Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Albert Lombino on October 15, 1926, was an American author and screenwriter. He is best known for his crime fiction, particularly the "87th Precinct" series written under the pen name Ed McBain. Hunter's work featured gritty narratives and detailed accounts of police procedures, pioneering the police procedural genre. Besides the McBain name, he also wrote under several other pseudonyms, but his most notable work outside the crime genre was the novel "Blackboard Jungle" (1954), which addressed juvenile delinquency and the challenges of teaching in an inner-city school. Evan Hunter's contribution to literature spans various genres and has left a distinctive mark on the crime and police procedural stories.