Paperback Warrior Primer - Kendell Foster Crossen

Kendell Foster Crossen (1910-1981) wrote crime-fiction novels under the name of M.E. Chaber, a pseudonym he used to construct the wildly successful Milo March series from the mid-1950s through the 1970s. He also contributed to the pulps using names like Richard Foster, Bennett Barlay, Ken Crossen, and Kent Richards. Paperback Warrior has covered a lot of the author's work, archived under the appropriate tag HERE. We also presented a podcast episode on the author HERE. To go one step further, we decided the author deserved a Primer article as well.

Kendell Foster Crossen was born in Albany, Ohio in 1910. He excelled athletically as a football player, a talent that earned him a scholarship at Rio Grande College in Ohio. After college, Crossen was employed as an insurance investigator, a tumbling clown and huckster for the Tom Mix Circus, and an amateur boxer. Tiring of the grind, Crossen bought a typewriter and hitchhiked to New York City.

In the 1930s, Crossen was employed as a writer for the Works Project Administration. There he contributed to the New York City Guidebook and was assigned to write about cricket in Greater New York. In 1936, Crossed answered an ad in the New York Times seeking an associate editor for the pulp magazine Detective Fiction Weekly. He gets the job and begins his ascension into the realm of pulp-fiction writers.

Crossen's first published story may have been “The Killer Fate Forgot”, a western story written with Harry Levin that appeared in 10 Story Western Magazine in January 1938. Sometime in the late 1930s Crossen quit his editing job and moved to Florida. In 1939, he wrote three crime-fiction stories that appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly, one of which used the byline of Bennett Barlay. Crossen continued using the Barlay name in 1940 with four more stories in Detective Fiction Weekly. That same year Crossen used the name Richard Foster to create a pulp-fiction hero known as The Green Lama. In Paperback Confidential, writer Brian Ritt describes the character:

“The Green Lama was the only Buddhist superhero to grace the pages of a pulp magazine”.

The creation of the character and stories originated when the editor of Detective Fiction Weekly, which was owned by the company Munsey's, called Crossen and requested the writer create a series character to compete with The Shadow, a pulp sensation at the time. Crossen had read a newspaper article about a New Yorker who flew to Tibet and studied Lamaism and was lecturing about the Buddhist practices. Crossen was intrigued by the exotic nature and conceived a character called the Grey Lama. Unfortunately, the color grey looks terrible on magazine covers – it doesn’t pop. Crossen changed the character into the Green Lama for a better look.

The character of the Green Lama’s real name is Jethro Dumont. He achieved super-powers through a combination of Buddhist studies and radioactive salts. His main power is the ability to shock by touch. There were 14 Green Lama stories in Double Detective. The character was adapted into comic book format in 1944 with contributions by Crossen. Those stories were reprinted in trade paperbacks by Dark Horse in 2007 and 2008 (HERE). A Green Lama radio show was broadcast on CBS in 1949. The Green Lama pulp stories are available in compilation trade paperbacks (HERE) and digital versions (HERE) by Steeger Press.

In October 1951, Crossen delved into the science-fiction detective scene with the pulp character Manning Draco. Draco is a 35-year old insurance investigator working for the Greater Solarian Insurance Company in a revamped New York, a place called Nuyork, in the 35^th century. The first Draco story was “The Merakian Miracle”, published in Thrilling Wonder Stories. There were five more stories featuring Draco published through 1954 and an early omnibus of stories titled A Man in the Middle. There was also a later collection of these stories published by Steeger (formerly Altus Press) in 2014.

By 1952, Crossen had contributed to pulps like Stirring Detective and Western Stories, Detective Fiction Weekly, Double Detective, All Star Detective, Keyhole Detective Cases, and even glossy magazines like Argosy. However, his most successful creation was just unfolding. By using his experiences as an insurance investigator, and the writing efforts on the Manning Draco stories, Crossen created the insurance investigator “private-eye” Milo March.

Milo March is an investigator for Denver-based Intercontinental Insurance. He used to be an OSS operative (that’s the precursor to the CIA) during WW2. Some of the Milo March books are traditional mysteries involving property crimes or stolen diamonds. However, some are spy stories that feature Army Intelligence pressing March back into service for a covert mission.

These Milo March stories were published in glossy magazines like Bluebook and the pulp Popular Detective. However, the majority of Milo March works was in the format of original novels first published in hardcover by Henry Holt and Company between 1952 through 1973. These were all published under the name M.E. Chaber, a pun on the Hebrew word “mechaber” meaning “writer”. The books have been reprinted several times with the most familiar being the Paperback Library reprints from the 1970s featuring covers by Robert McGinnis. One Milo March movie was created, The Man Inside, starring Jack Palance.

