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 . . .

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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.

Murder Wears a Halo by John Evans

I was surprised to find this pulp 20-odd years ago, and surprised again when I found it in a box the other day. John Evans (aka Howard Browne) is the still-respected author of four Chandleresque novels featuring private detective Paul Pine. Those novels are Halo in Blood (1946), Halo for Satan (1948), Halo in Brass (1949), and The Taste of Ashes (1957).

But here's John Evans, in the February 1944 issue of Mammoth Detective, with an even earlier Halo title. I first assumed it was a pulp version of one of the Pine titles. But nope, it's a whole 'nother novel. And instead of featuring Paul Pine, the first-person narrator of this one is a pulp writer named Don Hearn.

"72000 Word Book-length Novel" the cover says, and that's no lie. The story fills 125 pages of this massive mag. Interesting that Evans/Browne was using Halo titles even before the Pine books came along. I have a 1945 issue of the same magazine with a 40,000 word novelette called "Halo Round My Head". It features still another first person narrator.

I've yet to read this one, but it's definitely on my list, and I'll have more to say when I finish. For now, I'll let you peruse the prose from the title spread on your own. A bit of googling informed me this novel was finally published in book form in 1997 by Brooklyn Gryphon.

(click to enlarge)