Monday, July 20, 2015

Eighty Million Eyes, Ed McBain, Reviewed by Anthony Boucher




Anthony Boucher's review in the New York Times, April 24, 1966:


"Ed McBain comes up with an excellent answer in EIGHTY MILLION EYES (Delacorte, $3.50): take two novelettes and combine them into a contrapuntal novel, so that each story heightens the suspense and casts light upon the theme of the ether. The titular novelette (1963) is about the poisoning (by the unusual means of strophanthin) of a major TV comic while on camera; "The Dear Hunter" (1965) is about a psychotic mam of violence who takes over control of the life of a girl he has never met. Each is very good in itself; combined, expanded and developed, they add up to the best book about the 87th Precinct in several years."