Cop Hater [antikvár]

I> IINTRODUCTIONCop Hater, the first of the 87th Precinct novels, was originallyK1',published in paperback early in 1956. My records indicate that I received payment for the book on January 4, 1956, which would further seem to indicate that it was delivered sometime in December of 1955.1 don't remember how long it took to write. The early McBains usually took a month. Nowadays, perhaps because the novels are longer, they take two months. Cop Hater took a much a longer time because there was a lot of research to do for the first book in the series. I still do research, of course, but not as much as I had to do when I was initially figuring out police procedures and routines. In any case, the actual writing time is vague in my memory. I didn't keep work calendars then, as I do now.What is not vague is the genesis of the series.I had written a great many mystery short stories and a few mystery novels before The Blackboard Jungle was published in October of 1954. Some of these stories were published under my own name (Evan Hunter), others under various pseudonyms. I would often have two or three stories in the same issue of a magazine like Manhunt, for example, all under different pseudonyms. One mystery novel written under the pseudonym had not yet sold by the time The Blackboard Jungle was published, and my agent was still shopping it around in 1955. Pocket Books was, at the time, publishing a handful of paperback originals in its Permabooks line, so my agent sent this novel (I believe it was Runaway Black as by Richard Marsten, but I'm not sure) to Herbert Alexander, then editor-in-chief of Pocket Books, and a man who was instrumental in purchasing reprint rights to The Blackboard Jungle.He is possibly the smartest man who ever lived.j viil-i '3'M