Publisher's Weekly
MWA Grand Master McBain scores again with the story of a hellish Halloween in the famous 87th Precinct. Detectives Hawes and Brown get reports of a dismembered corpse that sexy Marie Sebastiani identifies as her husband, magician Sebastian the Great. Meanwhile, detectives Carella and Meyer go after a gang of children whose tricks are killing and robbing liquor-store owners. In another part of the jungle, Eileen Burke poses as a hooker to decoy the city's serial killer, and loses her backup team. The night runs its dreadful course as the kids shoot Carella and Meyer and ends, ironically, with goof-off detective Andy Parker winning credit for a spectacular coup. McBain's machine-gun dialogue and authentic atmosphere keep the reader in screaming suspense throughout the narrative, guaranteeing that this will be a bestseller, like its 40 predecessors. (October 28)

Library Journal
All the cops from the 87th precinct are featured in Tricks , the 39th novel in this series that began in 1956 with Cop Hater. This new book, a multi-crime Halloween story, involves pieces of a man's body found all over the city; a gang of ''children'' robbing liquor stores and killing the owners; Genero facing sudden death and coming away a hero; Eileen Burke confronting the demons that have been chasing her since she was raped and almost murdered; and more. Women, always major players in McBain's novels, are treated with courtesy and depth of understanding in this utterly fascinating, sometimes shocking, crime story by the undisputed master of the police procedural. JV

Genre: Mystery