SO NUDE, SO DEAD
By Ed McBain
Hard Case Crime
223 pages
Available July 25, 1915
As both a reviewer and writer, I am often asked who my
favorite writer is…or was. With over
fifty years of reading behind me, there are many writers who’ve entertained me
and I follow faithfully. But the one who
tops the list and stands above all the others is the late mystery/crime author,
Ed McBain. And that isn’t even his real
name.
Ed McBain (Oct. 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005) was born Salvatore
Albert Lombino. He legally adopted the
name Evan Hunter in 1952 under which he became a very successful writer. In 1956 he adopted the penname Ed McBain when
writing Cop Hater, the first novel in
the 87th Precinct crime series.
These were cop procedural mysteries starring a group of detectives
working the fictionalized city of Isola, based
on New York. Hunter would use many other pseudonyms in his
stellar career but none ever achieved the success he earned under the McBain
moniker and the more than fifty 87th novels he wrote.
I discovered the 87th Precinct mysteries while in
high school and immediately was mesmerized by the smooth flowing prose. There
was a fresh economy of words employed by McBain and he was a genius at
dialogue. Within a few short sentences,
he could capture a character’s entire persona thus setting the table quickly
and allowing his readers to enter his tales effortlessly. His plots were ingenious and fun and I became
an instant, lifelong fan. When he passed
away in 2005, I purpose held off reading his last 87th Precinct
book, published posthumously, because I simply hated the thought there would be
no others.
In the 1960s various publishers began reprinting many of his
earlier crime shorts and novels using the McBain by-line and now Hard Case
Crime is following suit. So Nude, So Dead, has the distinction of
being the first crime novel by Even Hunter published 1952 as The Evil Sleep. It was later reprinted in 1956 under its
current title and has been out of print since.
It tells the story of a gifted pianist named Ray Stone who falls prey to
drugs. One night, while on a heroin high, he falls asleep next to a beautiful
blond singer after they both shoot-up. He awakens the next morning to find her
dead beside him, having been shot several times during the night by an unknown
murderer.
Confused and dazed, Stone flees the scene and is immediately
tagged as the police’s number one suspect.
An All Points Bulletin is put out on him across the city. Normally any clear thinking person would immediately
turn themselves in to clear their name.
The problem is Stone hasn’t had a “fix” in over twenty-four hours and
his addiction is torturing him so that he is doing anything but thinking
clearly. Initially his first thought is
to find a dealer and get another shot but that plan quickly falls apart when he
realizes he is a wanted man and his own suppliers are afraid to get anywhere
near him. In his delusional state, Stone
desperately decides the only way to prove his innocence is to find the killer
and he begins investigating the dead girl’s associates, some already known to
him in the city’s close-knit music community.
All the while he has to keep evading the police manhunt
chasing after him. Then when one of the
people he questiones is also murdered, things go from bad to nightmarish. McBain paints a picture of a pathetic lost soul
in Ray Stone and does so vividly. He
never makes excuses for his protagonist’s fate but at the same time pulls us
into his grim narrative where the elusive possibility that there might be
redemption at the end of the story does exist.
So Nude, So Dead is a remarkable glimpse Ed McBain’s early efforts
and the evidence of his amazing talents is apparent throughout. If, like me, you are an avowed fan of this
master storyteller, you need to pick this up and at the same time thank Charles
Ardai of Hard Case Crime for resurrecting it.
