Alice in Jeopardy.

著者 : EdMcBain

• Simon + Schuster Inc.

感想・レビュー・書評

[sophieさんの感想 · 2005年8月4日]

パロディーかと思うほど、８７分署シリーズとはストーリーの展開の仕方が全然違います。もちろん、それは悪いことではないけれど、好き嫌いが分かれる作品だと思います。
The second to last novel Ed McBain wrote before his death on July 8, the reviews were mixed. It's not an 87th precinct procedural, actually the police are so inept the book is like a parody of the procedural genre to which he gave birth. You can understand a talented writer might become a little frustrated by writing the same sort of thing all the time. Alice is a widow whose insurance company won't pay up on the quarter of a million dollar life insurance policy on her husband Eddy, who died in a boat accident, because his body hasn't been found. Then her children are kidnapped with a ransom demand from a woman for the exact same sum. There are lots of supporting characters, sub-plots and red herrings, but the kidnapper's identity is obvious from fairly early on. So the entertainment comes from how he is found out, the comedy arising from the stupidity of the police, and McBain's pithy observation of human nature through the stream of consciousness thoughts of the various characters (which he also does in the 87th precinct novels).