Ax
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Eighty-six-year-old George Lasser was the superintendent of a building in the 87th Precinct until just recently. Unfortunately his tenure ended in the building’s basement with a sharp, heavy blade of an ax in his head…
There are no witnesses, no suspects, and no clues. The wife and son? They’re both a little off-kilter, but they have alibis. Just when Carella and Hawes are about to put the case on the shelf, the killer strikes again. Now the detectives are hot on the trail of a man crazy enough to murder with an ax.
One of the 87th Precinct series’ finest installments, Ax is a sharp, intense crime thriller that is classic Ed McBain. The New York Times hails it as “the best of today’s police stories—lively, inventive, convincing, suspenseful, and wholly satisfactory.”
Ed McBain
Ed McBain has been the recipient of the Grand Master Award of the Mystery Writers of America. His 87th Precinct novels are international bestsellers. He lives in Connecticut.
More audiobooks from Ed Mc Bain
Kiss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dangerous Women: Original Stories from Today's Greatest Suspense Writers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mischief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hark! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Downtown Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Ax
Titles in the series (42)
The Pusher Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mugger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cop Hater Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Give the Boys a Great Big Hand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer's Wedge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer's Choice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Con Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer's Payoff Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See Them Die Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5'Til Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Empty Hours Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady, Lady, I Did It! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King's Ransom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Heckler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Relatives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5He Who Hesitates Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eighty Million Eyes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tricks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sadie When She Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ten Plus One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ax Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jigsaw Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Long As You Both Shall Live Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shotgun Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bread Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related audiobooks
Lady Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer's Wedge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Empty Hours Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Heckler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Long Time No See Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kiss Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fat Ollie's Book: A Novel of the 87th Precinct Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tricks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eight Black Horses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sadie When She Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fatal Flaw Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Death Collectors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMad Dogs Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Seersucker Whipsaw Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jaguar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5He Who Hesitates Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hail to the Chief Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ten Plus One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See Them Die Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Relatives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jigsaw Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer's Payoff Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5'Til Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Give the Boys a Great Big Hand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pusher Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Calypso Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Police Procedural For You
Stone Maidens Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finders Keepers: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Mercedes: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5River Wild: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City on Fire: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cleaning the Gold: A Jack Reacher and Will Trent Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifth Suspect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And There He Kept Her Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unseen: A Will Trent Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fractured: A Will Trent Thriller Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Undone: A Will Trent Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fallen: A Will Trent Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5His & Hers: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whisper Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Pearl: A Cold Case Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Know Her: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summit Lake Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Random in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shadows: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grendel’s Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City of Dreams: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5YOU DID THIS Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Broken: A Will Trent Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Criminal: A Will Trent Thriller Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lying Next to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Policeman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Night Shift: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Right Behind You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Payback in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Ax
56 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A great series hits the doldrums. Short on plot and character development.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A very graphic and gruesome beginning. A man is found murdered with an ax buried in his skull. Hence the title. And the opening nastiness. “To tell the truth, it was all pretty goddamn gory.”A good story, with a quick pace and interesting characters! Carella and Hawes are the main detectives in this one, and they meet a lot of dead ends, no pun intended! By the way, what does rhyme with April?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The eighteenth installment of the 87th Precinct, AX is a straight-forward whodunit focusing on Carella and Cotton as they try to figure out why anyone would want to take an ax to an elderly janitor. Plenty of hostile interviews, dead ends, and much to Carella's chagrin, mothers. McBain's attention to the struggles and pitfalls of methodical police work is one of his strong points, and Ax is a perfect example of this.An interesting angle to this story is how investigating the murder of an individual can dredge up all kinds of past secrets, whether or not they eventually have anything to do with the crime, and how this can complicate an already difficult investigation.Danny the Gimp plays a role in this investigation (But why is he afraid of revolving doors?), and Carella appears to have finally disembarked from the emotional roller-coaster he was on for the last few novels.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Simple, bare bones detecting around a brutal crime with the most banal of motives. These books are mini masterpieces.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 18th entry in McBain's classic long-running police procedural series about the 87th Precinct, located in a fictional New York City. In this 1960s entry, our detectives are called to the basement of a tenement where the building superintendent has been found with an ax buried in his skull. It seems like an extreme crime against an 86-year-old man who is not known for vice, but the investigation turns up some oddities, like a schizophrenic wife and an agoraphobic grown son. The mystery deepens when the beat cop turns up dead in the same basement.This is a solid entry in the series. The central crime is interesting, the suspect list pleasingly varied, and the red herrings convincing. The reflexive assumption that the murder was committed by an oversized black man who happens to be on the scene is quashed early and easily, a rarity in books of this time period.Unlike other 87th books, there's not a lot of time spent with the detectives off duty, although Steve Carella's lovely wife Teddy makes a welcome appearance. One of the things I like about this series is that McBain gives us enough personal info on his detectives to make us care about them, but he's not a one-note writer. Some books we get a lot of personal exposition; some books hardly any. It keeps everything feeling fresh and unpredictable. And unlike some series where the characterization is stronger than the plotting, McBain generally has a good mix of the two.