Hark! The 87th Precinct Podcast

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast. Book 33 in the sage takes up to the end of the 1970s. It's 1979 and Calypso singer King George Chadderton has been shot. So has his manager. And a wannabe singer. And a Locksmith. And things aren't looking too good for that dog either. Gulp. Carella and Meyer try to unravel this mystery across many precincts. In this episode we have a look around the world of 1...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast Mini-pod. To fill a gap in our main schedule, Paul presents this quick run-through of the various pseudonyms/name changes used by Evan Hunter throughout his life. This is based in part on some of the research currently being done for the proposed 87th Precinct book that's being worked on at the moment. Hope you find this little stop-gap interesting - let us know...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast bonus episode. This is our bonus episode for book 32 in the series, a tale of war-trauma, multiple slayings and a possibly rabid dog. As usual we begin with our look at the book covers of the original UK and US releases and our own editions, before getting stuck into some more charts and trivia from 1977. We're also looking at a new way to carry on our 'Fantasy...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast. Welcome to 2020 everyone. Now that that's out of the way, let's go back to 1977 and the grim slayings of Blind people on the streets of Isola and beyond. It's a busy time for Carella as he looks after a seeing-eye dog, has to fend off flirtatious approaches and get to grips with Freudian interpretation of dreams as they relate to the Vietnam war. All in a days...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct side-pod! Happy New Year everyone. Thanks for joining us again in 2020. To kick things off, whilst the regular team are still off on holiday, here's a special episode 'completing the set' of the early Evan Hunter juvenile fiction novels for the Winston Science Fiction range. It's the first of those stories, 1952's Find The Feathered Serpent - a tale of time machines, vi...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast bonus Christmas episode! Many festive greetings unto you and yours from us and ours. We've finally taken the plunge and delved into the world of Barney Miller, as so many of you suggested that it seems very much like McBain's 87th Precinct tales. And what better episode to watch than Series 3, Episode 10 - Christmas Story . Broadcast over the holidays in 1976, t...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast side-pod! Paul is joined in this episode by old friend and this podcast's first ever guest, illustrator Adam Paxman. They're looking at Appointment on Mars, the S.A.Lombino story for the television anthology series, Tales of Tomorrow in 1952. This was Lombino/Hunter/McBain's first credited piece of television and draws heavily on his skills as a writer of scienc...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Bonus Episode! This is the bonus episode for book 31, So Long As You Both Shall Live - Bert and Augusta are married. Happiness from hereon in then? Ah well. Never mind. At least we can relax and take our usual look at the book covers for the original and our editions of the story - including a book-huffing of an early UK edition which nearly takes the top of Stevo's hea...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast. It's 1976, it's Bert Kling and Augusta Blair's wedding day and nothing can surely trouble the boys of the eight-seven on such a happy occassion? Well, maybe a scalpel wielding kidnapper might. But, look on the bright side, at least Fat Ollie Weeks is here to help Carella and company find Mrs. Kling and restore her to the loving arms of Bertram. We take our usua...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast bonus episode. As per usual, we follow up our main episode discussion (all about Blood Relatives) with our examination of the covers of the various original editions and the obligatory book-huffing test for our copies, before delving into the media of 1975 to provide context for the time in which the book was written. This time, we get quite silly. Marvel at Mor...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast. It's a dark and tragic tale that Steve Carella finds himself investigating in 1975's Blood Relatives. This shocking story was adapted into the 1978 film Les Liens De Sang by Claude Chabrol, featuring Donald Sutherland in the Carella role. It's a scary and shocking tale. We round out our discussion of the book by taking our usual run-down of things-from-the-year...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast bonus episode. We follow up our main episode's discussion of the 29th Book in the series, Bread, with our usual examination of the various editions of the original publication (and Paul does some Show & Tell for this!) and then delve deeper into the music, television and films of 1974, including some serious discussion on how the policy of OPEC might have affect...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast! After book 28, the satirical Nixon-baiting Hail To The Chief, we're back on firmer procedural ground with 1974's Bread - a complex tale of arson, fraud, smuggling, violence and deprivation. Roger Grimm's warehouse of little wooden animals has burned down, but what has that got to do with Diamondback Developments? Readers will meet the 83rd Precinct's Detective...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct bonus episode! We follow up our discussion about 1973's HAIL TO THE CHIEF with a bit of a quiz of the year in music and film, a look at the book covers of our and the original editions and then look at screen portrayals of Teddy Carella - with your fantastic suggestions for our Fantasy Casting under scrutiny. Paul also discovers that Stevo and Morgan have some strangely...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast! Here we are, still in 1973, but sat next to Ed McBain, examining his typewriter which surely took some beating as he punched out the text of his Nixon-hating Gang-Warfare Allegory, HAIL TO THE CHIEF. Join us as we spot the parallels (based on our rather limited knowledge of the politics of the US in the early 70s...) and discuss this most violent and unusual 87...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast bonus episode. Here we are, off the back of our review of the 27th book in the series, Let's Hear It For The Deaf Man, with our usual blend of book cover and design chat, the great quiz of '73 (first bit of the year) and most importantly - Fantasy Casting for THE DEAF MAN! Thanks so much for all your contributions. Apologies to Cary Elwes for my terrible pronunc...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast! It's 1973 and The Deaf Man is back to taunt the cops of the 87th Precinct and to confirm his status as Steve Carella's nemesis. Join us for our discussion of this novel which takes in all three of the story threads, the relationship of the book to the film Fuzz, its place in Evan Hunter's work for the year and how it influences the lives of some of the characte...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast bonus stopgap, er, thing... Just so you don't go mad waiting to hear Paul's dulcet tones again, here's a short episode that takes a quick trek around his bookshelves looking at collections of short-stories he loves and then an examination of Ed McBain/Evan Hunter's story collections in a little more detail. We appreciate it's taken a little longer than usual to...

