Friday’s Forgotten Books: Ed McBain’s Downtown

It is Ed McBain’s day at Friday’s Forgotten Books @ Pattinase. Well, I haven’t read much of McBain. In fact, have read only one book of his so far: Fuzz. That was truly enjoyable and yet I haven’t really read more of him. Now that I think of it,this is definitely strange because there was a time when if I liked an author/ character, I’d go searching for his/ her books and would not rest till I had kind of read them all: Enid Blyton, Three Investigators, Agatha Christie, Perry Mason, P.G. Wodehouse, James Hadley Chase, Paul Scott, Michael Innes, Raymond Chandler. So what has happened now? Do I fear that I might start finding them repetitive and thus boring? Or is it that there are just too many to read? Or is it that I do not want to run through authors and so be through with them? Or is it that now my reading is conditioned by reading challenges? Or is it that I have become more discerning and nobody enthuses me the way it was earlier?

I really can’t say but since this is about Ed McBain, here’s something from a book of his that I bought from the World Book Fair held last month. Michael Barnes is in New York from Florida attending to some business of his. Having a few hours to kill, he wanders into a bar and strikes up an acquaintance with a good-looking smartly dressed woman who he guesses works on Wall Street. She tells him her name is Helen and they are getting comfortable with each other when quite out of the blue she accuses him of having stolen her ring. Enter a policeman who rough-rides over Michael’s protestations of innocence, takes him out, searches him, and recovers the ring. Helen refuses to press charges however and both she and the police detective move away. A bewildered Michael returns to the bar, only to realise that his credit cards and dollar notes are missing from his wallet….

This is the opening of Ed McBain’s 1989 novel Downtown and it does seem pretty promising. Perhaps soon I’ll read the rest too.