Evan Hunter

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Evan Hunter (1926–2005) was one of the best-loved mystery novelists of the twentieth century. Born Salvatore Lambino in New York City, he served in the US Navy during World War II and briefly worked as a teacher after graduating from Hunter College. The experience provided the inspiration for his debut novel, The Blackboard Jungle (1954), which was published under his new legal name and adapted into an Academy Award–nominated film starring Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier. Cop Hater (1956), the first entry in the 87th Precinct series, was written under the pen name Ed McBain. The long-running series, which followed an ensemble cast of police officers in the fictional city of Isola, is widely credited with inventing the police procedural genre. As a screenwriter, Hunter adapted a Daphne du Maurier short story into the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and turned his own bestselling novel, Strangers When We Meet (1958), into the script for a film starring Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak. His other novels include the New York Times bestseller Mothers and Daughters (1961), Buddwing (1964), Last Summer (1968), and Come Winter (1973). Among his many honors, Hunter was named a Grand Master 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.