A young woman is found hanging from a lamppost in a deserted area of the 87th Precinct. That same night, another woman is raped — for the third time in succession, by the same man each time. Not long after that, a second murder victim is found hanging from a lamppost in another part of the precinct. The murders are obviously linked. But how? And why are both murder victims female athletes and — more specifically — runners on the track teams of two different colleges? Why is someone, as it turns out, systematically raping different women twice, three times, sometimes four times in succession? Has the Deaf Man put in a return appearance, as the detectives of the 87th Precinct secretly suspect? Can Fat Ollie Weeks help the men of the 87th solve these crimes? Will Eileen Burke, working as a decoy for the Rape Squad, be forced into a confrontation that may change her life and her views about police work?

Lightning can strike twice — and sometimes even more often.

In his new 87th Precinct novel, Ed McBain once again shows how the patient, hard-working professionals with the golden shields cope with crime and killers, putting together the pieces of each difficult case with immense skill, intuition... and old-fashioned pounding of the streets... testing their expertise to the limit of endurance.

Here is an irresistibly charming tale, beautifully packaged in a small, illustrated and slipcased gift book. All’s quiet at the 87th Precinct on Christmas Eve... until Steve Carella’s fellow detectives appear with a kid who’s stolen a sheep, a robber with a bagful of gold, two guys fighting over a sack of frankincense, and a young couple who give birth to a baby boy at midnight!“And All Through the House” was first published in Playboy in December, 1984.

It's not a mystery, it's a story of survival and triumph. That's what some people say about Romance, a would-be hit play about an actress pursued by a knife-wielding stalker. But isn't it romantic! Before the show can open, the leading lady is really attacked, outside the theater. And before the detectives of the 87th can solve that crime, the same actress is stabbed again. This time for keeps. A.D.A. Nellie Brand moves in for a murder conviction, but Detective Steve Carella is sure she's got the wrong guy, and wrestles for the case with Fat Ollie Weeks, Isola's foulest cop. While Bert Kling interviews witnesses and suspects ranging from the show's producers to the author — who has written novels about cops and knows how it's done — to the lead's lovely understudy, he can't keep his mind off what's happening to him. He's falling in love. With a doctor. Who happens to be a deputy chief surgeon. Who happens to be a black woman. In the city of Isola, nothing is black and white. In the play Romance, no one is guilty or innocent. And in the gritty reality of the 87th Precinct, everyone is in love with something — even if it's only murder.