In 2006 Ed McBain (Evan Hunter) was given the Gumshoe Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Written by Fiona Walker
Known to most readers by the pseudonym Ed McBain, Evan Hunter was a true giant among crime writers, the author who all but created the genre of the police procedural. His death in 2005 may have deprived the world of one of the 20th century’s finest literary talents, but his multitude of works will live in perpetuity.
Born Salvatore Lombino in Manhattan in 1926, the man who would become Hunter served in the Navy from 1944-1946 and attended Hunter College on his return. After a series of jobs which included teaching and working for a literary agent, he legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in 1952, the year his first novel was published. Four years later, he published Cop Hater under the pseudonym Ed McBain, the first book in the series that would be his greatest triumph.
Featuring the policemen (and women) of New York City’s 87th Precinct, the series was a new concept in crime fiction: a series without any one hero, whose protagonist was not one person, but rather a group of men and women who would change and shift as the books went along. (Despite that, it’s clear that Steve Carella is, if not the singular hero, then at least the figurehead of the series.)
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 87th Precinct series, which numbers fifty-five novels and several short stories. Throughout it, McBain chronicled not only the lives of a hugely likeable, dogged bunch of policemen, but the social evolution of a city, and through that an entire country.
McBain’s portrayal of the legwork of policing, forensic techniques and investigative procedures was groundbreaking. The series serves as a history of the shifts in policing methods, science and technique over the past half-century. It is this meticulous and compelling work that won him acclaim as the master of the police procedural.
Although the 87th Precinct series brought Hunter the most acclaim, he was celebrated in other areas as well. Under the McBain pseudonym, he also penned the Matthew Hope novels and the “Women in Jeopardy” thriller series. Under the name Evan Hunter, he published numerous literary novels and short stories, and wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” along with several other films and teleplays.
Hunter was reportedly rankled at not being taken more seriously by the literary world, never quite getting the accolades he deserved, but his popularity and sizable fan-base are proof that he was a hit where it mattered most: with the reading public. Hunter considered it his job to entertain, and this he did, more than most writers could ever hope to do.
Hunter also won the respect and acclaim of his peers, winning both the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger, making him the first American writer to be awarded the latter.
It will come as no surprise if, in years to come, the crime fiction world is still reading Hunter (and McBain). His huge body of work deserves to stand the test of time, and will almost certainly do so.
Evan Hunter passed away in 2005, but his books will remain with us forever, a testament to an outstanding talent and much-loved man. The crime fiction community will always be poorer without him.
Posted by David J. Montgomery in Awards | Permalink
