The Mugger

87th Precinct, Book 2

By: Ed McBain

Narrated by: Dick Hill

Length: 6 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

A beat cop winds up on the trail of a deadly mugger, but when it suddenly gets personal, his own life might be the next thing to be snatched….

©1956 Ed McBain (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“The 87th Precinct [is] one of the great literary accomplishments of the last half-century.” (Pete Hamill, Newsday)

“McBain has the ability to make every character believable - which few writers these days can do.” ( Associated Press

NYPD BLUE of 1950...

The book is an easy, enjoyable read. Nostalgic for those that grew up in the 50's. literary work it is not, a hard core police procedural it is. Characters are multi faceted and being developed further with each novel. Not much to add to all the previous accolades, just sit back and let the stories take you back to a simpler time before CSI forensics, when cops ruled, women wore skirts, and bulls were gods... Dick Hill provides a theatrical narration that brings you back to the days of radio, great job. Enjoy!!!

Great stories!

The 87th precinct is a series that you can easily get sucked into. I don't read a lot of books, but these are so well written that I feel like I've known the characters for a very long time. They read very easily, I even catch myself laughing, or getting excited at appropriate times during the story.

Love the author, hate the reader

Would you try another book from Ed McBain and/or Dick Hill?

I have loved the 87th precinct novels since I stumbled upon the first one about three decades ago. I have read them all in print multiple times. I was disappointed when I joined audible that there wasn't any available and waited impatiently for them to be produced. Unfortunately, when they finally became available, it was with Dick Hill reading them. I do not like this reader he ruins the story for me. I will continue to purchase these books because I love McBain's works but I can only stand to listen to them one book at a time with long breaks in between. I wish they had used George Guidall or Richard Ferrone (he does wonderful with the John Sandford "Prey" books). With either of those readers I wouldn't have been able to stop listening to marathon 87th! Any chance for a redo with either of these readers?

What didn’t you like about Dick Hill’s performance?

I don't like the way he reads. His characterization sounds terrible and he overacts in his reading.

Any additional comments?

Please find another place for Mr Hill. He needs to stop reading books for you.

50's Cop Series

The first book "Cop Killer" was set against a heatwave in the middle of summer.

The second book "The Mugger" takes place in Fall (Autumn).

It was a coincidence that I happened to read both books during the seasons that they were written about. I was impressed with Mccains atmospheric writing, perhaps because I experienced the seasons as he described them. He was able to capture a feeling of the city, in part because of the different seasons.

McBain describes the city as if it were a woman (his words) and the reader can thus feel the dress sticking to her skin; Whether it is the sweltering summer sweat, or leaves falling around her ankles onto wet pavement.

Once the mood is set, the actors are introduced: the criminals and the crimes they perpetrate, the enforcers of peace, and the families at home.

"You know her tossed head in the auburn crowns of molting autumn foliage, Riverhead, and the park. […] You have seen her naked streets, have heard the sullen murmur of the wind in the concrete canyons of Isola, have watched her come awake, alive. […] She is big and sprawling and dirty sometimes, and sometimes she shrieks in pain, and sometimes she moans in ecstasy.
But she could be nothing but a woman, and that’s good because your business is women.
You are a mugger."
- Ed Mccain from "The Mugger"




By todays standards Mccain's writing may seem quaint, but it captures the essence of 1950's cop novels.

great book, horribly laughable narrator

I love the 87th precinct novels and finally decided to read all the ones I've missed and do the entire series in order. The story here is, like most of them, gritty and dark. I thought it was better than even Cop Hater. thankfully these all seem to be available on Kindle unlimited with the audio versions available as well.

I like to listen to books at work, but the narrator here is horrendous and ruins everything about the book. I have no idea what possessed the audio book producers to turn these into a laughingstock, trying to make them comical, over the top, and silly by using this narrator with these voices.

After testing COP HATER on Kindle then listening to this, I was immediately confused..."did they make the series a comedy for part 2?!" I immediately asked myself. Nope. it's just the outlandishly silly voices the narrator uses. Every cop sounds like he's trying to do a stand up comedy routine. None of these sound like actual humans, let alone police officers in a mostly dark cop series. Everyone sounds like a caricature of what someone would humorously THINK cops sounded like in the 1950's. The narration choices are utterly bizarre, and I have no clue what they were thinking with these.

great book, wonderful series, but skip this terrible narrator and the confusing choices they made in terms of the narration tone.

The Best Series Ever!

I love the 87th Precinct police procedural series. I discovered it in 1978 with Ace. Duck Hill reads this second installment much the way that I heard it in my mind. A wonderful performance! On to the next!

This could probably apply to all the books

First, Dick Hill's narration is perfect for this series. Dark, gritty, somewhat sarcastic. Very well done and good distinction in voices and dialects.

Ed McBain, or Evan Hunter, was a prolific hard-boiled detective novel. The 87th Precinct series is the culmination of his work.

The Mugger is not extraordinarily suspenseful. It is a systematic, procedural manual that mixes the character development with the building plot. It's not a whodunit, in that you're not likely to guess the murderer, because the clues are very subtle. Maybe you will if you're sharper tan I, but the twist at the end took me by surprise. I could look back and see how it made sense, but was not able to put it together going forward.

All of his books are like that. I read the entire series starting in the middle in the early 1970s, but then quickly darting back to the first and pulling them from the library, used book stores, and catching up to grab a few newly arrived at the book store before Hunter died.

It's a great series and I urge it to be read in order from book 1 through the end. The characters grow, age, marry, mature, have kids, the kids grow up too. It's wonderful, dark and hard-hitting.

Better than "Cop Hater"

4 of 5 stars.

This second installment of the 87th Precinct series shows a maturation of the characters and framework which ultimately became a storied detective crime franchise. Years ago, I read several of these stories and always felt the resolution seemed obvious in hindsight. This is not a criticism, "The Mugger" has this quality and involves two plots loosely intermingled to further explore characters that were peripheral in "Cop Hater", the series introduction.

Dick Hill is a solid performer who is ideal for 50's crime fiction.

Good up until…[no spoilers]

It took me a little bit to get used to the narrator (I’d just come off two other books with excellent narration and this wasn’t as good), but the more I listened, the more I thought he was the right narrator for a story along these lines that takes place in the 50s. His manner fit with some of the kind of exaggerated storytelling from that era I’ve seen in movies and TV.

The story grew on me as did the characters; but I thought the payoff was A) predictable (figured it out a good ways from the end), and B) too easy. There was virtually no level of complexity to the ending, as if the author was just ready to be done with it. Obviously, McBain had a lot to say about the 87th Precinct and continued to pump out the tales with regularity but it just felt too neat at the end for my taste. And maybe this is what the hard boiled cop novels of the time were. This is my first foray into that genre and I’ll continue with McBain’s stuff. I thought the first book was all right. I just need to set my expectations for the story resolutions a little more realistically.

I wouldn’t NOT recommend this book, audio or otherwise. I just wouldn’t overhype it.

The narrator...ugh!

I'm a pretty big fan of Ed McBain novels and have read many of his books... I decided to read this book via audiobook but literally made it through one chapter before I had to switch to the Kindle version of it. The narrator is TERRIBLE... All three of the characters that he did were WAY over the top and utterly annoying and distracting... the two cops in the opening chapter both sounded like drunk carnival barkers and it was ruining the experience for me... I couldn't take it any longer. While there is humor in McBain novels, they are usually dark and gritty which is what I like about them. I don't need a bloated, comical narration to completely destroy the tone and feel of these books. Unfortunately it looks like most of McBain's novels are read by this guy so I'll be sticking to the printed word.