Books
May, 1984
Ed McBain's new Matthew Hope mystery, Jack and the Beanstalk (Holt, Rinehart & Winston), finds the likable Florida lawyer entangled with two gorgeous women who drop by to swim nude in his pool, as well as with some cattle rustling, a mysterious parentage or two and the unworthiest villain of the year. There's a big plot twist every 50 pages or so, but the tale's resolution, straight and flat as a Florida highway, is a letdown. McBain tries to mix old-fashioned, hard-boiled detection and quichy m...
