I just finished reading McBain's second 87th Precinct, The
Mugger. I liked it a lot.
I found it particularly interesting that the book recycles a
plot McBain used in one of his Curt Cannon stories, Now Die
In It.
SPOILER ALERT
The subplot involving Bert Kling's investigation of his
one-time friend's sister-in-law is exactly the same as Curt
Cannon's investigation in that story. Both friends are
married cabdivers with beautiful sisters-in-law who look just
like the wife once did. Both contact a detective to placate
the wife's worries. Both sisters are pregnant, though this is
known from the outset in the story, but hidden for a while in
the novel. Both sisters hang out in a teen club. Both are
murdered. Both detectives get involved with an older, loose
woman who hangs out in the club and befriended the sister.
Both investigations involve figuring out what subway stop the
sister exited to meet her lover. In both, the detective is
called in by a homicide captain to tells him to stop mucking
about, who found out he was by an anonymous call (however,
drunk detective Cannon is physically beaten, but Kling is
just browbeaten, his job threatened).
Whereas the plot makes up the complete short story, it
becomes a subplot in the novel. The murder is at first
thought to be an escalation in a string of female muggings,
but is eventually revealed as a copycat killing
Now Chandler's "cannibalizations" of stories, particularly
those in the Killer in the Rain anthology, for his novels is
well known. How standard is/was this practice? Does McBain do
this often?
Mark
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