Evan Hunter (born Salvatore Albert Lombino; October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005) was an American author of crime and mystery fiction.

He is best known as the author of 87th Precinct novels, published under the pen name Ed McBain, which are considered staples of police procedural genre.

His other notable works include The Blackboard Jungle, a semi-autobiographical novel about life in a troubled inner-city school, which was adapted into a hit 1955 film of the same name.

He also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds, based on the Daphne du Maurier short story.

After the war, Lombino returned to New York and attended Hunter College, where he majored in English and psychology, with minors in dramatics and education, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1950.

[3] While looking to start a career as a writer, Lombino took a variety of jobs, including 17 days as a teacher at Bronx Vocational High School in September 1950.

In 1951, Lombino took a job as an executive editor for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, working with authors such as Poul Anderson, Arthur C. Clarke, Lester del Rey, Richard S. Prather, and P.G.

As Evan Hunter, he gained notice with his novel The Blackboard Jungle (1954) dealing with juvenile crime and the New York City public school system.

He wrote the screenplay for the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds (1963), loosely adapted from Daphne du Maurier's eponymous 1952 novelette.

Following The Birds, Hunter was again hired by Hitchcock to complete an in-progress script adapting Winston Graham's novel Marnie.

The two-part novel opened in Hunter's psychologically based narrative voice before switching to McBain's customary police procedural style.

[6] Hunter was long rumored to have written an unknown number of pornographic novels, as Dean Hudson, for William Hamling's publishing houses.

Ninety-three novels were published under the Hudson name from 1961 to 1969, and even the most avid proponents of the Hunter-as-Hudson theory do not believe Hunter is responsible for all 93.