Sat 24 Jan 2026
ED McBAIN – Cinderella. Matthew Hope #6. Henry Holt & Co., hardcover, 1986. Mysterious Press, paperback, August 1987.
Matthew Hope’s sixth adventure, another perverse take-off of a children’s fairy tale. Here Cinderella is a prostitute who meets a crime kingpin at a ball and then vanishes, along with four keys of nearly pure cocaine.
McBain is master of dialogue – people really do talk this way – and he tells a compelling story. But along the way, I found that I was learning more about the narcotics and prostitution trade than I really wanted to know.
— Reprinted from Mystery.File.3, February 1988.
January 25th, 2026 at 11:10 pm
The Hope stories were come and go for me. Well written, but seldom compelling in the sense of 87th Precinct or the Evan Hunter novels.
January 26th, 2026 at 8:51 am
I share David’s opinion of the Matthew Hope novels. “Well written, but seldom compelling” pretty much sums it up.
January 26th, 2026 at 11:39 am
I’m in the same boat, to use a well-known and overused phrase. I may have read one other in the series but sadly I have never been compelled to read another.