Forgotten Books: MURDER WEARS A HALO by John Evans/Howard Browne

This book was published in 1997 by Gryphon Books (in what I assume was a small print run) and promptly forgotten. But that was the second time it had been forgotten.

“Murder Wears a Halo” made its first appearance in the Feb. 1944 issue of Mammoth Detective, then lay wasting away for 53 years before Gryphon got hold of it.

Why? I’m not sure.

Howard Browne is fondly remembered for his four Chandleresque Paul Pine novels (Halo in Blood, Halo for Satan, and Halo in Brass by John Evans, and The Taste of Ashes under his own name). Among his other novels is If You Have Tears, which he once referred to as his “James M. Cain book”.  Well, I’d have to call Murder Wears a Halo his James M. Cain/Erle Stanley Gardner book.

For the first half the novel, Browne is in Cain mode. Chicago pulp writer and nightclub denizen Don Hearn meets 18-year-old Loa, lovely, innocent, and straight off the farm, who is obsessed with writers - and he in turn becomes obsessed with her. Their relationship is on-again/off-again, and Loa goes out with other guys, but that’s really all that happens. No crimes are committed. There isn’t even a mystery.

Then, precisely at the mid-point, everything changes. Another writer (who writes for the slicks) is killed, and Hearn and Loa take a backseat to a Perry Mason-like attorney named Edicott Overend (End Overend).  The rest of the book is a Mason-style courtroom drama.

Both halves of the book are good. Browne’s writing is tight, smart and consistently entertaining. I read the whole thing in a day, and my attention never flagged.

But what makes this novel really special is that the narrator is a pulp writer. How many books can you name, written by a top-notch pulp writer, where the hero is also a pulp writer?

The first half of the book (the Cain half) is packed with pulp talk. Don Hearn talks to the reader about his writing, he and his friends talk writing, and when the girl Loa comes along, he discovers the subject of writing makes her dreamy-eyed - so he talks about writing even more.

Some of the pulp talk is clever and thinly disguised. Hearn sells a couple of stories (“Blood on the Sun” and “Sunken Sub”) to a mag called Argonaux. At one point the shows Loa a copy of Sleuth Stories, “a Green Star weekly of the Mooney line,” where his story “Death in Brass” is featured on the cover. The cover blurb reads “Also stories by Hugh Sale, Burt B. Cave, Richard Collier and others” (I’ll let you transpose those for yourself). Later, he sells a story called “Guns Along the Hudson” to Mammoth Detective, and mentions other real writers and magazines, so the line between fiction and reality is blurred.

But that’s not all.

When Loa starts asking serious questions about writing, Don Hearn holds forth on the business of being a pulp writer. And while this is technically a fictional character talking, it’s clear Howard Browne is giving us the real lowdown on what it’s like, and what it takes to write for the pulps.

At the time this story appeared in Mammoth Detective, Browne was assistant editor for the magazine (a novelette, featuring series character Wilbur Peddie, skip tracer, appeared in the same issue under Browne’s name). He also had editorial duties at Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.  So when it came to pulps, he knew what he was talking about.

For those of you who’ve read this far, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that this book is not easy to come by. I don’t own a copy myself. I read the story in Mammoth.

The good news is . . . there’s enough serious pulp talk here to put together a short memoir/how to piece of Howard Browne's views on writing for the pulps. One of these days I hope to do that.

P.S. Does anyone know where/why Browne got this fascination with "Halo" titles? This story predates the three Paul Pine "Halo" books. And I have another Mammoth with a novelette called "Halo 'Round My Head", also predating Pine. The mystery is - I found no reference to a halo in Murder Wears a Halo. I suppose the girl Loa could be thought of as angelic, but the point is never pressed. The title just seems to make no sense.

