I don’t often find myself at a loss for words, but that is the position I am in right now, as I want to pay my respects to a good friend, Evan Hunter AKA Ed McBain. Evan passed away yesterday at the age of 78. Rob Holden, my partner at ReadersRoom.com, and I knew Evan was not well. He’d been fighting cancer for quite a while.

In the last chat we had with him, he talked about retiring, something that we refused to believe. I teased him that he wouldn’t–COULDN’T–quit. Perhaps even then he had an inkling that the end was near, and that even if he didn’t plan to stop, life had other things in mind for him.

And now he’s gone.

It was always surreal to me that the man who called Alfred Hitchcock “Hitch” also called me “Nat.” And yet even knowing who Evan really was–the author of The Birds, The Blackboard Jungle, and of course all of the 87 novels–he was not the least bit intimidating or snobby. He liked to chat, to joke, to tell stories, and most of all, he lived and loved to write.

Evan, I will miss you. I will miss your funny little jokes about me being from Utah, and of course, it’s relationship to Mars, and miss your career advice and encouragement.

Godspeed.

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