Ed McBain made his debut in In more than a hundred books later he personally collected twenty-five of his stories written before he was Ed McBain All but five of them were first published in the detective magazine Manhunt and none of them appeared under the Ed McBain byline They were written by Evan Hunter McBains legal name as of Richard Marsten a pseudonym derived from the names of his three sons or Hunt Collins in honor of his alma mater Hunter College Here are kids in trouble and women in jeopardy Here are private eyes and gangs Here are loose cannons and innocent bystanders Here too are cops and robbers These are the stories that prepared Evan Hunter to become Ed McBain and that prepared Ed McBain to write the beloved th Precinct novels In individual introductions McBain tells how and why he wrote these stories that were the start of his legendary career.
