- Ed McBain
- 18+

ISBN: 0-7434-7655-7
This is for Gerry Ash
And for Ingram (in memory)
Are we there yet?
Apparently not.
Ever the slave to the whims of cruel and unusual publishers, I am reluctantly continuing this seemingly incessant string of introductions, each of which is threatening to become as long as the 87th Precinct series itself. How is a mere writer supposed to remember the details of how a novel took shape in the year 1957, when
I had my instructions.
That much I remember clearly.
Phase out Steve Carella. Carella is not a hero, he is a married man. Instead, give us a handsome hero with whom men can identify and with whom women can fall in love.
This is what I’d been told by the Pocket Books executive whom I prefer calling Ralph lest he turn his goons on me yet another time. Following the gentle persuasion that took place in the offices at 630 Fifth Avenue, I introduced the handsome new hero, Cotton Hawes, in a book titled
You must remember that none of these books had as yet been published in hardcover. They were all paperback originals, and they sold for a mere twenty-five cents each-about a third of what a hit off a crack pipe will cost you at the time of this writing. In fact, if crack had been around back then, I’m sure Ralph would have suggested
Back then, titles were routinely changed by publishers as a matter of course, with little regard for the author’s feelings or the intent of the book. I fought for
Upon reflection, it’s interesting to note that the first four books in the series were titled after the sort of criminals a policeman might actually encounter:
Well, I hadn’t hired on to do a private-eye series. The series I’d proposed-to reiterate for those of you who haven’t been religiously collecting these remarkable introductions-was to be a realistic look at a squad room of cops who, when put together, would form a conglomerate hero in a mythical city. This meant cops of any stripe or persuasion could come and go, kill and be killed, transfer out or transfer in, without hurting or diluting the overall concept. Ralph seemed to have forgotten the concept (though an innovative television “creator” remembered it only too clearly many years later). Back in 1957, however, I myself seemed in imminent danger of seriously compromising my own vision.