Even the wicked [Hardcover]

Ed (Richard MARSTEN) McBAIN (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Severn House; 1st Ed. edition (1979)
• ASIN: B000J2SPWO
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Ed McBain was one of the many pen names of the successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926 - 2005). Born Salvatore Lambino in New York, McBain served aboard a destroyer in the US Navy during World War II and then earned a degree from Hunter College in English and Psychology. After a short stint teaching in a high school, McBain went to work for a literary agency in New York, working with authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and P.G. Wodehouse all the while working on his own writing on nights and weekends. He had his first breakthrough in 1954 with the novel The Blackboard Jungle, which was published under his newly legal name Evan Hunter and based on his time teaching in the Bronx.

Perhaps his most popular work, the 87th Precinct series (released mainly under the name Ed McBain) is one of the longest running crime series ever published, debuting in 1956 with Cop Hater and featuring over fifty novels. The series is set in a fictional locale called Isola and features a wide cast of detectives including the prevalent Detective Steve Carella.

McBain was also known as a screenwriter. Most famously he adapted a short story from Daphne Du Maurier into the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). In addition to writing for the silver screen, he wrote for many television series, including Columbo and the NBC series 87th Precinct (1961-1962), based on his popular novels.

McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. He passed away in 2005 in his home in Connecticut after a battle with larynx cancer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great early Vineyard atmosphere, May 22, 2002

By 

Kenneth French (Montclair, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Even the Wicked (Paperback)

This book was written in the mid-50s and takes place, for the most part, on Martha's Vineyard. A tightly written crime novel, it is interesting for its Vineyard scenery at a time years before the island was the tourist mecca that it is now. A lot of fun for those familiar with the place today. There's a lot more to McBain than the 87th Precinct books.

4.0 out of 5 stars Taut tart tale by a master pro, February 15, 2002

By 

F. J. Harvey "Cricket ,country music and a go... (Birmingham England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Even the Wicked (Paperback)

"Zach Blake",with his young daughter "Penny"returns to Martha's Vineyard where a year earlier his wife had drowned.He is drawn back to the island by a letter from a Native American woman "Evelyn Cloud"who claims to have proof that the death was not,as originally believed,an accident but murder. She denies having sent such a letter and soon afterwards she herself is found murdered.Suspicion momentarilly falls on "Zach"but he is soon cleared.

His daughter is then kidnapped and he is warned to leave the island within 24 hours or she will be killed

The novel deals with the efforts of "Zach"and his ally local newspaperwoman "Enid"to get to the bottom of things, the resolution sees them involved in the worlds of drug smuggling and the high society pastime of yachting before the neat and plausible resolution of the story

Written when he was a younger and hungrier writer than today this is machine tooled efficiency from as pulp pro. Dig out a copy-you are unlikely to regret it