Forgotten Stories: "So Dark for April" a Paul Pine story by John Evans

Twenty-odd years ago, when I first read and grokked on the four Paul Pine novels (Halo in Blood*, Halo for Satan and Halo in Brass by John Evans, and The Taste of Ashes by Howard Browne), I didn't know there had also been a short story, published in the February, 1954 issue of Manhunt. When I finally found out, of course, there was only one thing to do. I had to track it down and possess it.

The story appeared five years after the third novel, and since it's one of a kind, I have to wonder what possessed Browne/Evans to write it. Here's a guess . . .

This was only the second issue of Manhunt, and in order to make a splash on newsstands, it's possible the editor, whose name is strangely absent from this issue, requested stories from folks he knew, like Spillane, MacDonald, Deming and Browne. Whatever happened, I'm glad it did, because it's a fine little story, chock full of Browne's brand of similes and metaphors.

I also have to wonder if it was this story that got Browne back in the Pine groove, prompting him to write the fine novel, The Taste of Ashes, published in 1957.

As far as I know, "So Dark For April" has been reprinted twice. First in the Dennis McMillan book The Paper Gun (the title story being an unfinished Paul Pine novel), and then in the Pronzini/Greenburg edited anthology, The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories. For those of you who don't have either of those volumes, or would like to see what it looked like in Manhunt, I offer the following . . .

(click on each page to SUPERSIZE. If it takes you to Blogger's new image-scrolling
format,you may have to right click and select "View Image" before you can enlarge.)

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Forgotten Books (and occasionally Stories) is a pattinase presentation.

* My take on Halo in Blood is HERE. 

Forgotten Books: HALO IN BLOOD by John Evans (Howard Browne)

The first time I read this book, mostly likely when Reagan was Prez, I was struck by how Chandleresque it was. This time, the surprising thing was how Chandleresque it wasn't.

Maybe that's because I re-read Roy Huggins The Double Take not long ago, which is almost more Chandleresque than Chandler himself. After my Forgotten Books review (click HERE), I got an interesting email from David Wilson, who had once interviewed Huggins. "Huggins got his start by copying Chandler," David said, "and I do mean 'copying', writing Farewell My Lovely in longhand.  It worked well enough for him that he recommended the process."

With Howard Browne (writing as John Evans), that is clearly not the case. Though the influence is obvious, Browne was not trying be Chandler, and his detective, Paul Pine, was not trying to be Philip Marlowe. By the time this book was published in 1946, Browne was already an experienced writer. He had his own voice, and there was no masking it.

There are tons of similes and metaphors, or course, or no one would be comparing this to Chandler. But would Chandler have tossed off lines like these?

I went back into the kitchen and drank two cups of coffee black as the devil’s reputation and strong as Tarzan of the Apes.

I made a show out of looking at my wrist watch. Two-thirty . . . and clients were as scarce as German generals named Cohen. 

There's a nice bit when the female lead pays a visit to Pine's apartment:

     “For a private detective,” she said over her shoulder, “you certainly read some odd books. Wilkinson’s Flower Encyclopedia; Warrior of the Dawn, by Howard Browne - whoever he is; and Marx’s Das Kaptial. What happened to your copy of Five Little Peppers?”
    “I loaned it to another detective,” I said.

Warrior of the Dawn, a Burroughsy adventure novel, was Browne's first book, published three years earlier.

Like Browne, Paul Pine is his own man. His resemblance to Marlowe is only skin deep.  Time and again, in situations where Marlowe would have saved his smart remarks for the narration, Pine mouths off, insulting everyone in sight. And while Marlowe, despite his sometimes-soft heart, is a pretty tough guy, Pine is not. It's a wonder he survives the book.

Thankfully, he does, so I'll soon have the pleasure of re-reading Halo in Brass, Halo for Satan, The Taste of Ashes and the sole short story, "So Dark for April."

Visit pattinase for the rundown on more Forgotten Books. 

Coming Tomorrow: The Do Some Damage Christmas Noir Round-Up.

Forgotten Books: Murder Wears a Halo by John Evans/Howard Browne

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This book was published in 1997 by Gryphon Books (in what I assume was a small print run) and promptly forgotten. But that was the second time it had been forgotten.

