Widows by Ed McBain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"On the street outside, the crowd behind the barricade was getting restless. This was already three o'clock in the morning, but no one was thinking of sleep. The only thing on anyone's mind was Showdown at the O.K. Corral. Toward that end, and with the seeming purpose of rattling everyone in sight so that the only possible outcome would be a loss of blood, a loss of life, further fuel for the inevitable fire to come."

Accurate and bitter social observations elevate Ed McBain's Widows (1991), the 43rd installment in the 87th Precinct series, to the above three-star rating. The accounts of two hostage situations are dispassionately written and believable. The hysteria of the crowd that watches unfolding events and yearns for a bloody climax is scary even for cynical observers of human nature. So are the interventions of actors from outside, which whip up the crowd's frenzy to further their unrelated political goals. All that on the ever-present backdrop of poverty and racial issues.

As it often happens in the 87th Precinct novels, the plot is multithreaded, with the threads intersecting at various junctures. There are three main stories in Widows: the novel begins with Detectives Carella and Brown catching the case of murder of a young woman. A bundle of erotic letters is found in the room, where the body has been found, and the case grows to include further victims.

The second main thread focuses on a personal loss of one of the detectives, and the investigation connected with it, difficult because of racial undercurrents. The novel was published in 1991 and it shows how little has changed in 30 years, except for current "euphemization" of the language.

The third thread features Detective Eileen Burke, who's beginning her new job on a hostage negotiating team. One of the strongest fragments in the novel is an account of her handling the negotiations with an old man holding a hostage. I am wondering if the author was influenced by Fellini's film Amarcord (1971) and its memorable scene when an elderly man hiding in a tree is yelling Voglio una donna! Brilliant and sad scenes, both.

There is some gentle humor:

"[...] how could you keep an eye on your sister to make sure some sex fiend wasn't dry humping her while you were busy trying to dry hump Margie Gannon? It got complicated sometimes. Adolescence was complicated."

Overall, I recommend the novel, not only because of two captivating and well-written hostage crisis vignettes, but also for the interesting denouement of the first thread.

Three-and-a-quarter stars.


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