Ahoy, squirts. Quint here with some more sad news for us Hitchcock fans. Ernest Lehman, who wrote NORTH BY NORTHWEST, died recently and now we have heard that Evan Hunter, who wrote THE BIRDS (one of my personal favorites) and also revolutionized detective fiction under the pen name Ed McBain, has died. He also wrote the novel BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, that was adapted into the classic film.

I'm not very familiar with his work outside of the films he worked on, but I just read the first chapter of one of his McBain novels in a preview from the good people at HARD CASE CRIME called The Gutter and the Grave. I can tell I'm gonna fall headlong into his work. I know that will be coming out from Hard Case Crime soon... I hope you folks out there who are like me and haven't gotten around to his work will now pick up one of his books. I'm sure people in talkback more educated than I will point you in the direction of his best novels. My thoughts are with his family, friends and fans.

Hi Harry,

I don't know if this stirs the hearts of geeks out there or not but something should be said about the death of Evan Hunter. He wrote a zillion "cop novels" under the name Ed McBain which modernized the detective novel. Sure, that's cool and all if you like that kind of stuff; he was also the screenwriter for Hitchcock's "The Birds". Hitchcock's best? Heck no, but who didn't get a geeky nerdly tinge when they saw all those god damned birds in the playground the first time? Perhaps not geeky but worth noting is that he wrote the screenplay for "Blackboard Jungle" as well. His style under both names (Hunter/McBain- sounds like a Simpsons movie!) was different. Funny enough one of his last novels was written by Evan Hunter and Ed McBain- and it has that diverse style in it. There's a much better written obituary than I could write at:

REUTERS RIGHT HERE

Chadillac69