I passed over this book which was on the outer rank of books in the hall for a number of years. Even when I’m in the mood for a McBain, which happens from time to time (such as when I am working on the Winter Reading Challenge), I pick up an 87th precinct book. This is a Matthew Hope book, the other series McBain did, about the attorney in Florida. I am sure I read a number of these when I was younger (the series ran from 1977 to this book in 1998), but I’ve only read one since I’ve been reporting on books for this humble blog (Rumpelstiltskin in 2004).
Matthew Hope is an attorney who has a team of investigators working for him; in this book, a woman hires him to find her husband who walked out on her and went up north. Presumably, she wants to divorce him or have him declared dead. So Hope and his team swing into action, and a corpse turns up with the husband’s wallet but is not, apparently, the husband, the start to unravel a complicated plot for a heist that involves a couple of different bisexual love triangles and plans to steal the heisted cup of Socrates from the original heisters.
The story occurs partly in real time and partly in flashbacks amongst the good guys and the bad guys and features a team-up with the detectives of the 87th Precinct as they look into what the husband did when he was up north in The City.
But, ultimately, although the good guys catch on at the end, it relies a little on coincidence to put Hope at the museum as the heist occurs, and a quick climax with bloodshed and finis!
Yeah, ultimately, I don’t like the Matthew Hope books that very much. I am pretty sure I have one or more amongst the to-read shelves here (including, likely, one or more that I have already read), but I will space them out. Maybe every twenty years or so.