Using the name Christopher Monig, Crossen wrote another series of insurance investigator novels starring Brian Brett. He also created a series, under his own name, starring a U.S. Army Intelligence agent named Kim Locke. There were also two stories written by Crossen starring a futuristic advertisement agent named Jerry Ransom.

Crossen's papers and works are collected at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. He died at the age of 71 in Los Angeles in 1981.

Paperback Warrior spoke with the literary curator for Crossen's estate. Her name, Kendra, suggested the best Milo March books...

#2 No Grave for March

#3 The Man Inside
#6 A Lonely Walk
#9 So Dead the Rose
#17 Wild Midnight Falls

#5 The Splintered Man

You can purchase the Milo March paperbacks with McGinnis covers HERE. The reprinted editions in digital and physical are HERE.

Milo March #02 - No Grave for March

Milo March was a fictional spy turned insurance investigator created by Kendell Foster Crossen using the pseudonym M.E. Chaber. The series ran for 22 novels and a handful of short stories from 1952 to 1973, and is currently being reprinted by Steeger Books with fetching cover art. Based on a tip from Crossen’s daughter, author and literary estate curator Kendra Crossen Burroughs, I decided begin my march into the series with the second installment, No Grave for March from 1953.

March is an investigator for Denver-based Intercontinental Insurance, but he used to be a OSS operative during World War 2. Some of his books are straight-up property crime investigations and in other books, the U.S. government presses March back into service for an espionage assignment. This series setup provided the author great flexibility to plug his hero into any kind of pulpy genre book he felt like writing. No Grave for March is an international spy adventure paperback.

As the novel opens, March has been away from the spy business for seven years. He is summoned to a clandestine meeting in Washington, D.C. with an old colleague from his war days. It seems a diplomat with a head full of secrets has defected to the Soviet client state of East Germany. Because March speaks German, he is the choice to slip behind the iron curtain, kidnap the diplomat, and bring him back to the West. One of the secrets at stake is a mind-control device that can reprogram the public to either love Stalin or apple pie depending on who’s pulling the trigger.

I had always written off the Milo March books as being lightweight, inconsequential paperbacks along the same lines of Richard Prather’s Shell Scott or the many heroes of Carter Brown. Instead, the author put some actual thought into his work with summaries of communist theory embedded into the plot-line and interesting historical tidbits. This isn’t a work of genius, but it’s also not completely disposable fiction.

It’s also not a fast-moving shoot-em-up paperback. March spends a good bit of the novel just trying to convince the commies that he’s one of them and not an American spy. I found this fascinating, but it’s certainly not a breakneck Killmaster thrill ride. Crossen also has an annoying habit of writing lots of dialogue in German and Russian with no translation. You get the gist, but why bother showing off like that? There’s also a lot of specifics about East German tactics, ambitions, and party machinations that you will find either interesting or not.

Things become very exciting in the novel’s final act with a pulpy action sequence among the best I’ve read. I wish the rest of the paperback had set pieces as thrilling as the conclusion. Despite some missteps along the way, I genuinely enjoyed No Grave for March, and I look forward to exploring more of the series in the future.

Addendum:

No Grave for March has been reprinted several times. In the Paperback Library 1970 edition pictured above, the publisher numbered the installment #13. Don’t be fooled: it was truly book #2 in the series. An earlier printing of the novel was titled All the Way Down. Unless you’re a hardcore collector, don’t buy the same book trice.

Also, the Steeger House reprint contains an interview with Kendell Foster Crossen from 1975 that was informative for both his fans and pulp fiction historians. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 53

Kendell Foster Crossen was the creator of MILO MARCH and THE GREEN LAMA, and on Paperback Warrior Podcast Episode 53, we discuss his work and life. Also discussed: Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, Loren D. Estleman, Mickey Spillane, Robert Martin, Manhunt Magazine and much more! Listen on your favorite podcast app, paperbackwarrior.com, or download directly HERE Listen to "Episode 53: Kendell Foster Crossen" on Spreaker.

The Rest Must Die

Kendell Foster Crossen (1910-1981) was a popular author that created and wrote the crime-fiction series Milo March and the pulp superhero Green Lama. He contributed to a number of genres, including radio scripts for series titles like The Saint and Mystery Theater. Crossen used a variety of pseudonyms like M.E. Chaber, Clay Richards, Christopher Monig, and Bennett Barley. I am a huge fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, so I was attracted to Crossen's The Rest Must Die. It was published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1959 under the pen name Richard Foster. 

The author introduces readers to a handful of characters in the opening pages of the book. The locale is New York City and the two main protagonists are Bob, an advertising agency for Chaber, Crossen, and Monig (get it?), and a longshoreman named Joe. These are the guys you want on your team when a nuclear bomb wipes out the entire city. Conveniently, Bob and Joe, who don't know each other yet, each head to subway stations when they hear the siren wail of a bomb warning.

