Ed McBain: Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear (USA 2013)

From the Publisher:
Shot twice. Plummeted into cardiac arrest. Pulled from the depths of a nasty coma. Attorney Matthew Hope's had a rough few months. So when a slightly cross-eyed beauty brings him a cushy copyright infringement suit over a similarly cross-eyed teddy bear named Gladly, all signs point to an easy victory. But before Hope can sue, he gets sucked into another case. The charge: homicide. The main suspect: his lovely, cockeyed client, Lainie Commins.

With western Florida's opulent mansions rising above sunbaked squalor and yacht clubs only a step removed from a seedy, drug-and-sex-filled underbelly, unraveling Lainie's increasingly shady alibis won't be easy. But Hope has to figure out if she's just a plaintiff with an ocular defect or a beauty with deadeye aim.

Grand Master Award-winning author Ed McBain paints a crooked world where justice is elusive and telling the difference between the good and the murderous takes a keen eye.

Ed McBain: Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear. A Matthew Hope Mystery. Thomas & Mercer, ISBN: 9781477805756 (November, 2013), 330 p., $14.95.

Ed McBain: Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear (USA 1998)

From the Publisher:
THE BEAR TRUTH
She was a little bit askew. A little bit angry. And a little bit sexy. All in all, cross-eyed Lainie Commins had the right stuff to get Matthew Hope to take her case: a copyright infringement suit against toy company tycoons Etta and Brett Toland, whom Lainie claims have stolen her idea for a cuddly cross-eyed teddy bear named Gladly. But before Matthew Hope can sue, he gets another case. This one is homicide. And Lainie Commins has been charged.

In a world of fabulous wealth and sun-seared squalor, from the yachting types to the tooting types to the dangerous sexual games that Lainie played, Matthew Hope is trying to see one thing straight: is his client a beauty with a blemish -- or a killer whose gun-sight is twenty-twenty...

Ed McBain: Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear. A Matthew Hope Novel. Warner Books, ISBN: 0446604941 (July, 1998), 324 p., $6.50.

Ed McBain: Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear (USA 1996)

From the Publisher:
"Ed McBain is a master. He is a superior stylist, a spinner of artfully designed and sometimes macabre plots." -- Newsweek
GLADLY THE CROSS-EYED BEAR
What's cuddly, cute, and the object of a high-stakes court battle? It's Gladly, a cross-eyed teddy bear: the brainchild of slightly cross-eyed beauty Lainie Commins, Matthew Hope's client and the litigant in a trademark dispute with toy company tycoons Etta and Brett Toland. Hope, still recovering from a near-fatal shooting, is certain he can win this case-until someone murders one of the key players.

Suddenly Lainie is up for another trial, this time for homicide. While she vigorously denies any involve-ment in the shooting aboard the yacht Toy Boat, her story keeps changing, and the evidence against her mounts -- until Hope discovers that Lainie is not only a toy designer with a complaint but also a partici-pant in a most surprising sexual liaison.

While Hope is locked in a battle of nerves and legal wits, two of his closest associates have found their way into another of Florida's favorite people traps. Warren Chambers and Toots Kiley have entered the underworld of drug-smuggling violence from opposite ends and they can only escape together.

From Calusa's elegant saltwater canals to its sun-baked ghetto, Ed McBain has done for the west coast of Florida what he did for the 87th Precinct -- created a living, teeming, unforgettable world where justice gets done and undone, where some lives are shattered and others changed forever.

Ed McBain: Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear. A Novel. Warner Books, ISBN: 0446519898 (September, 1996), 326 p., $23.00.