Ed McBain’s Jigsaw - Episode 24, Bonus: Bald At Home

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Bonus Episode.

We follow up our examination of the twenty-fourth 87th Precinct book with our usual run-down of the original editions as released in the US and UK and then we turn our attention to the important business of 'Casting The Eight-Seven' - this time we look at the listener suggestions for who could play Lieutenant Peter Byrnes. For the next episode we'd like you to get thinking about who you'd cast as the star of Jigsaw - Detective Arthur Brown.

Remember to check our Instagram and other social feeds to find the images of book covers and the like to illustrate what we're talking about in these episodes. Fare Thee Well!

Ed McBain's Jigsaw - Episode 24: Lascivious Scares

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct Podcast.

Well, we've done it everyone - we've made it to the Seventies and the first book of that decade is JIGSAW - Detective Arthur Brown is on a quest to locate all the pieces of a sliced-up photograph and ends up with a pile of dead bodies along the way, as well as the loss of his trousers.

A tricky tale to read with modern eyes in parts, thrill to the amazing sound of three polite, liberal men stumbling around issues of race, sexuality and sex as expressed by McBain through the author's voice and the voice of the characters. There are big social issues at play and it's interesting to see how effective the book is/isn't at handling them from today's perspective.

Along the way we explore the stuff going on in 1970, the adaptations of the story (Hello Lt. Columbo!) and find out about some fantastic real-world 'easter eggs' McBain slipped into the book. Hope you enjoy this - bonus episode soon! Please RATE and REVIEW and SHARE wherever and whenever you can. 

See you soon for "Hail, Hail The Gang's All Here". Fare thee well.