Ed McBain: Like Love (USA 2012)

From the Publisher:
There's a lot going on in the 87th Precinct this spring, and none of it is good. Jumpers on building ledges, a salesman torn apart by an explosion, and to cap it all off, they find the dead, half-naked bodies of Irene Thayer and Tommy Barlow in bed together. It has all the earmarks of a double suicide: a note, empty liquor bottles, closed windows, and the gas on the stove turned up. At least this one's open and shut. Or is it?

Something doesn't sit right with the detectives at the 87th Precinct, so Steve Carella and his partner Cotton Hawes decide to give the case a once-over. Routine checks can turn up interesting facts. Like Irene's mother, who has an insurance policy on her daughter. Or Irene's grieving, cuckold husband who's riding the ragged edge. Even Tommy's brother. Problem is, in order to find a killer, you have to prove there was a murder...

A complex, captivating thriller that probes the deep recesses of the human heart, Like Love is a bittersweet addition to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series and a rare look inside the softer side of hardened detectives.

Ed McBain: Like Love. An 87th Precinct Novel. Thomas & Mercer, ISBN: 9781612181769 (March, 2012), 204 p., $13.95.

Ed McBain: Like Love (UK 2005)

From the Publisher:
A young girl jumps to her death... a salesman gets blown apart... and two semi-naked bodies are found dead on a bed, with all the hallmarks of a love pact. Spring was most definitely here for the 87th Precinct.

Steve Carella and Cotton Hawes think the double suicide reeks of homicide, but they just can't get a break. Fortunately, Hawes has something else going on in his life... something like love.

'Give thanks that you share the same time span with an absolute master. There is nothing and no one around guaranteed to give the same sharp excitements, the same steady delight' - Literary Review

Ed McBain: Like Love. An 87th Precinct Novel. Orion Books, ISBN: 0752865463 (June, 2005), 261 p., £6.99.

Ed McBain: Like Love (UK 1980)

From the Publisher:
'Fast-moving, ingenious and including two admirable cops' SPHERE
A young girl jumps to her death, a salesman gets blown apart, and two semi-nude bodies are found dead on a bed with all the carmarks of a love pact.

Spring was really here for the 87th Precinct.

Carella and Hawes thought the double suicide stank of homicide, but they couldn't get a break. Fortunately, Hawes had something going with Christine - like love...

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

Ed McBain: Like Love. An 87th Precinct Novel. London: Pan Books, 1980, ISBN: 0330248510 (3rd printing), 173 p., 85p.

Ed McBain: Like Love (UK 1976)

From the Publisher:
'Fast-moving, ingenious and including two admirable cops' SPHERE
A young girl jumps to her death, a salesman gets blown apart, and two semi-nude bodies are found dead on a bed with all the carmarks of a love pact.

Spring was really here for the 87th Precinct.

Carella and Hawes thought the double suicide stank of homicide, but they couldn't get a break. Fortunately, Hawes had something going with Christine - like love...

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

Ed McBain: Like Love. An 87th Precinct Novel. London: Pan Books, 1976, ISBN: 0330248510, 173 p., 50p.

Ed McBain: Like Love (UK 1970)

From the Publisher:
Like love it seemed at first. Like lovers sharing their last embrace - with death...
Like suicide. Except that detectives Carella and Hawes didn't see it that way, couldn't accept the seeming simplicity of two near-naked bodies, on a bed, in a gas-filled room, in the midst of their far-from-simple 87th Precinct.

That's how it looked though. A routine matter of self-administered extinction. Until other deaths emerged as corner-pieces in this life-sized puzzle. Until Cotton Hawes liked love enough to chance upon the one real clue.

Ed McBain: Like Love. An 87th Precinct Inner Sanctum Mystery. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1970, Penguin Books #2830, 173 p., 25p 5/-.

Ed McBain: Like Love (UK 1968)

From the Publisher:
Dear God, forgive us for this terrible thing. We are so much in love, and the world is all agsinst us. There is no other way. Now we can end the suffering of ourselfs and others. Flesse understand.
Tommy and Irene

Like love it seemed at first. Like lovers sharing their last embrace - with death...

Like suicide. Except that detectives Carella and Hawes didn't see it that way, couldn't accept the seeming simplicity of two near-naked bodies, on a bed, in a gas-filled room, in the midst of their far-from-simple 87th Precinct.

That's how it looked though.
A routine matter of self-administered extinction. Until other deaths emerged as corner-pieces in this life-sized puzzle. Until Cotton Hawes liked love enough to chance upon the one real clue.

Ed McBain: Like Love. An 87th Precinct Inner Sanctum Mystery. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1968, Penguin Books C2830, 173 p., 4/-.

Ed McBain: Like Love (USA 1962)

From the Publisher:
It was April. Spring had come to the 87th Precinct. But Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, Meyer Meyer and the rest of the 87th Squad weren't enjoying it.

First there was the girl on the ledge twelve stories above the street. Then, a little later, the gas-filled apartment that exploded, killing an innocent bystander. This was routine, but the two bodies on the bed presented a problem. Carella and Hawes had learned through years of experience that every case has a feel to it -- something intuitive, impervious to either logic or reasoning, something close to insight. When it comes, you listen to it. You can find whiskey bottles on the floor, and clothing stacked in neat little piles, and a typewritten suicide note, and an apartment full of illuminating gas; you can add up all these pieces of evidence and come up with an obvious suicide -- and the feel tells you it ain't. It's as simple as that.

But getting evidence to prove murder was anything but simple. This time it seemed impossible. And it wasn't until after they put it with the other unsolved cases in the Open File that the break finally came...

Ed McBain: Like Love. An 87th Precinct Mystery Novel. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962, 223 p., $3.50.