A bit more on the Kanes, Frank and Henry. Before anyone is
mislead by my favorable comment on Henry, please note that
this was based on reading done many years ago. Forty years
ago the jokes may not have seemed tired to me and I enjoyed
many books that today I would never finish. The early
hardback Henry Kane Peter Chambers novels I considered
routine. My favorites were from the 1959-1963 period, give or
take a year of two. "Dead in Bed" (Lancer 1961) is a good
example. Later the Lancer series migrated into the rather
tame soft porn area with suggestive titles and covers. By
then I had stopped reading Henry Kane.
Frank Kane was just okay. Like Bob Randisi (I think it was),
I was very much into the Brett Halliday Michael Shayne novels
and the Dell packaging on Frank Kane was identical. Who could
resist those luscious covers!
The Paul Pine novel with a religious background was "Halo for
Satan." It is very good as are all the Pine novels by John
Evans (Browne). In my opinion, the best Pine novel was the
one published under Browne's name "The Taste of Ashes." I
consider it one of the ten greatest PI novels I've ever
read.
Browne was an interesting guy. Crider (Hi Bill!) and I met
him a couple of times at Bouchercons.
Richard Moore
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