I've never been able to get into the 87th Precinct books, mostly because I'm not fond of large casts of characters in the books I read. I did discover McBain's Matthew Hope series this year though. I read "Goldilocks" which is the first and loved how Matthew's life and his work were on a collision course. The mystery plot was easy to figure out, but Matthew's home life never did what I expected. I have "Puss In Boots" and "The House That Jack Built" in my TBR pile and am looking forward to reading them.
What does surprise me about the Hope series is that they're never discussed when anyone speaks about McBain's work. Are they considered less than stellar when compared to his other work?
Sandra
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com,
I don't want to compare two good writers, but Evan Hunter had a very broad palette, he wrote about all kinds of things, not just crime. In particular, he was an outstanding short-story writer, stories without gimmicks, stories about people. I don't really think of him as a mystery writer, in fact. His mastery of characterization was impressive.
Kid
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