This book, which first appeared in 1975, is about halfway through the 87th Precinct series and it's one of the better books in the series. Two young female cousins, seventeen and fifteen, are walking home late one night after a party in a driving rainstorm. As they take refuge from the rain in an abandoned building, the elder of the two is viciously stabbed to death. The younger, though cut in several places, manages to run to the 87th Precinct station house where she reports the crime.The younger girl is able to give the detectives a fairly detailed description of the man she says attacked them, and the detectives' first step is to interview known sex offenders. They find one who closely matches the description the girl has given them and the guy has the world's worst alibi for the time of the attack. But when the young girl looks at a lineup, instead of identifying the known perv, she mistakenly picks out a detective.Her mistake totally destroys the girl's value as an eyewitness and so Steve Carella and the other detectives on the case are forced to fall back on other, much more pain-staking and difficult methods in their attempt to capture the guilty party. There's more than the usual amount of police procedure in this book, and it's fascinating to watch the way in which the detectives would work a case like this--or at least the way they would have worked it forty years ago, before the advent of DNA testing and other more modern investigatory tools.It's a very entertaining book that takes a number of totally unexpected twists and turns, one that's sure to appeal to any fan of the series and to most readers who enjoy crime fiction.
This is the first Ed Mcbain book I've ever read, I hadn't heard of it before my mum gave me a copy she was going to throw out. Even though I had the killer pegged pretty early on I still enjoyed reading Blood Relatives. The writing flowed well and the plot was well paced. To be honest when I began reading the book I didn't think I would like it, although it has the trademarks of my type of book I was a little concerned about the fact it was written in the 70's. To my surprise I found it easy to connect with the characters and lose myself in the story. A very well put together book, and a good read even for a new audience.
What do You think about Blood Relatives (2002)?
This was sort of the ultimate police procedural. It was either an early Ed McBain book or a throwback. It was way too much procedure and way too little story. He went into great detail about how they booked a murder suspect but not much detail on the actual story. The one area where therewas detail was the printing about a month of the diary of a murdered girl spelling out how a romance went bad. It, like the procedure, was way overdone at the expense of other parts of the story.McBain lost his way on this one.
—Jim
After the sub-par Hail to the Chief, McBain thankfully returns to form in Blood Relatives. What starts as a chilling attack by a stranger in a lonely tenement on two teenage girls turns into something much more complex and baffling.There is little of the trademark banter between cops in this novel, as Carella is flying solo for most of it. It's a tragic case and addresses several issues of sexual assault and many of the lines in-between.There's a startling moment at the end that sounded so genuine and haunting, I had to nod my head at McBain's ability to tap into real life. He's a genius. This book reminded me strongly of a mix of Gillian Flynn's first two novels, Sharp Objects and Dark Places. I think anyone who is a fan of Mrs. Flynn would certainly recognize the similarities and enjoy this novel.
—Paul
