Mc Bain is undoubtedly a clever writer and the general ‘police procedurals’ summary masks this.
Here we have a play within a play within in novel and the theme in all 3 is a girl threatened by a killer with a knife and the leading actress is killed with a knife having previously conspired to pretend to be assaulted with a knife to garner publicity for the play.
The actual killer is the boyfriend of the understudy, who doesn’t get the part following the original actress’s death and who frames the replacement for the boyfriend’s subsequent murder. Complicated or what? The play is called Romance and meanwhile in the real world of the 87th precinct the very white Bert Kling is nervously dating an equally nervous black police surgeon.
He is a better writer than I remember from years ago when I bought the books.
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