Edgar Lustgarten

Edgar Lustgarten
Born	3 May 1907(1907-05-03) Manchester, England
Died	15 December 1978(1978-12-15) (aged 71) Manchester, England
Pen name	Brent Wood
Occupation	Novelist and journalist
Nationality	English
Genres	Detective fiction, crime fiction, mystery fiction
Literary movement	None
Influences Arthur Conan Doyle
Influenced Truman Capote

Edgar Marcus Lustgarten (born 3 May 1907, Manchester, England, died on 15 December 1978) was a British broadcaster and noted crime writer.

His books included crime fiction, but most were accounts of true-life criminal cases. The legal justice system and courtroom procedures were his main interests and his writings reflect this. He also wrote numerous articles for newspapers and presented the radio series Advocate Extraordinary. He used to say that he had no schedules, writing everywhere any time, on bars, on cars and while walking by the streets.

He is most widely remembered for hosting the filmed crime series Scotland Yard and The Scales of Justice in the 1950s and 1960s, filmed at Merton Park Studios, London, SW19. One of those programs, Scotland Yard was broadcast beginning on 17 November 1957, on the American Broadcasting Company in the United States.

Lustgarten died at the Marylebone library while reading The Spectator. In the decade following his death, Lustgarten briefly ascended into the realm of pop culture when his inimitable voice appeared in dance music. Samples of him reading from "Death on the Crumbles" were used in the Australian band "Severed Heads" 1984 hit song "Dead Eyes Opened". His works are still used as introductory readings in several law schools in different countries because of their accuracy on the atmosphere of trials and attorneys' behaviour. He was famously mimicked as the Narrator in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.