Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man

Name: Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man
Rating: 4.1 (1749 reviews)
Author: Ed McBain

87th Precinct • Book 27

by Ed McBain

4.10 Goodreads

(1.7K ratings)

256 pages Published 1972 Mystery

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Why You'll Love This

The villain mails the detectives clues to his own heist — and they still can't stop him.

Great if you want: a cat-and-mouse thriller where the cat is brilliantly outmatched
The experience: brisk and playful with a dark edge underneath
The writing: McBain juggles multiple plotlines with sharp, no-waste prose
Skip if: you haven't read the series — the Deaf Man hits harder with history

About This Book

The Deaf Man is back, and he's doing what he does best: making the detectives of the 87th Precinct feel like amateurs. He's telegraphed his intentions — half a million dollars, stolen on the last day of April — and there's nothing Carella and the squad can do but watch the clues arrive and try to stay one step ahead of a criminal who seems to enjoy humiliating them almost as much as he enjoys the score itself. Meanwhile, ordinary casework piles up, Kling gets tangled in a distraction that may cost him everything, and the calendar keeps turning. The stakes are personal in a way that few procedurals manage to pull off.

What makes this entry in the long-running 87th Precinct series so satisfying is McBain's tonal control — he keeps the cat-and-mouse between the Deaf Man and the squad genuinely tense while letting dry wit breathe through every scene. The ensemble feels lived-in rather than assembled, and the structure, juggling multiple threads without losing grip on any of them, reflects a writer completely at ease with his material. It's smart, brisk, and confident in exactly the ways pulp fiction rarely is.