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Evans, John

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Howard Browne (April 15, 1908–October 28, 1999) was a science fiction editor and mystery writer. He also wrote for several television series and films. Some of his work appeared over the pseudonyms John Evans, Alexander Blade, Lawrence Chandler, Ivar Jorgensen, and Lee Francis. His series character for the Evans books was Paul Pine.

Beginning in 1942, Browne worked as managing editor for Ziff-Davis publications on Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, both under Raymond A. Palmer's editorship. When Palmer left the magazines in 1949, Browne took over in January 1950. Browne ended the publication of Richard Shaver's Shaver Mystery and oversaw the change in Amazing from a pulp magazine to a digest. Browne was also associate editor and later managing editor on Mammoth Detective. He left the magazines in 1956 to move to Hollywood.

In Hollywood, Browne wrote for television shows including Maverick, Ben Casey, and The Virginian. His last credit was for the film Capone (1975), starring Ben Gazzara.

Carbon-Copy Killer/Twelve Times Zero is a double trade paperback.

Mike Grost on Howard Browne

Howard Browne is best known for his series of novels about Paul Pry, a private eye. The first, Halo in Blood (1946) has some effective storytelling, with several surprising plot twists. It is marred, like much of Browne's fiction, by a persistent homophobia, also an ugly feature of Browne's model, Raymond Chandler. This novel's basic set-up recalls Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939), with a millionaire calling in the solitary p.i. hero to interfere in the life of his wayward daughter, who is involved with lots of undesirable people.

The best part of Browne's The Taste of Ashes (1957) is not the main plot, but the description of the police force in an affluent superb, in Chapters 7, 11, and 23. This is a clever bit of fantasy, with nice satirical touches on the new suburban lifestyle of America.

"Man in the Dark" (1952) has a well constructed puzzle plot. The plot keeps turning off into surprising directions. The story is also set in the newly affluent suburban world of post World War II America, here in the suburbs of Los Angeles. As in The Taste of Ashes, there is a vividly described police force. Nearly everybody works for a living in Browne's tale, and whole ways of life are described for all the characters, both the civilian characters and the police, based on their professions. All of the characters are deeply embedded in such career life styles; they seem to enjoy it and to get much of their sense of identity from them.

Browne was a prolific TV scriptwriter. An episode he co-wrote of Banacek, dealing with a stolen crucifix, is a gem. It develops into a tasteful, sympathetic, but exuberant fantasia on Roman Catholicism in the modern world, with characters representing many of the world's Catholic countries, such as Mexico, Italy, France and Banacek himself standing in for Poland. It is a highly unusual piece of writing. The search for the crucifix allegorically represents the characters' search for the Cross. Allegories are supposed to be dull, and religious dramas are supposed to be grim, but this one is both reverent and witty.