Ed McBain: Where There's Smoke (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
Ed McBain is an American institution. With his authentic depictions of investigative procedure and his unparalleled portraits of life inside the concrete canyons of urban America, McBain writes novels of crime and punishment, and he does it better than anyone else.

IT ONLY TAKES A SPARK
Benjamin Smoke is a retired police lieutenant who walked away from the job for one reason alone: he was bored. Bored of the criminals. Bored of the crimes. Bored of answers that came too easy, too fast, and too often the same. Now, working as an unlicensed private detective, Smoke finally gets his wish. Someone has committed the perfect crime -- a perfectly senseless crime-by stealing a dead body. And when Smoke starts investigating he's in for one surprise after another, from black magic to murder and a woman who believes she's Cleopatra-and is lighting a fire right before Smoke's eyes...

"The author delivers the goods: wired action scenes, dialogue that breathes, characters with heart and characters who eat those hearts, and glints of unforgiving humor... Ed McBain owns this turf." -- NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"The best writer of police procedurals working today." -- HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Ed McBain: Where There's Smoke. Warner Books, ISBN: 0446604836 (November, 1997), 209 p., $5.99.

Ed McBain: Where There's Smoke (UK 1980)

From the Publisher:
'I have only one regret. I've never encountered the perfect crime'
Benjamin Smoke used to be a cop. Now he just investigates crime. He's still got his .38 Detective's Special and the little gold shield that will pass as police credentials most times he needs them.

A phone call from an undertaker. Theft of a body.
Then a mortuary assistant is killed with his own scalpel and Smoke's in on a murder case.
A murder case where all the leads take him to crazy ladies. There's one who's convinced she's Cleopatra and another who's doing a Salem Witches number.

Crimes might come more perfect, but never more weird...

'Ed McBain's style and narrative always leaves me hungry for more pages. Smoke creates a delightful new appetite' -- FINANCIAL TIMES

Ed McBain: Where There's Smoke. Pan, ISBN: 0330259164 (January, 1980), 142 p., 80p.

Ed McBain: Where There's Smoke (USA 1975)

From the Publisher:
Bid welcome to a memorable new McBain hero -- Benjamin Smoke, an unlicensed private investigator with a very special preoccupation. Smoke quit the police force three years ago with a gold detective-lieutenant's shield and a well-earned reputation as a no-nonsense cop. In twenty-four years he saw muggings, robberies, rapes, frauds, and murders, but there was one thing he never saw: the perfect crime.

And that's why he quit the force: boredom.
Benjamin Smoke wants a case he can't solve, a crime so perfectly conceived and executed, he'll know for sure that somewhere out there, there really is a master criminal. That is why, one Monday morning, he meets Abner Boone, undertaker.

Abner Boone has had a most distressing thing happen to him. Someone has pried open his back door -- and stolen a corpse. No clues, except for the jagged splinters on the door. No motives to connect the dead body with anyone wishing him ill. No leads of any kind. Smoke feels his hopes begin to rise -- especially when the corpse inexplicably reappears the next day. And another body vanishes. There's no sense to it at all. Smoke muses: Wonderful!

Where There's Smoke is a delightful, suspenseful mystery in the best McBain tradition. Like the 87th Precinct novels, it features authentic police technique, fastpaced action, and a collection of marvelous characters: Rhoda Gibson, the cool, deadly widow of the missing corpse; Jeffrey, her panicky giant son; Natalie Fletcher, a woman firmly convinced she is Cleopatra. But best of all, there is Smoke himself, the tough, inventive ex-cop, working somehow inside, sometimes outside the law, obsessed with finding the one crime he can't solve. With his considerable abilities, Smoke is likely to be disappointed in this and every other book he appears in -- but the reader will never be.

Ed McBain: Where There's Smoke. The author of the celebrated 87th Precinct series introduces a new hero BENJAMIN SMOKE a retired detective-lieutenant with a very special preoccupation: the perfect crime -- the crime he can't solve. Random House, ISBN: 0394496701 (June, 1975), 179 p., $6.95.