Ed McBain: Money Money Money

By MICHELE HEWITSON

{Full title: Money Money Money: A novel of the 87th precinct}

Only a mother could love Fat Oliver Wendell Weeks, McBain's deliciously repulsive villain. Or maybe not even a mother. Fat Ollie hates everything, except food. "In fact, I like being fat," says Fat Ollie. "It means I eat good."

Fat Ollie might be a villain, but he's a villain with a badge.

Ollie has a very vivid interior life. Here he is interrogating a person of Spanish descent by the name of Escovar. "I'm trine to remember," Escovar said.

"Try speaking a little English," Ollie thought.

"She might have seemed disoriented," Carella said.

"She might have had an ice pick in her forehead," Ollie thought.

Carella hates Ollie but possibly not as much as Ollie hates Carella. Possibly.

Detective Steve Carella, of the 87th precinct, McBain's low-key hero and Fat Ollie's nemesis, would certainly rather not ever have anything to do with Ollie.

"Detective Steve Carella wished that one of the lions hadn't dragged the victim's left leg into the 88th Precinct. That was what brought Fat Ollie Weeks into the case."

Ollie wishes he wasn't there outside the lion's cage either, watching those lions munch on what is left of the female victim.

Wonderful dialogue, characters who, like Ollie, think PC stands for pie cart, and a slapstick plot that makes you laugh aloud. What more could you want? Oh, a couple of really gruesome murders. McBain provides those, too.

(Orion $21.95)