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The Telegraph (08/Jul/2005) - Obituary: Ed McBain

(c) Telegraph (08/Jul/2005)

Ed McBain

Salvatore Lombino, who died on Wednesday aged 79, was a prolific American thriller writer best known under the pseudonyms Evan Hunter and Ed McBain, which was his personal preference.

He was the author of more than 100 novels, plays and screenplays, the most famous of which was the "87th Precinct" series. In the latter he created a new class of detective fiction, the "police procedural", which brought a gritty new realism to the genre.

This was based around investigation by a squad of officers as opposed to Raymond Chandler's hardboiled gumshoe or the English model of a lone sleuth. As he correctly observed, "When you discover your wife slaughtered in the bathroom, it's the cops you turn to, not some little old lady who finds corpses in the petunias."

There were more than 50 "Precinct" novels, forming crime's longest ever series. They were set in Isola, a city clearly based on New York. Although they had no central hero, the viewpoint was often that of Detective Steve Carella, who, like McBain, was of Italian descent and the father of twins.

The novels' distinction lay in their observation of modern, piecemeal investigative technique. McBain was the first to note the attraction for readers of professional terminology, now the trademark of all thriller writers. He spent much time walking the beat with officers, and often reproduced affidavits or charge sheets in the text. The resulting tone was bleak, a portrait of urban deprivation and violence that showed what he called "cops as real people". The pace was fast and driven by crisp dialogue; the style distinguished by its easy handling of several storylines and a certain ironic humour. Their brevity and liberal compassion often led to comparisons with Simenon.

Despite being so prolific, Hunter never descended to formula. Instead, as he grew in confidence, patterns emerged and characters recurred, notably a Jewish detective, Meyer Meyer, and the villainous Deaf Man. If evil was frustrated, it was often by chance. "I believe", wrote Hunter, "in the long arm of coincidence."

Few of the individual books were outright classics. The first was Cop Hater (1956). Among the best that followed were Killer's Wedge (1961), He Who Hesitates (1965), Jigsaw (1970) and Vespers (1990). McBain intended to write one beginning with each letter of the alphabet, with the last two (posthumous) publications to be called Exit and Put Them All Together and They Spell Mother.

The "Precinct" novels were both influential and imitated, particularly by television. Hunter rightly fumed at the wholesale theft of his patent by Hill Street Blues, whose multi-stranded storylines and humane detectives set new standards in police drama but never acknowledged its own inspiration.

Proud and pugnacious, he paid little attention to television or even rival writers thereafter. "I feel there is no other writer of police procedurals in the world from whom I can learn anything; in fact, they all learn a lot from me. There was no point in reading the competition, he would say. "That's like Michelangelo watching an apprentice paint in the white of an eye." His peers did not disagree. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him its Grand Master award for lifetime achievement in 1986, and he became the first American to receive a Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association in 1998.

The son of a postman, Salvatore Lombino was born at East Harlem, New York, on October 15, 1926. His parents were second-generation Italian immigrants and he grew up in the Bronx, retaining its rasping accent. He displayed artistic talent from a young age, and went to Cooper Union Art School. His studies were interrupted between 1944 and 1946, when he served in the US Navy rather than the Army in Italy because he feared that he would be seen as traitor by the locals.

Lombino began to write while serving in a destroyer in the Pacific, and on his return majored in English at New York's Hunter College. Believing there to be prejudice against writers with Italian names, he changed his name to Evan Hunter.

His first job was teaching English at two tough schools in New York. "I really wanted to teach those little bastards," he later reflected, "and they just didn't want to learn".

Hunter then sold lobsters to restaurants by telephone before joining the Scott Meredith literary agency as an editor in 1952. One of his authors was PG Wodehouse, with whom he became friendly, partly because they shared a birthday. In 1971 Wodehouse sent his then former agent a 45th birthday telegram declaring: "Today I am twice your age, but you remain twice the writer I am". When asked his opinion of Wodehouse, McBain invariably used his highest term of respect - "He was a pro".

Hunter's position at the agency enabled him to begin placing his own work. Writing under such pseudonyms as Curt Cannon and Richard Marsten, he produced a wide variety of magazine stories, ranging from Westerns to science fiction. It provided some hard but good training, and he had written more than 100 stories by the time he published his first novel, The Blackboard Jungle, in 1954. This drew on his teaching experiences, and showed the concern with urban social problems that was also to mark his "87th Precinct" novels. Already evident were his tolerance, humanity, patient research and sharp ear for conversation.

The book sold steadily, but it was the 1956 film with Sidney Poitier that made Hunter's name. The opening credits reverberated to the novel sound of Bill Haley's number Rock Around the Clock.

Hunter was encouraged to continue writing; but rather than become a spokesman for youth he began to experiment with the McBain pseudonym. While continuing to publish in later years as Hunter, to which he formally changed his name, he regarded Hunter as a slightly stiff literary figure, whereas McBain gave him more freedom and fun; and it was into this identity that he put his true energy.

As Hunter he wrote several screenplays, including an adaptation of his own Strangers When We Meet (1959) and for Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds (1962). He credited the director with teaching him the rules of suspense writing and audience manipulation, but felt that Hitchcock was too keen on "artsy" effects; and when McBain was asked to produce a script for Marnie he gave up before the film was completed.

He also wrote a play that was staged in London in 1965, The Easter Man, which starred Ian McShane, but this was not a success; he liked to pretend a heatwave had kept people away.

McBain began a second series of novels in 1977, featuring Florida lawyer Matthew Hope. Each title was that of a nursery tale and included Goldilocks (1977), Three Blind Mice (1990) and Mary, Mary (1992).

Though different in style from the "Precinct" stories, and more than competent as thrillers, his heart was never fully in them. Their prosperous settings perhaps acknowledged his own changed financial circumstances. McBain complained that they took too long to research, and he often used them to keep his skills honed. In There Was A Little Girl (1994), Hope is shot and falls into a coma in the first paragraph; this was partly to test his ability to keep the story alive and partly because it gave him the option of killing off his hero.

McBain had few vices beyond cigarettes, women and staying at Claridge's. A remorselessly disciplined writer, he wrote for eight hours a day at his Connecticut home, invariably producing 10 pages of taut copy. Modelling his style on Hemingway, he claimed to have no set rules, except to start with a corpse and to have tension in each scene. Looking back, he said: "I don't know what I would do if wrote autobiographical novels like Mailer, Roth and Updike. It was all right when they were young. But now their books reflect the views of cranky old men, and they're a pain in the ass."

He died of throat cancer two months after publishing Let's Talk, an account of his illness and recovery from an operation.

Sal Lombino married, in 1949, Anita Melnick with whom he had three sons. He married, secondly, Mary Vann Finley and then Dragica Dimitrijevic.

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