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Ed McBain

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Goldilocks (A Matthew Hope Mystery Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Ed McBain (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.9 768 ratings

Book 1 of 13: Matthew Hope Mysteries

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Goldilocks, the other woman. She didn’t have to be a blonde. She could have had hair as black as midnight, eyes as pale as alabaster. But she’d always be Goldilocks, stealing into your home, taking what she wanted as her own.

Jamie Purchase enters his home late one night to find the bloodless bodies of his wife and two daughters. It was no secret Jamie’s ex, Betty, hated the new wife—Goldilocks, she’d called her, and the name stuck. But could Betty hate Jamie’s new family enough to slaughter them? Lawyer Matthew Hope can believe it. He’s seen his fair share of heartache and deception, but he knows better than most that Goldilocks only wanders in when you’ve left the door wide open. And when that happens, everyone’s to blame. Now Hope must immerse himself in a family drama too close to home in order to find a cold-blooded killer.

From the thrilling Matthew Hope series, Ed McBain’s Goldilocks tests black-and-white morals and finds we’re all a little platinum blonde.

Book 1 of 13

Matthew Hope Mysteries
Print length

230 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Thomas & Mercer
Publication date

October 23, 2012
File size

2095 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born in New York, Evan Hunter (1926–2005) wrote the screen play for Hitchcock’s The Birds in 1963. He received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and is one of three American writers to be awarded the Diamond Dagger for a lifetime of achievement by the British Crime Writers Association.

Under the name Ed McBain, he authored the sprawling 87th Precinct series—the longest, most varied crime series in the world—which includes fifty-five novels about a fictional team of policemen, and thirteen novels in the Matthew Hope series featuring an up-and-coming lawyer in the Florida Gulf Coast. Known for tackling controversial content with a thoughtful eye, he is the author of over eighty novels.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0055UZPU0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thomas & Mercer (October 23, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 23, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2095 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 230 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #113,819 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #641 in Hard-Boiled Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #2,589 in Police Procedurals (Kindle Store)
- #3,299 in Police Procedurals (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 768 ratings

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Ed McBain

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Ed McBain was one of the many pen names of the successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926 – 2005). Born Salvatore Lambino in New York, McBain served aboard a destroyer in the US Navy during World War II and then earned a degree from Hunter College in English and Psychology. After a short stint teaching in a high school, McBain went to work for a literary agency in New York, working with authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and P.G. Wodehouse all the while working on his own writing on nights and weekends. He had his first breakthrough in 1954 with the novel The Blackboard Jungle, which was published under his newly legal name Evan Hunter and based on his time teaching in the Bronx.

Perhaps his most popular work, the 87th Precinct series (released mainly under the name Ed McBain) is one of the longest running crime series ever published, debuting in 1956 with Cop Hater and featuring over fifty novels. The series is set in a fictional locale called Isola and features a wide cast of detectives including the prevalent Detective Steve Carella.

McBain was also known as a screenwriter. Most famously he adapted a short story from Daphne Du Maurier into the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). In addition to writing for the silver screen, he wrote for many television series, including Columbo and the NBC series 87th Precinct (1961-1962), based on his popular novels.

McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. He passed away in 2005 in his home in Connecticut after a battle with larynx cancer.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

768 global ratings

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Ansonia

Captivating, Understated, Believable and Profound

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2022

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The story takes place in the 1970’s when, somehow, we had gotten the idea that the most important love in marriage is romantic love. McBain’s short novel illustrates just how mistaken that idea is, and how destructive adultery is.
I read the negative reviews of Goldilocks before, on a hunch in spite of them, I bought and read the book. I have never been so puzzled by reviewers complaints that they don’t like, or sympathize with characters. First of all, you like and sympathize with the following characters: Matthew Hope’s 12-year-old daughter, his dying mother in law presented to you through Matthew Hope’s memory of her, a 17-year-old girl and her boyfriend shacked up on a boat, a house cat named Sebastian. You like and admire a police detective with the slight southern accent, and the gruff man who works at the place where a boat is docked. You don’t like the other characters. But then, you’re not meant to. The writer didn’t like them either.
I thought all the characters were very real. The novel perfectly depicts the horrific selfishness and deceit of “uninhibited” people acting out in the 1970’s the “new morality” of the 1960’s “Sexual Revolution”.

