THE LAST DANCE (20 july 2004)
Lately, I had the pleasure to come across another novel by Ed McBain that I hadn't read before.
This time it was The Last Dance, a so-called 87th Precinct novel.
What the blurb says about the story is:
The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby little apartment in a meager section of the 87th Precinct is nothing much in this city, especially to detectives Carella and Meyer. But everyone has a story, and this old man's story stood to make some people a lot of money. His story takes Carella, Meyer, Brown and Weeks on a search through Isola's seedy strip clubs and to the bright lights of the theater district. There they discover an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug -- and a killer who stays until the last dance.
But with McBain it's not so much the story which makes his books so pleasant to read. It's McBain's priceless ability to tell a story in an interesting way.
For instance, the story how Cynthia Keating discovers her father's dead body is told in a dozen pages in the form of what Cynthia experiences. In literary works this technique might be called stream of consciousness. In McBain's book it is a great technique which manages to absorb the reader's attention and shows that McBain is a master at his craft.
But there is more to the book than just superior storytelling like this. Sometimes, McBain drops elementary observations like:
"Carella wondered why he sent Christmas cards at all since he knew in his heart of hearts that Christmas -- in America, at least -- was simply a commercial holiday designed by merchants eager to recoup losses they'd sustained during the rest of the year."
Although detective Carella can probably be called the main character in the book, a very important part is played by "Fat" Ollie Weeks, who is described as the ultimate bigot. But by sometimes telling the story from Ollie's point of view, McBain manages to make Ollie's character recognizable, so that he is definitely more than just a caricature.
Still, Ollie -- in all his naïveté -- can be quite funny. An example of this is the following little conversation with a barmaid:
"What would you say if I told you I know how to play piano?" he asked.
"Do you?"
"I'm gonna learn."
McBain's descriptions are often both poignant and humoristic, for instance the following:
"He looked like a country gentleman expecting the local pastor for tea."
It seems believers in the Tarot can see the whole universe filled with a special meaning relating to the Tarot. A comparable phenomenon seems to take place with people who get absorbed in the Kabbala.
McBain manages to fill his universe with lots of meaning without having to resort to Tarot, Kabbala or any other extra means.
