All of the dozens of the novels in the 87th Precinct police series deal in varying ways with urban social problems, and as American society has changed, McBain has shifted the social focus of the books.

The latest, Nocturne, is no exception. We find in his fictional Isola a microcosm of present-day New York City with its fluctuating ethnic mix, big-city environment, and ever-present crime. McBain is a writer of such skill that he routinely folds the weather, the setting, and the racial characters into the narrative in ways that far exceed the usual background use of such elements in crime fiction. The bone-chilling cold of a January day in the city is never just a throw-away bit of fictional detail, because the weather is always of central importance in the 87th Precinct books and often substantially shapes the narrative. The same can be said for...