Jay Bennett (December 24, 1912 - June 27, 2009) was an American author and two-time winner of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

He was born to Jewish parents, Pincus Shapiro, an immigrant from Czarist Russia, and Estelle Bennett, a second-generation American who was a native of New York City.

[4][5] During radio's Golden Age, he wrote scripts for Grand Central Station, Bulldog Drummond, The Falcon, The Kate Smith Show, Manhattan at Midnight, and Mystery Theater.

[3][4][9] No Hiding Place, a three-act play, was produced by Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop of the New School at Broadway's President Theatre (1946).

In the early days of television, Bennett authored scripts for Monodrama Theater (DuMont, 1952–1953), Harlem Detective (WOR-TV NYC, 1953), Crime Syndicated (CBS, 1951), Cameo Theatre (NBC, 1950–1955), High Tension (WOR, 1953), I-Spy (Syndicated, 1956), Wide Wide World (NBC, 1956), Good Morning (with Will Rogers, Jr.) (CBS, 1957), and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1957), among other shows.

Also of note from this period was Mono-Drama Theatre, which began as a daytime series on the DuMont Television Network's New York outlet, WABD-TV, and was later moved to a night-time slot.

Due to the mini-series format, the modern adaptation, and the day-time audience which, in those days, consisted mostly of housewives, the show was considered by some as Shakespearean soap opera.

The New York Times TV critic Jack Gould called it "A highly novel theatrical experiment ..." and "... an immensely interesting show", while the Brooklyn Eagle described it as a "... daring experiment in presenting classics in modern dress ..."[15][20] The show was successful enough that the entire two-week mini-series was reprised in the new night-time slot.

Subsequent Mono-Drama classical adaptations included The Tell-Tale Heart, Jane Eyre, Silas Marner, and The Taming of the Shrew.

[21][22][23][24] Later in 1953, the show moved to New York's WOR-TV as a half-hour offering, where it took the name High Tension, and continued to present classics adapted by Bennett.

"[26] Bennett's young-adult novels were particularly well-regarded because they dealt with such timely topics as teenage suicide (Dark Corridor, Fawcett), drunken driving (Coverup, Franklin Watts), and racial prejudice (Skinhead, Franklin Watts); generally posed significant ethical dilemmas; were fast-paced; and were easy to read.

[30] Novels for Adults Catacombs (Abelard-Schuman, 1959); Murder Money (Crest, 1963); Death is a Silent Room (Abelard-Schuman, 1965) Novels for Young Adults Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Meredith Press, 1968); The Deadly Gift (Meredith Press, 1969); Masks: A Love Story (Franklin Watts, 1972); The Killing Tree (Franklin Watts, 1972); Shadows Offstage (Nelson, 1974); The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press, 1973); The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press, 1974); Say Hello to the Hit Man (Delacorte Press, 1976); The Birthday Murderer (Delacorte Press, 1977); The Pigeon (Methuen, 1980); The Executioner (Avon, 1982); Slowly, Slowly, I Raise the Gun (Avon, 1983); I Never Said I Loved You (Avon, 1984); The Death Ticket (Avon, 1985); To Be a Killer (Scholastic, 1985); The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts, 1986); The Haunted One (Fawcett, 1989); Sing Me a Death Song (Franklin Watts, 1990); Dark Corridor (Fawcett, 1990); Skinhead (Franklin Watts, 1991); Coverup (Franklin Watts, 1991); Death Grip (Fawcett, 1993); The Hooded Man (Fawcett, 1993) Short Stories for Young Adults The Most Dishonest Thing.