Manning O'Brine
Manning O'Brine was an Irish writer of thrillers and television screenplays about whom little is known. His date of birth is uncertain: at least one authoritative source gives it as 1915;[1] numerous less authoritative online websites, most of them booksellers, list it as 1913. They also give his date of death as 1977. All of his novels concern espionage and/or secret agents and often feature sadistic Nazis who have survived World War II. O'Brine began with a series of seven books about Michael the O'Kelly that had a certain lightness of tone to them. He then wrote four novels that were more realistic in nature than those featuring the O'Kelly and received a certain amount of critical praise. These books are: Crambo, Mills, No Earth for Foxes, and Pale Moon Rising, which is set in wartime France. A number of common characters appear in each of these books, such as Pavane and Crambo, but the most important one is Mills, who is obsessed, as apparently O'Brine himself was, with tracking down and killing Nazi war criminals.
The New York Times review of No Earth for Foxes, written by Newgate Callendar on April 20, 1975, closes with these lines: "The jacket copy has a sentence about O'Brine that is a real stopper. 'He killed his first Nazi in Heidelberg in 1937 and his last one in Madagascar in 1950.' Try to top that one." [2]
The backcover blurb for the 1976 American paperback edition says in addition that O'Brine was a former British secret agent.
During World War II, he was parachuted into Occupied France, was captured by the Gestapo, escaped from a train taking him to Buchenwald, and served in Algeria, Yugoslavia and Italy. He has been awarded medals from many nations.[3]
His last novel, Pale Moon Rising, is apparently based on his own experiences as a 30-year-old in wartime France. Of it, the New York Times wrote, "[it] is well-written and is an exciting adventure story. But transcending all is Mr. O'Brine's loathing for Nazi Germany, the ubermenschen and all they represented. He uses his book as a not very subtle tract to condemn the system." [4]
References
- ↑ Allen J. Hubin, Crime Fiction, 1749-1980: A Comprehensive Bibliography, Garland Publishing, Inc., New York, 1984, page 301 ISBN 0-8240-9219-8
- ↑ The full review can be seen at [1]
- ↑ No Earth for Foxes (American paperback edition ed.), Dell, 1976, ISBN 44006208175
- ↑ Review by Newgate Callendar, The New York Times, August 6, 1978. See the full review at [2]
Novels
British publisher first, followed by American publisher, hardback editions only
Killers Must Eat, Hammond, 1951
Corpse to Cairo, Hammond, 1952
Dodos Don't Duck, Hammond, 1953
Deadly Interlude, Hammond, 1954
Passport to Treason, Hammond, 1955
The Hungry Killer, Hammond, 1955
Dagger before Me, Hammond, 1957
Mills, Jenkins, 1969; Lippincott, 1969
Crambo, Joseph, 1970
No Earth for Foxes, Barrie and Jenkins, 1974; Delacorte Press, 1975
Pale Moon Rising, Futura, 1978; St. Martin's Press, 1978