Which Ed McBain novel inspired Kurosawa's High and Low?

Which Ed McBain novel inspired Kurosawa’s High and Low? The film is loosely adapted from King’s Ransom. Ed McBain was the pen name of American novelist Evan Hunter, whose 1959 87th Precinct novel supplied the kidnapping-and-ransom premise.

In both works, a wealthy man faces a moral crisis when a child is kidnapped. Kurosawa’s film changes the setting, characters, and social emphasis: businessman Kingo Gondo must decide whether to pay the ransom, even after learning that the kidnappers seized his chauffeur’s son by mistake.

The adaptation becomes especially distinctive after the ransom decision. High and Low shifts from a tense domestic dilemma into a detailed police procedural, with investigators tracing clues through Yokohama. Kurosawa also emphasizes class division, contrasting Gondo’s hilltop home with the cramped and dangerous urban spaces below.

Toho purchased the rights to Hunter’s novel in 1961, and High and Low was released in Japan in 1963. “King’s Ransom” is sometimes confused with McBain’s other 87th Precinct titles, such as Cop Hater, but it is the novel specifically connected to Kurosawa’s film.