Inside Penn Station and 53rd Street Station, the survivors huddle together and listen to the ominous sounds of seven nuclear bombs pound the city into dust. Thankfully, Bob, Joe, and a dozen other survivors possess the wherewithal to understand that nothing above ground exists and that their only hope of survival lies in organizing roughly 3,000 people into small groups, each assigned to a group leader. 

The book's first half, roughly 90 pages, was mesmerizing as survivors traveled the subway on foot gathering supplies from the basements of pharmacies and department stores. Like any good post-apocalyptic novel, the true terror is humanity itself. It only takes a couple of days before people begin to spiral into savage depths of greed. The groups begin to war with each other, but the biggest threat is a mobster and a cop who team-up, oddly enough, to create a faction loaded with a supply of guns the mob had kept in a hidden underground locker. It's up to Bob and Joe to hunt down the faction's members and eliminate them. 

As you can imagine, I loved this book. It really has everything a good doomsday novel needs to be memorable and exciting. The bombs, fallout, radiation, rationing, dividing, conquering, it's all right here in these 200 pages. The novel still remains relevant today with many of the survivors dividing based on preconceived notions of stereotypes and former jobs. Bob is quick to notify everyone that whoever they were in a former life no longer matters. Despairingly, he reminds the survivors that they are now simply subway residents with no family and no home. By minimizing, Bob is able to calm most of the surviving population. It was so elementary, but a brilliant reminder that life resets often. The book's not-too-preachy message is that there's never an ending, only a reset and continuation. Sort of like Jeff Goldblum's Jurassic Park mantra - "Life Finds a Way". 

The Rest Must Die is an easy recommendation for anyone that loves post-apocalyptic fiction. It's a realistic look at how humanity is quick to turn on each other when the chips are down. But, the author laces the message with a lot of action and excitement. It simply doesn't get much better than this.

Buy a copy of this book HERE

The Green Lama #01 - The Case of the Crimson Hand

Author Kendell Foster Crossen (writing as Richard Foster) was editing “Detective Fiction Weekly” in 1939 when he was asked to compete with the successful “The Shadow”, who's prominence began in 1931. By 1939, lots of publishing companies were attempting to cash in on the craze (“Centaur's Amazing Man”, “The Black Bat”), and Crossen was chosen to do so. Originally deeming him “The Gray Lama”, more vibrant, colorful artwork was requested and “Gray” became “Green”. The very first 'Green Lama' story, “The Case of the Crimson Hand”, appeared in “Double Detective” in April, 1940.

Crossen named his hero Jethro Dumont, a Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. in “oriental religions”. He inherits ten million, and then travels to China to study Buddhism. Miraculously, these studies allow Dumont to acquire a host of crime-fighting tricks and techniques that he carries back to New York to become THE GREEN LAMA. Dumont walks around in the daylight as Reverend Dr. Pali, and at night dons a green robe and hood, a red scarf and a ton of luck to become a vigilante. The Green Lama operates out of a penthouse laboratory and has a Tibetan servant named Tsarong. He also has an ally in the now reformed mobster Gary Brown. 

“The Case of the Crimson Hand” is a familiar one. An evil villain named The Crimson Hand has stolen a handful of Dr. Valco's deadly capsules. These capsules contain a lethal dose of radium that will wipe out a cubic mile of the population. The Crimson Hand and his squad of goons plan on releasing all of the capsules in major cities, thus killing off the population and making room for him to become...you guessed it...the ruler of the world. 

This short novella displays The Green Lama in all of his various techniques: he can touch a face and cause instant paralysis. He can hide in plain sight. He can choke but not kill with his handy red scarf. He can survive plane crashes, bombs, bullets and beatings, but he isn't immortal. He has a magic catchphrase of “Om! Ma-ni pad-me Hum! Om! Ma-ni pad-me Hum!”. I don't know what this does...but he says it a lot. Essentially, The Green Lama just goes from hideout to hideout routing out the bad guys, stopping their evil plans and putting The Crimson Hand behind bars. Lama teams with both Gary Brown and the secret, behind the scenes operative named  Magga, the mysterious lady from Lhasa. Collectively, they're rough and tumbling through 90-pages of pulp action mayhem. It is pulp for the pulp enthusiast, and in that regard fans and readers should have a great time. 

Altus Press has this story included in their 2013 release “The Green Lama: The Complete Pulp Adventures Volume 1”. Along with this story is “The Case of the Croesus of Murder”, “The Case of Babies for Sale”, The Case of the Wave of Death”, “The Case of the Man Who Wasn't There”, “The Case of the Death's Head Face” and “The Case of the Clown That Laughed”. The stories are prefaced by author Will Murray's introduction and professional commentary. Altus Press has a total of three volumes encompassing 16 total stories.