Ed McBain: So Long as You Both Shall Live (USA 2012)

From the Publisher:
Detective Bert Kling has had some rough luck with women. First his fiancée Cindy Townsend was gunned down in an infamous bookstore shooting. Then there was Cindy Forrest, who informed him one day that she was in love with a doctor at work -- and was gone. Now he's finally hit the jackpot. Kling just married the beautiful model Augusta Blair, and they are about to enjoy the first night of their marriage together... until bad luck catches him again.

When Kling gets out of the shower, Augusta is gone, leaving behind one shoe -- and cotton soaked in chloroform. Even harder than calling Detective Steve Carella with the news is standing on the sidelines while the rest of the men do all the work. But he'll have to -- or he'll never see her alive again.

A spine-tingling race against time as the detectives of the 87th do what they do best, So Long as You Both Shall Live is an extraordinary addition to the series, an Ed McBain masterpiece that marries taut police procedure with the personal stakes of a man who stands to lose everything -- again.

Ed McBain: So Long as You Both Shall Live. An 87th Precinct Novel. Thomas & Mercer / Amazon Publ., ISBN: 9781612181820 (March, 2012), 174 p., $13.95.

Ed McBain: So Long as You Both Shall Live (UK 1978)

From the Publisher:
Wedding bells on the Precinct on a bleak November Sunday. The photographer had never seen so many cops in his life. Not too suprising, considering that the bridegroom was Detective Kling leading his lovely Augusta to the altar.

But those off-duty cops weren't celebrating for long. No sooner was the reception over than Kling's bride was snatched from the honeymoon suite.

Every officer on the Precinct went to work on a kidnapping that had come too close to home. Checking out for vengeance alibis, searching the files, pumping informers, hitting the streets... while the men in the station house wait for kidnapper to make his next move...

Ed McBain: So Long as You Both Shall Live. An 87th Precinct Novel. Pan Books, ISBN: 0330254405 (August, 1978), 141 p., 60p.

Ed McBain: So Long as You Both Shall Live (USA 1976)

From the Publisher:
Detective Bert Kling was a very happy man. He had just married the very beautiful Augusta Blair, in an elegant ceremony with hundreds of their friends present; it was his wedding night; and Augusta was waiting for him now as soon as he got out of the shower. Smiling, he opened the door. She was gone.

Kling wasn't alarmed. He'd been warned at the reception. There was a quaint custom, he'd been told, of kidnapping the bride on her wedding night -- usually not from her honeymoon suite, but the boys of the 87th Precinct were professionals. You could expect them to be inventive.

And then he noticed her coat. It was still on the rack. And the shoe lying alone on its side. And the smell, the sickeningly sweet smell... of chloroform.

It was about that time that Kling got alarmed.

So Long as You Both Shall Live is a tour de force of suspense -- McBain at the top of his form as a master of psychological drama and the gritty world of police investigation. The 87th has sprung into action many times before, but there is a very personal edge to it when the victim is one of their own. Frantically, they work to find anyone in Kling's or Augusta's past who would be out to get revenge -- searching the files, hitting the streets, pumping informers. And meanwhile they wait -- for the call, the ransom note, anything to let them know what the kidnapper intends to do next.

And the hours go by... and then the days...

Ed McBain: So Long as You Both Shall Live. An 87th Precinct Mystery. New York: Random House, 1976, ISBN: 0394485831, 165 p., $6.95.