2 people found this helpful

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ron hughes

this a good old book by a good old author

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2023

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this product is a book. it is to read, what a stupid question. i hVEN'T READ IT YET BUT I HAVE READ Many of the books written by ed mcbain and have many in my library. all are worth reading.

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David A. Freas

Doesn't have what makes Ed McBain novels so good.

Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2015

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This was the first Ed McBain book I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a ton of them!) that didn’t engage me the way the others did. Somewhere along the way, it lost whatever makes Ed McBain novels so good.

This is the first book in the Matthew Hope series, so readers (at least experienced ones) expect first novels to be a little rough around the edges as the author develops his primary characters. But this book, written 25 years after McBain’s first published novel, should have been much more polished than it was.

The book seemed as much about Matthew Hope’s private life as it was about the crime he was looking into, so it seemed more like ‘stage setting’ for the later books in the series than a bona-fide first entry. And Matthew didn’t so much solve the crime as have the solution fall into his lap.

Still, an okay Ed McBain book is better than many other writers’ best books.

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Fourlocks

Goldilocks Is More Like Mirror, Mirror But HOPEful

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2016

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Rereading this first Matthew Hope novel I feel that Evan Hunter (Ed McBain) had yet to finalize his format or his formula for this series, which is radically different from the 87th Precinct Series of police procedurals. I don't believe this is one of Mr. McBain's worst but it is definitely not among his absolute best. My biggest complaint about the novel, which deals primarily with fidelity, is that while illustrating the parallels between Jamie Purchase's and Matthew Hope's lives it neglects the case itself, the plot of the novel. To me this is regrettable since nobody writes legwork and casework like Ed McBain. That is what makes the 87th Precinct Series so great. Since this is also written by Mr. Hunter (McBain) I consider it a shame that this should suffer because the author is trying a different tack. Yes, there are plot twists and red herrings included, but even the ending is sudden and almost unresolved. The bright spot is knowing that in the subsequent novels Mr. Hunter corrects this oversight and manages to reincorporate the elements in which he excels so well and yet creates a completely different voice, tone and world for Matthew Hope to complement the 87th Precinct.

One person found this helpful

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Jim Jaqua

A fairy tale, after all.

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2020

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This is a story of passion, or maybe just a bit of excitement, whatever... A bit of suspenseful plotting here. It will hold your attention as you strive to find the guilty party, or parties. Expect a few surprises along the way as the puzzling plot progresses.

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2021

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The mystery is good enough to be interesting but Hope's romantic troubles are boring and intrusive. This book is as much a soap opera as a mystery.

2 people found this helpful

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Rev. Jason Reed

Ok

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2021

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I read this series decades ago. I guess I remembered them more fondly over time, or I'm a more discerning reader now.

Did the author have marriage issues when he wrote this story? I liked the main story, even if it was predictable. The side story on the other hand...

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CherrieB

If it's Ed McBain ....

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2014

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... you KNOW it's gonna be good. And Goldilocks is no exception. Great story line, interesting characters, Ed ALWAYS does it right. You can't go wrong with this one.

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K Muir

Interesting story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 22, 2017

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Enjoyed reading the book but definitely a strange ending. This is the first Matthew Hope book I have read, will read another and hope for a better ending.

Chris Rowe

Four Stars

Reviewed in Australia on April 18, 2016

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another good read

Peter B

"Ed! Dinner's on the table!"

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2015

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Great story, but very weak ending. It felt like tea had been served and it needed wrapping up in the next five minutes! Shame, as a lot of great potential lost I felt!

Sukhster

Great First Matthew Hope Mystery

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2013

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It was a shame to hear about Ed McBain's death a couple of years ago. However, his legend lives on with the large book collection that he left behind.

Matthew Hope was his attempt to do something different from the 87th Precinct mystery stories. This was the first, and introduced Mathew Hope, so that his character/ life can be expanded over the forthcoming mysteries.

Read this, and you will be hooked on the rest of them !

Pamela

Goldilocks

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 24, 2014

Verified Purchase

Rather strange and confusing ending. Good story concept. Out dated ideas about police procedure, exact records of phone calls would have been obtained to prove when calls were made and to which numbers. Forensic evidence could have proved who murderer was.

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Goldilocks (A Matthew Hope Mystery Book 1) Kindle Edition

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