1946's Halo in Blood is the somewhat shaky debut of the Paul Pine series. Writing as "John Evans," Howard Browne would steadily improve with each book until, eleven years later, he was imitating Ross Macdonald instead of Raymond Chandler (in The Taste of Ashes, the only Pine novel that Browne published under his own name). Here, he's very hung up on Chandler's stylistic idiosyncrasies and imitates them quite conscientiously. While the story is workable and often entertaining, too much of it is taken up with strained quips and romantic encounters that verge on the cornball. Still, there's plenty of action and intrigue, and Browne even mixes in a Dashiell Hammett cliché (the peculiarly effeminate gangland henchman) with the numerous Chandlerisms (the private eye who's always getting sapped from behind, the emotionally volatile woman who can't or won't give a straight answer to a question, etc.).

Readable, and the series gets better from here on out. ( )