Calypso by Ed McBain
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"He dialed the local police then, and identified himself, and told them what he had here, and asked that they send an ambulance at once.
'It's very bad,' he said. 'I've never seen anything like it in my life.'"

Indeed, there is a horrifying passage in the novel that explains what Detective Carella has seen and what a human being can do to another human being. Calypso (1979) is the 33rd installment in the famous 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain. Unfortunately, it is one of the weakest novels in the series. Not even close to a good installment such as, for instance Tricks that I recently reviewed.

The story begins strongly, with a precise, clinical description of a murder. A calypso singer is shot dead and his business manager wounded. They are ambushed as they walk from their performance. Some time later a black prostitute is shot; the detectives learn that the shooter might have been the same as in the calypso signer's murder, a "tall, slender man or woman dressed entirely in black." About 40% into the novel a new thread appears, one that features the calypso singer's brother. That thread involves a lot of brutality, albeit with a non-standard twist. Naturally, the two threads merge to provide a weak denouement.

Several passages in the novel are quite lame. For instance, a rambling fragment about obscenity, the inability to define it, and about obscenity laws: what Mr. McBain writes may be reasonable and clear, but it is out of place in the novel. There is a strange passage that describes Meyer Meyer's (another detective from the 87 Precinct) thoughts stimulated by the phrase 'plethora of daisies.' The stream of consciousness device is out of character in this police procedural. Sending orchids to potential victims? Come on! I don't believe Mr. McBain (Evan Hunter) spent much time writing this book.

Inclusion of powerful calypso lyrics is one of the few brighter spots of this below-the-average novel.

Two stars.


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