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Albert Brien

Created by Pierre Saurel
Pseudonym of Pierre Daignault
Other pseudonyms include Jacques Régent, Hercule Valjean, Paul Verchères

(1925-2003)

 A popular Montréal P.I., ALBERT BRIEN, appeared in an astonishing number of stories, collectively known as Les Aventures Policiéres d’Albert Brien, created–but not all written–by Pierre Saurel, starting way back in 1944.

Albert is a celebrated Montréal flic privé, suitably hard-boiled, who initially is assisted in his cases by his girlfriend Rosette. As the series progresses, he eventually marries Rosette, and they have a son, Robert. Originally, Robert studied criminology in the States, with big plans to join the Sûreté Montreal, but upon his return, he decides to join his father’s agency instead.

Their debut in the series Les Adventures policiéres d’Albert Brien, détective national des Canadiens française kicked off a craze for fascicules, 32-36 page booklets that appeared bi-weekly in Québec. Brien et fils went on to appear in almost a thousand stories over the next couple of decades, and enjoyed an astonishing twenty-two year run: one issue every two weeks without ceasing from the middle of World War Two to the midst of the 1960s, but they were soon joined in the format by numerous other genres: romance, adventure, science fiction, sports, westerns and all the rest.

With such a blistering pace, even the prolific Saurel simply couldn’t keep up, and many of the Brien stories were written by others, although guided and edited by Saurel. Regardless of who the actual authors were, however, they were action-packed detective novels full of nasty villains, and crime and punishment, with little times for philosophizing. The influence of American pulp fiction was obvious, but the fascicules were no watered down facsimiles. With their unapologetically local settings, obviously Québecois characters and anything goes plotting, these were truly homegrown pulp. No wonder Brien was billed as “le détective national des Canadiens français.”

They were, for the most part, pretty hard-boiled fare, and ranged all over the place. Many of the stories borrowed from then-popular tropes of the American pulps, with Brien squaring off against assorted Commies, mad scientists, blackmailers, thieves, bank robbers, gangsters and other rank-and-file killers and, just to add a Canadian touch, a First Nations type who dabbles in homicide by tomahawk, while some tales veered into more spectacular areas, with Brien crossing paths with mummies, zombies and even costumed villains.

And it turns out young Robert was no slouch either. When Saurel was winding up the Albert Brien series in September 1966, he decided to spin off a new series for adults only, entitled Detective Prive Brien Le Don Juan. Young, handsome Robert, always a bit of a player, finally gets to cut loose. Between 1967 and 1968, eighteen issues were printed, with cover illustrations by Hervé Daignault, the author’s brother.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pierre Saurel was a pen name of Pierre Daignault (1925-2003). Between 1947 and 1966, he published over 900 short stories, mostly crime fiction, including series featuring Les Aventures de Cow-Boys, Les Exploits Policiers du Domino Noir (a masked crimefighter), Diane la Belle Aventuriére (literally a beautiful adventurer) and perhaps most successfully, Agent IXE-13 (the “Ace of Canadian Spies”),” which reportedly sold over 28 million copies between 1947 and 1967. Nor was that the end of Saurel’s literary contributions to Quebec crime fiction — between 1980 and 1985, he published a series of 46 paperback novellas (each about 160 pages) featuring the Robert “Le Manchot” Dumont, a former police officer who became a private detective. But Daignault was more than just an incredibly prolific pulp writer. An actor, a folklorist, a singer, a producer and a director, he left a huge sta mp on Quebecois culture. He retired to Florida in the 1990, where he passed away in 2003.

Given the vast amount of stories, it seems amazing if the Pierre Saurel pseudonym was used exclusively by Daignault–this was the pulps, after all, and the sheer volume of stories needed to feed the beast made me suspect that the use of Saurel as a house pseudonym was possible. The author’s son Daniel, however, assures me that it was used only by Pierre Daignault (see comments).

UNDER OATH

   

NOVELLAS

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Keith for the lead (and the book), and to Daniel for the background on his father.

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