Lullaby - Entertaining and fast paced as most of Ed McBain's books are. This one follows Carella and Meyers as they try to solve the murder of a baby and a fifteen-year-old babysitter on New Year's Day while Bert Kling - temporarily separated from his partner, Eileen - gets caught up in investigating a drug deal involving almost every gang in the city. The usual witty dialog and humor carries the story to a satisfying conclusion. Vespers - Not my favorite 87th Precinct story. This one is about a Catholic priest who has lost his way and is murdered for it. Also, just blocks away a church that worships the devil is operating and there is way too much detail about their dark masses for my taste. Lots of sex and overall disregard for anything else but sex. While Carella investigates the priest's murder, he reminisces about his childhood experiences with the church and realizes the reasons he no attends. The other plot is about Detective Willis who loses Marilyn to two bad hombres that have finally tracked her down. There's a lot of underage sex and violence in this one...a bit too much for me. Widows - A young girl is brutally stabbed, another man (and his dog) is shot, and yet another man is murdered when a robbery goes wrong. In other words, it's just another summer of murder and mayhem in the city. Unfortunately, one of the murders touches Detective Steve Carella personally when he finds the robbery took place at his father's bakery and now his mother is a widow. As Carella struggles with his lose and tries to work on the never-ending crimes assaulting the city, Eileen and Bert finally decide to split up after working on their issues and Eileen finds fulfillment in her new career as a hostage negotiator...even though her latest hostage gets blown away. It's all in a day's work for the city's finest. As always, good job Mr. McBain. ( )

In "Lullaby" a six month old baby and her 16 year old babysitter are killed on New Year's Eve, and the detectives have to figure out which of the victims was the target in order to zero on in on the killer. At first it seems like the sitter, since who would want to kill a little baby? But then they learn the baby was adopted, and the biological mother is murdered all the way across the country in Seattle. Kling gets tied up in a big drug deal about to go down, and Eileen starts seeing a psychologist to deal with the rape and later killing of a rapist suspect while on the job.
In "Vespers" a priest is murdered at his church, four blocks away from a Satan worshipping cult which ends up being tied into it in a very unexpected way. Detective Hal Willis (who I always kinda felt sorry for) is going through a personal crisis: his girlfriend, Marilyn, who was a prostitute in a former life and murdered her pimp to escape the life, stealing $2 million from him in the process, is being harassed by his cousin, who wants the money back. Marilyn doesn't completely confide in Hal, like a fool, she tries to protect him from any potential damage to his career. If I had a boyfriend who was a cop and some guys were coming after me, I would get a twenty-four hour guard on me. Well, I felt sorry for Marilyn, too. And the whole mystery of who killed the priest was great.
In "Widows" Carella's father is killed in a burglary at his bakery, the 87th is dealing with a bunch of murders involving a man and his many mistresses and wives, plus Eileen Burke is making the transition from being a decoy to a hostage negotiator. Meaty stuff. I loved the little inside joke about the house being bought by the "Bordens" and then the floor plan being the same as Lizzie Borden's house back in 1892. Around the same time McBain wrote this book, he also wrote a fictionalized account of Lizzie Borden and the murder of her stepmother and father of which she was acquitted. I wonder how many people picked up on his little funny. Very clever. ( )