Halo in Brass (Dennis McMillan, 1988)

Title : Halo in Brass
Author : Howard Browne
Cover art : Joe Servello
  [Missoula : Dennis McMillan, 1988. 'A Paul Pine detective.' Cover by Joe Servello. Originally published as by John Evans, Bobbs-Merrill, 1949. Reprint, Pocket #709, July 1950. Notable for its use of lesbian themes, a rarity in the 1940s.  Review by Marvin Lachman.]


style ***
substance ***
collectibility *

 

Pocket Books, 1950

I'm a big fan of retro-vintage covers and this is one of my favorites. Joe Servello's front cover art really delivers the noirish goods (albeit using a technicolor palette). The added bonus is the back cover art, also presumably be Servello, which is almost as good. Halo is genuinely 'retro' in the sense that the novel was originally published in 1949. Howard Browne's star has risen in recent years and today he's considered one of the best of the classic era detective writers who wrote in the Chandler/Hammett tradition.

Foulsham, London, 1951