HARK! It's an 87th Precinct bonus podcast. Learn everything about 1972, the year in which the 26th book in the 87th Precinct series was published, in our bonus episode. Albums, Singles, Films, TV... and we do manage to talk about Ed McBain and the books as well.  We investigate our copies of the book and look at the original editions - find everything on our Instagram page - and decide on who we'r...

H*A*R*K It's an 87th Precinct podcast! The year is 1972 and Gerald Fletcher has just come home to find his wife eviscerated on the bedroom floor and his apartment burglarised. Luckily the police catch the burglar. Case solved? Well, not quite. Carella becomes Columbo in this tale of identity, betrayal, lost and found (and lost again) loves at Christmas in the Eight-Seven. [This episode marked as '...

IGNITION! It's an 87th Precinct Side-Pod. Strap on your heavy metal space boots, take a sip from your feeding tube and hail that space taxi - we're launching into orbit and beyond in this special edition all about the Richard Marsten science-fiction book Rocket To Luna. Another story in the Winston Science Fiction range (as with Danger: Dinosaurs), Rocket To Luna sees Marsten/Hunter speculate on w...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Bonus Episode. Well, here we are with our usual look at the book covers of the original US and UK editions of this 1971 story, followed by the now-displaced exploration of the year (music, movies, politics, infrastructure) for the benefit of all of you who can't wait to hear people trying to guess which "Carry On..." movie came out, again. Find the photos of the covers...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast! It's celebration time for the eight-seven, because this is the twenty-fifth book in the series and McBain has invited ALL of the detectives to come along. Experience a night and a day in and around the precinct, with tales of murder, criminal damage, missing persons and dutch ghosts. You know, the usual party stuff.  In this episode we forgo our usual examinati...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Bonus Episode. We follow up our examination of the twenty-fourth 87th Precinct book with our usual run-down of the original editions as released in the US and UK and then we turn our attention to the important business of 'Casting The Eight-Seven' - this time we look at the listener suggestions for who could play Lieutenant Peter Byrnes. For the next episode we'd like y...

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast. Well, we've done it everyone - we've made it to the Seventies and the first book of that decade is JIGSAW - Detective Arthur Brown is on a quest to locate all the pieces of a sliced-up photograph and ends up with a pile of dead bodies along the way, as well as the loss of his trousers. A tricky tale to read with modern eyes in parts, thrill to the amazing sound...