The first of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct stories, "Cop Hater," appeared in 1956, and for a while he published two or three tales about the Precinct each year…. Mr. McBain did not invent the police procedural story, in which the investigation of a crime is shown as it is handled by a police department, but his books are among the best in the field.

This is chiefly because Mr. McBain has succeeded in making his detectives distinct individuals. Steve Carella, who appears most frequently, marries the beautiful deaf and mute Teddy in "Cop Hater." Cotton Hawes, who has a white streak in his hair and was named for Cotton Mather, plays the feminine field; Meyer Meyer had a father who thought the double name would be a good Jewish joke; Arthur Brown is that color; Bert Kling is young and impressionable. The author skillfully avoids making them stereotypes, and...