Downtown

Ed McBain, author of the bestselling 87th Precinct series, takes us "Downtown" in a bold departure of a novel that will have listeners cheering for a lone out-of-towner running for his life in New York City.

Meet Michael Barnes, a Florida orange grower who finds himself in a Manhattan bar with a couple of hours to kill. It's a couple of hours that almost kill him, as he's swindled, robbed, framed for murder, and hunted down by an assassin in one of the wildest, scariest, funniest, fastest twenty-four hours ever packed into one novel.

Publishers Weekly

McBain shows a lighter side while providing lots of fast action in this complicated story of a Floridian caught up in Manhattan madness. (June)

Evan Hunter, the author who as Ed McBain virtually invented the American police procedural with his gritty 87th Precinct series featuring an entire detective squad as its hero, died in 2005 at his home in Weston, Conn. He was 78.