Fat Ollie Weeks fancies himself a writer along the lines of Joseph Wambaugh that has written a sure fire bestseller. That it’s not very long shows that our boy doesn’t really understand. When his “book” is stolen from his car, he turns the city upside down frantically looking for it. You see, it’s his only copy(these were the days when carbon copies ruled).
The crook thinks it’s a report on a hidden cache of gems and starts looking for them. When no street names or businesses match up, he presumes it’s code and tries to break it.
While Ollie is trying to find his bestseller, the 87th is stuck working real crimes. The fun is watching Ollie’s single-minded hunt for the thief.
Not The Baseball Pitcher 
This sound alike great fun – not read this one yet but I hope to get to it sometime next year
This one does sound fun.
This was an enjoyable read, as are nearly all of the 87th Precinct novels. The “excerpts” from Ollie’s manuscript are often hilarious, especially those passages dealing with grammatical uncertainties.
Fat Ollie is such an incredible jerk and such a great detective. I liked how Hunter/McBain had Weeks getting a Latino girlfriend in later novels.
Ergan’s comments reminds me of those weird digressions within Ollie’s manuscript.
I dismissed Fat Ollie at first, but McBain made him a very good detective. I enjoyed the evolution of his character.
Sounds like a lot fun, Randy.