Ed Lacy was the pen name of Leonard S. Zinberg, an American novelist and short-story writer born in New York City in 1911. He began publishing fiction under several names before establishing himself as Ed Lacy, producing crime novels distinguished by brisk plotting, urban settings, social awareness, and characters drawn from working-class life.Lacy wrote numerous mysteries and thrillers, including The Woman Aroused, Sin in Their Blood, Enter Without Desire, The Men from the Boys, Lead with Your Left, and Room to Swing. He is particularly remembered for creating Toussaint "Touie" Moore, one of the earliest convincingly portrayed Black private investigators in American crime fiction. Room to Swing received the 1958 Edgar Award for Best Novel.Over the course of his career, Lacy contributed stories to magazines including Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, and Collier's. He died in Harlem in 1968 at the age of fifty-six. His work remains admired for its lean prose, strong sense of place, moral complexity, and willingness to address race, class, corruption, and violence within the conventions of popular crime fiction.