Ed McBain is an acknowledged master of the detective subgenre known as the police procedural, and in "Ice" he returns us to the Detective Division of the 87th Precinct in Isola. That imaginary metropolis bears more than a passing resemblance to New York City, McBain's hometown. Like its more than two dozen predecessors in the 87th Precinct series, "Ice" features a conglomerate hero—in this case, officers Carella, Meyer, Kling and Brown. Their ethnic identities correspond, in one of McBain's many comic asides, to the sandwiches they eat for lunch: sausage and peppers on a roll, hot pastrami on rye, tuna on white and ham on toasted whole wheat, respectively.

Three apparently unrelated homicides put this quartet's sleuthing to the test. A dancer in a hit musical, a cocaine-pushing punk and a middle-aged diamond merchant have all been "iced" the same gruesome way, with the same weapon. Searching...