Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! (USA 2012)

From the Publisher:
The only person Detective Bert Kling cares about in this world is his fiancée, Claire Townsend. And when her body is found slain at the infamous "bookstore massacre," Bert and every detective in the precinct is determined to get the man responsible. To do so, they're going to have to figure out the connection between a junkie, a professor, a bookstore owner, and the beautiful fiancée of a cop. When they do, there will be nowhere for the killer to hide.

A devastating look at the personal side of a hardened detective, Lady, Lady, I Did It! is a gut-wrenching addition to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series, and it paints in sharp relief the squadroom's familial bonds and the price paid for violating its sanctity.

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! An 87th Precinct Novel. Thomas & Mercer, ISBN: 9781612181745 (March, 2012), 182 p., $13.95.

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! (UK 2005)

From the Publisher:
A multiple murder - and for the 87th Precinct, it's just got personal An 87th Precinct Novel
October on the 87th Precinct. Indian Summer. Telephones ring lazily in the police squad room. Tired cops slump at their desks, measuring their hours with cups of coffee.

Then it happened. A multiple murder in a downtown bookshop. Four people are dead, and one of them is Detective Bert Kling's fiancee. The summer was over.

There's no time for tears - and Kling was the first to admit it. There are clues to find, leads to follow, people to see. And Kling was going to get the sonofabitch who murdered the only person in the world he cared for. For him, it would be a long, cold winter...

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! An 87th Precinct Novel. Orion Books, ISBN: 0752864106 (January, 2005), 184 p., £6.99.

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! (UK 1991)

From the Publisher:
The crowd had already gathered around the bookshop. There were two uniformed cops on the sidewalk and a squad car was pulled up to the curb across the street. At the door, the patrolman said, 'Lot of dead people in there, sir...'

October on the 87th Precinct. Indian Summer, and it seemed like the whole city was asleep.
It took a multiple murder in a downtown bookshop to shatter the calm. Four people dead - and one of them Detective Bert Kling's fiancée. But for a cop this was no time for tears.

Claire was dead and Kling was going to blow the brains out of the sonofabitch who murdered the only person in the world he ever cared for...

'The original and best' -- THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! An 87th Precinct Mystery. London: Pan Books, ISBN: 0330260952 (August, 1991), 160 p., £3.99.

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! (UK 1980)

From the Publisher:
He was totally unprepared for it... the fist came flying out of the darkness... blood dripped into his eye and a pipe lashed out striking his mouth...

October on the 87th precinct. Indian Summer. Telephones ring lazily in the police squad room. Tired cops slump over tired typewriters, measuring their hours with coffee cups.

Then it happened. A multiple murder in a downtown bookshop. Four people dead and one of them Detective Bert Kling's fiance. The summer was over.

There was no time for tears. And Kling was the first to admit it. There were clues to find, leads to follow, people to see. Claire was dead and Kling was going to blow the brains out of the sonofabitch who murdered the only person in the world he cared for...

For him it would be a long, cold winter...

'The best of today's procedural school of police stories - lively, inventive, convincing, suspenseful, and wholly satisfactory' -- NEW YORK TIMES

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! An 87th Precinct Mystery. London: Pan Books, 1980, ISBN: 0330260952, 155 p., 90p.

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! (USA 1962)

From the Publisher:
Three persons were already dead, a fourth dying. lay
Carella raised his head.
His eyes were dead. "This is a lousy, rotten job," he said.
All right, it's -" Byrnes said.
"I don't want it." Carella said, his voice rising. "I want to go home and touch my kids and not have blood on my hands."
"Everybody does! Snap out of it!"
"Snap out of what seeing that poor damn girl lying twisted and broken and bleeding on the floor? Of Kling holding her in his arms, covered with blood, saying her name over and over again - 'Claire'? As if he was asking me to deny it, to tell him that this... dead person he held in his arms wasn't his girl!"

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! 87th Precinct Mystery. Permabook #M4253 (July, 1962), 184 p., ¢35.

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! (USA 1961)

From the Publisher:
It is late afternoon, Friday, October 13. Detectives Carella, Meyer and Kling of the 87th Squad are waiting for their relief, due at 5:45 P.M. At 5:15, the telephone rings. Meyer answers, listens, jots down a few notes, then says, "Steve, Bert. you want to take this? Some nut just shot up a bookstore on Culver Avenue. There's three people laying dead on the floor."

The crowd had already gathered around the bookshop. There were two uniformed cops on the sidewalk, and a squad car was pulled up to the curb across the street. The people pulled back instinctively when they heard the wail of the siren on the police sedan. Carella got out first, slamming the door behind him. He waited for Kling to come around the car, and then both men started for the shop. At the door, the patrolman said, "Lot of dead people in there, sir."

A routine squeal for the 87th, answered with routine dispatch. But there was nothing routine about it a moment later. What Bert Kling found in the wreckage of the shop very nearly destroyed him. Enraged, embittered, the youngest detective on the squad begins a nightmarish search for a crazed and wanton killer. The hunt is relentless and intensely personal - not only for Kling but for every man on the squad.

Lady, Lady, I Did It!, like all 87th Precinct stories, is charged with emo-tion and moves from the first page with the relentless, driving intensity that is characteristic of Ed McBain.

Ed McBain: Lady, Lady, I Did It! 87th Precinct Mystery. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961, 218 p., $3.50.