YMMV / 87th Precinct

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: A part of McBain's signature writing style. Characters regularly talk with random people about random subjects.
• Complete Monster: Arthur Haines, from Lightning, is a man who deeply resents his wife for not using any contraceptives. With two children he considers "mistakes", and a third on the way, Haines begins targeting pro-life women, ambushing and raping them in hopes of getting them pregnant so that they will be forced to undergo abortions. Haines stalks them, learning their routines and then visits them again and again, raping them multiple times so they are never able to feel safe, with at least nine to ten different victims, his last being the police officer Eileen, whom he mistakes for a victim he was already targeting. With zero remorse, Haines stands as one of the single most vile criminals ever encountered by the 87th.
• The Woobie: Bert Kling. Hoo, boy. To say he has bad luck with women is an understatement. One of his girlfriends, Claire, is shot dead in a book store. His wife Augusta is kidnapped on their wedding day, he later has a Heroic BSoD after catching Augusta in bed with another man, and his colleagues worry about him committing suicide. His relationships with Eileen and Sharyn don't work out either, the former due to Eileen's issues and the latter due to Kling not being able to trust her, which Sharyn thinks is due to her being black.
  • Eileen herself is one of the most sympathetic characters in the series. After suffering a horrific rape, she has a lot of psychological scars, which worsen after she poses as a prostitute in Tricks in order to catch a man who was killing prostitutes, and she loses it and shoots him dead.

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