Calypso Crimes

I love crime fiction at any time of the year, this is the genre I read the most, but maybe I read it even more from say May until August. While it is not exclusively my kind of summer genre, like many people, I make it my favored summertime read. Thus, I recently read Calypso by Ed McBain. It is of course part of the 87th Precinct series. I thought that, since it was at least partially about calypso singing, it would be fitting with hot summer days... It turned out that it is set in September and rains falls heavily on Isola. Fittingly and ironically enough, just like it is rainy here. So I picked up the right book for the time after all. As for the story itself, it is one of the darkest I have read of McBain so far. Without giving too much of the plot a calypso singer gets murdered, then a prostitute, then some more, there is torture, sex and violence of all sorts. I finished the book in shock. I am not sure if it is McBain's best, but it is certainly up there among his most accomplished novels.