sharp, his precinct scenes lived-in and real
- Skip if: you're new to the series — 55 books of history adds weight
About This Book
A serial killer is working the streets of Isola, and nothing about him makes sense. Five victims in two weeks — a blind violinist, a priest, an old woman walking her dog — each shot twice in the face with no apparent connection. Serial killers don't usually use guns. They don't usually move this fast. And they don't usually choose victims who seem to share nothing except age. Steve Carella and the detectives of the 87th Precinct are chasing a pattern that refuses to reveal itself, and somewhere out there, another name is already on the list.
What makes Fiddlers worth savoring is how fully McBain inhabits his world after more than fifty books in this series — the precinct feels lived-in, the banter between detectives lands with real warmth, and the city itself hums with texture and life. McBain writes crime fiction that trusts readers to care about character as much as plot, and the pacing here is tight without ever feeling rushed. As a late entry in a long series, it reads less like obligation and more like a writer still genuinely enjoying the company of people he invented decades ago.
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