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.