87th Precinct

And it's true whether it's Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue or something on television, or whether it's any kind of detective film where you're a cop and various things happen and you have multiple cases to solve.

So it's say, the 87th Precinct and the Ed McBain books or something like that.

I like that because it's very flexible.

It means that you can juggle the tone of the film by having something else happen.

[upbeat music] Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast.

This is the only podcast in the world dedicated to Ed McBain and his seminal series of police procedural novels.

In this episode, I, Paul Abbott, am gonna take you from the 1890s to 1960 in the first part of our biography of Evan Hunter.

The hero of the books was to be a detective squad, a conglomerate hero.

Alexander seemed to like the idea, and a contract for three books was drawn up.

The 87th Precinct was beginning to take shape.

Hunter's focus on the new three-book series didn't deter him from other writing, although the Richard Marston-credited Murder in the Navy was his only novel to appear in 1955.

The story draws on Hunter's time in the armed forces, with its description of naval procedures and specifics about the radar shacks on board ship.