About the Author
The author of the enduring 87th Precinct series of police thrillers, "Ed McBain" is the pseudonym of Evan Hunter, who created an entire body of work under that name, as well. Born in New York in 1926 -- his name at birth was Salvatore Lombino -- Hunter served in the U.S. Navy in World War II and graduated from New York's Hunter College in 1950 a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Among his first jobs was teaching in a vocational high school. Though Hunter had published three novels in 1952-53, the teaching experience inspired his breakthrough success with The Blackboard Jungle (1954) and the beginning of a career as an important contemporary author.

The first of the more than thirty 87th Precinct novels, Cop Hater, was published in 1956, and it established a new standard in police fiction, observed to this day in television programs such as NYPD Blue. McBain's novels do not have a single hero but a squad room full of them who would come and go from novel to novel. The same villains often would reappear, as well. The city in which these books are set is anonymous, though it is clearly inspired by New York. Several of the novels have been made into films by a wide range of filmmakers. In addition to American adaptations, Akira Kurosawa's High and Low is based on an 87th Precinct novel (King's Ransom), as is French director Philippe Labro's 1972 film Without Apparent Motive, based on Ten Plus One. The fictional precinct also inspired its own TV series.

As McBain, Hunter writes in a tough, often funny manner, capturing the frustration and drudgery as well as the excitement and danger of big-city police work. Hunter has also written under a variety of pseudonyms. He has been regularly honored for his work, both as Evan Hunter and Ed McBain, and in 1986 the Mystery Writers of America awarded him its highest honor, the title of Grand Master.