I found the 87Th Precinct books early on and started reading them as I come across, making use of the local library system for a great many of them. I’m down to a half dozen to finish the fifty odd titles. HUSH! was one I found there and it featured the final appearance of The Deaf Man, a criminal that bedeviled the detectives in six novels. He never had a name other than The Deaf Man and planned meticulous crimes that Steve Carella and company had to decipher.
Here he sends a series of anagrams taunting the detectives. He may be behind a revenge shooting. Hints are dropped that he may not even be deaf. Using Shakespeare’s works to taunt them with riddles indicating his next crime, they test their literary skills as they interpret them.
By the end, The Deaf Man is still on the loose. He may or may not have planned to reurn to the character somewhere down the road.