In Ed McBain's 87th Precinct when you "Give the Boys a Great Big Hand" … it's human, of course, and turns up in a small suitcase without the rest of the body. The inquiry that follows makes for as good a tale as any McBain has spun in his lively, lengthening series. The mode is procedural and the company includes, of course, a number of old acquaintances including Steve Carella and Cotton Hawes…. The precinct, the city, some curiously contradictory evidence about a stripteaser, an episode in a crowded men's shop, a garrulous landlady are all elements in a muscular, laconic tale, the tenth item in a valuable account.

James Sandoe, in a review of "Give the Boys a Great Big Hand," in New York Herald Tribune Book Review, March 27, 1960, p. 11.