“Murder Wears a Halo” made its first appearance in the Feb. 1944 issue of Mammoth Detective, then lay wasting away for 53 years before Gryphon got hold of it.

Why? I’m not sure.

Howard Browne is fondly remembered for his four Chandleresque Paul Pine novels (Halo in Blood, Halo for Satan, and Halo in Brass by John Evans, and The Taste of Ashes under his own name). Among his other novels is If You Have Tears, which he once referred to as his “James M. Cain book”.  Well, I’d have to call Murder Wears a Halo his James M. Cain/Erle Stanley Gardner book.

For the first half the novel, Browne is in Cain mode. Chicago pulp writer and nightclub denizen Don Hearn meets 18-year-old Loa, lovely, innocent, and straight off the farm, who is obsessed with writers - and he in turn becomes obsessed with her. Their relationship is on-again/off-again, and Loa goes out with other guys, but that’s really all that happens. No crimes are committed. There isn’t even a mystery.

Then, precisely at the mid-point, everything changes. Another writer (who writes for the slicks) is killed, and Hearn and Loa take a backseat to a Perry Mason-like attorney named Edicott Overend (End Overend).  The rest of the book is a Mason-style courtroom drama.

Both halves of the book are good. Browne’s writing is tight, smart and consistently entertaining. I read the whole thing in a day, and my attention never flagged.

But what makes this novel really special is that the narrator is a pulp writer. How many books can you name, written by a top-notch pulp writer, where the hero is also a pulp writer?

The first half of the book (the Cain half) is packed with pulp talk. Don Hearn talks to the reader about his writing, he and his friends talk writing, and when the girl Loa comes along, he discovers the subject of writing makes her dreamy-eyed - so he talks about writing even more.

Some of the pulp talk is clever and thinly disguised. Hearn sells a couple of stories (“Blood on the Sun” and “Sunken Sub”) to a mag called Argonaux. At one point the shows Loa a copy of Sleuth Stories, “a Green Star weekly of the Mooney line,” where his story “Death in Brass” is featured on the cover. The cover blurb reads “Also stories by Hugh Sale, Burt B. Cave, Richard Collier and others” (I’ll let you transpose those for yourself). Later, he sells a story called “Guns Along the Hudson” to Mammoth Detective, and mentions other real writers and magazines, so the line between fiction and reality is blurred. 

But that’s not all.

When Loa starts asking serious questions about writing, Don Hearn holds forth on the business of being a pulp writer. And while this is technically a fictional character talking, it’s clear Howard Browne is giving us the real lowdown on what it’s like, and what it takes to write for the pulps.

At the time this story appeared in Mammoth Detective, Browne was assistant editor for the magazine (a novelette, featuring series character Wilbur Peddie, skip tracer, appeared in the same issue under Browne’s name). He also had editorial duties at Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.  So when it came to pulps, he knew what he was talking about.

For those of you who’ve read this far, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that this book is not easy to come by. There are a few copies offered on the ‘net, but I didn’t see one for less than $35. I don’t own a copy myself. I read the story in Mammoth.

The good news is . . . there’s enough serious pulp talk here to put together a short memoir/how to piece of Howard Browne's views on writing for the pulps. So early next week (look for it Monday or Tuesday) I’ll be posting a thing called “Howard Browne on Pulp Writing”, all culled from Murder Wears a Halo.  See you there, I hope.

P.S. Does anyone know where/why Browne got this fascination with "Halo" titles? This story predates the three Paul Pine "Halo" books. And I have another Mammoth with a novelette called "Halo 'Round My Head", also predating Pine. The mystery is - I found no reference to a halo in Murder Wears a Halo. I suppose the girl Loa could be thought of as angelic, but the point is never pressed. The title just seems to make no sense.

(click to enlarge)

For links to this week's other Forgotten Books, see Patti  Abbot's pattinase.