Milo March

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Created by M.E. Chaber
Pseudonym of Kendell Foster Crossen
Other pseudonyms include Bennett Barlay, Christopher Monig, Richard Foster & Clay Richards
(1910-1981)

MILO MARCH, a former employee of both the OSS and the CIA before becoming a high-flying, globetrotting investigator for Denver-based Intercontinental Innsurance, appeared in over twenty fast-paced books by M.E. Chaber. Later in the series, he moved to New York City and set up his own agency.

Not that Milo turned his back on Uncle Sam–he remained in the Army Reserves, with the rank of Major, and thus it’s not uncommon for him to be recalled for special hush-hush spy jobs, particularly when the sixties James Bond-inspired spy craze went ballistic. This of course gives him an excuse to judo chop various enemy agents, shoot it out with assorted secret police and have his paperbacks reissued with spiffy Robert McGinnis covers (McGinnis, of course, was the man behind several of the iconic posters for the Bond films).

But whether he was rescuing American agents or retrieving stolen jewelry, Milo laughed in the face of danger, and was quick to wrap things up–these books, in true pulp fashion, rarely ever slow down. And then it was back to the good things in life for Milo: poetry, women, martinis, and fine food. At one point Milo was married (to Greta), and then he wasn’t. He also adopted a Spanish kid (Ernesto), who showed up just often enough to make readers wonder “Why?”

Continuity? Meh.

The general consensus about the series is that it’s fun, if not exactly Chandler. “Lightweight buy enjoyable,” is how paperback collector and mystery writer Bill Crider puts it. Crider then goes on to mention that one of the books was probably the first novel to ever use LSD as a plot device (and there’s a great needle cover on the paperback).

There was even a British film made, The Man Inside (1958), based on one of the earlier books, starring Jack Palance as March, with Anita Ekberg, Anthony Newley, Donald Pleasence and even Sidney “Carry On” James along for the ride.

M.E. Chaber was actually a pseudonym for the incredibly prolific Kendell Foster Crossen who wrote over 400 raio and television dramas, some 300 short stories, 250 non-fiction articles and around forty-five novels. He also found the time to write reviews, edit several science fiction collections, and serve as editor for a while for Detective Fiction Weekly, and was responsible for the creation of such varied private eyes as Brian Brett, Pete Draco and Manning Draco (apparently no relation), although he’s probably best known for creating The Green Lama, a costumed vigilante who appeared in the forties pulps.

All twenty-one of the Milo March books were reprinted by Paperback Library in the early 1970s, and they were relatively easy to find at one point, but not anymore.

So I was surprised to hear from Crossen’s literary executor, way back in February 2000,  that they’d unearthed the last Milo novel, Death of the Brides, which Holt had refused to publish back in the seventies because it contained an unflattering portrait of then-president, Nixon, and a spy mission to Vietnam. There was some discussion of possibly publishing it, and possibly some of the other books in the series. But it was only in 2020 that pulp publisher Steeger Books announced their ambitious plans to to reissue twenty-three vintage novels and stories by M.E. Chaber, promising “mile-a-minute action and breezily readable entertainment for suspense buffs.”

Among the goodies to come are the first paperback edition of Born to Be Hanged, the last-published book in the series, and Death to the Brides will finally see the light of day. Also in the works is The Twisted Trap: Six Milo March Stories, which collects for the first time the stories previously seen only in magazines back in the fifties and sixties.

UNDER OATH

  • “I have been reading the Milo March series from the beginning and have a question about his disappearing son. In the very early books, March meets and marries a girl named Greta from East Berlin, then befriends and plans to adopt a street urchin from Spain named Ernesto. After that flurry of activity, Greta is ignored for a few books, then it’s mentioned in passing that she and March are now divorced. But poor l’il Ernesto is never heard from again. What’s up with that?
    This is almost as annoying as that first Scott Jordan book, where he marries a girl who’s never heard from again.
    At least Brett Halliday–after making the mistake of marrying Mike Shayne off in the first book–had the decency to kill her off several books later. He didn’t leave his readers hanging.”
    — David Nobriga

NOVELS

SHORT STORIES

  • “The Jelly Roll Heist” (September 1952, Popular Detective)
  • “Assignment: Red Berlin” (December 1952, Bluebook)
    Expanded into All the Way Down
  • “Hair the Color of Blood” (July 1953, Bluebook)
  • “The Hot Ice Blues” (September 1953, Bluebook)
  • “Murder for Madame” (Fall 1953, Popular Detective)
  • “The Man Inside” (December 1953, Bluebook)
    Expanded into the novel of the same name
  • “The Bodies Beautiful of Rome” (July 1957, Cavalier)
    Condensed version of A Lonely Walk
  • “The Red, Red Flowers” (February 1961, Bluebook)
  • “The Twisted Trap” (June 1961, Bluebook)

COLLECTIONS

FILMS

  • THE MAN INSIDE
    (1958, Warwick)
    Based on the novel by M.E. Chaber
    Screenplay by John Gilling, David Shaw and Richard Maibaum
    Directed by John Gilling
    Produced by Albert “Cubby” Broccoli
    Starring Jack Palance as MILO MARCH
    Also starring Anita Ekberg, Nigel Patrick, Anthony Newley, Bonar Colleano, Sean Kelly, Sidney James, Donald Pleasence, Eric Pohlmann, Josephine Brown
    By all accounts, an enjoyable Third Man-like romp, with the smooth, suave and sophisticated globetrotting investigator bopping around Europe, suggesting an early version, perhaps, of James Bond. Which figures–the film was produced by Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, and one of the writers of the screenplay was Richard Maibaum, who wrote or cowrote the screenplays for almost every Bond film from 1962 until 1989. But Jack Palance smooth, suave and sophisticated? Apparently Alan Ladd and Victor Mature were both originally considered for the lead.

THE DICK OF THE DAY

  • August 19, 2021
    THE BOTTOM LINE: Ladies man Milo couldn’t decide if he was a hot-shot insurance dick or a hot-shot spy, so he did a little of both in this long-running, action-packed and babe-stacked slab of pulpitude by M.E. Chaber, aka Kendell Foster Crossen.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

Published

2 thoughts on “Milo March”

  1. Most of the new Milo reissues have additional “bonus” material such as afterwords by me (Kendra Crossen Burroughs). In fact, I acknowledge David Nobriga’s complaint about Ernesto in #4 (As Old as Cain). Among other things, I said, “Although the child Ernesto vanishes after this book, a character similar to him appears in A Lonely Walk (1956): Achille Coniglio, a poor Italian teenager who assists Milo. These kids are among a number of boys and men befriended by Milo, favorite character types of the author who fills the pages of the series with what reviewer Mike Grost calls “scenes of male bonding… that distinguish Milo March from most other private eyes in this fiction genre.”

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