October on the 87th Precinct. Indian Summer. Telephones ring lazily in the police squad room. Tired cops slump at their desks, measuring their hours with cups of coffee. Then it happened. A multiple murder in a downtown bookshop. Four people are dead, and one of them is Detective Bert Kling's fiancee. The summer was over. There's no time for tears - and Kling was the first to admit it. There are clues to find, leads to follow, people to see. And Kling was going to get the sonofabitch who murdered the only person in the world he cared for. For him, it would be a long, cold winter...

Author Biography

Ed McBain (1926--) was born Salvatore Lambino in New York. He changed his name to Evan Hunter and under that name is known as the author of The Blackboard Jungle and as the writer of the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The 87th Precinct series numbers over fifty novels. McBain is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is the only American writer to be awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement.