Vee Brown (The Crime Machine)

Created by Carroll John Daly
Also wrote as John D. Carroll
(1889–1958)

Slight of build and seemingly mild-mannered VIVIAN “VEE” BROWN may not look like much of a threat to anyone.

He lives in a swank Park Avenue penthouse, and writes hit songs for a living. Fans of pop music call him the “Master of Melodies.”

But the cops and the crooks have another name for him: “The Crime Machine.” Although an even more appropriate nickname was “Killer of Men.”

Because music was just a sideline to Vee (and one he kept secret) — his real job was as a “special op” for the Manhattan District Attorney. Surprisingly, Vee doesn’t pay much attention to the niceties of the law– he’s very much a “shoot first, sort it out later” kinda guy, almost as gun crazy and prone to brutal, bloody violence as Daly’s much more notorious Race Williams.

Vee Brown bloodied up the pages of Dime Detective through eighteen tales chockful of murder and mayhem throughout the thirties.

Maybe he was trying to overcompensate for being named “Vivian.”

SHORT STORIES

• “The Crime Machine” (January 1932, Dime Detective)
• “The Sixth Bullet” (February 1932, Dime Detective)
• “The Curtain of Frost” (March 1932, Dime Detective)
• “The Call to Kill” (April 1932, Dime Detective)
• “The Death Master” (May 1932, Dime Detective)
• “Murder at Midnight (August 1932, Dime Detective)
• “As Midnight Strikes” (October 1932, Dime Detective)
• “The Red Death” (November 1932, Dime Detective)
• “The Price of Silence” (March 15, 1933, Dime Detective)
• “The Black Warning” (September 1, 1933,Dime Detective)
• “The Death Mask” (November 1, 1933, Dime Detective)
• “The Swinging Corpse” (December 15, 1933, Dime Detective)
• “Make Your Own Corpse!” (April 15, 1934, Dime Detective)
• “The Murder Syndicate” (July 15 1934, Dime Detective)
• “Red Friday” (September 1, 1934, Dime Detective)
• “The Clawed Killer” (October 15, 1934, Dime Detective)
• “The Mark of the Raven” (January 1936, Dime Detective)
• “Red Dynamite” (July 1936, Dime Detective)

NOVELS

• Murder Won’t Wait (1933; Vee Brown)
• Emperor of Evil (1936; Vee Brown)

COLLECTIONS

• The Complete Cases of Vee Brown (2014) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
• The Complete Cases of Vee Brown, Volume 2 (2019) | Buy this book

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.