The city can be a strange place, full of odd sights. Sometimes chilling sights. But nothing could prepare the detectives of the 87th Precinct for the sight of a murdered young woman, a member of a local college track team, hanging from a lamppost. Nor could they be ready for the news that the same night, another woman is raped for the third time—by the same man. Two cases, two perpetrators, one chilling evening.

Can the detectives of the 87th, with help from Fat Ollie Weeks and Rape Squad Decoy Eileen Burke, put them behind bars for good? The team doesn’t have much time, because it only takes a moment for lightning to strike again.

One of Ed McBain’s grittiest installments of his famed 87th Precinct series, Lightning is a masterpiece of suspense, brooding intensity, and ingenious plotting that elevates crime fiction to its highest possible plane.