Aaron Marc Stein, Prolific Writer of Detective Novels

Aaron Marc Stein, a mystery writer whose detectives and their prey roamed the world during the course of his 50-year career, has died of cancer. He was 79.

The writer, who lived in Manhattan, died Thursdayat Lenox Hill Hospital.

Stein, who also used the pseudonyms George Bagby and Hampton Stone, wrote about 100 novels. Among them were “Days of Misfortune,” “Kill Is a Four-Letter Word,” “Coffin Country” and “The Finger.”

The running characters throughout his prolific output included Matt Erridge, a crime-solving engineer, archeologists Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt, who found mystery and murder in faraway places, and Inspector Schmidt, chief of New York City’s homicide squad.

Stein, a former critic and columnist for the New York Evening Post and an editor for Time magazine, was the 1979 recipient of the Grand Master Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America.

He leaves no survivors.