author
Wenzell Brown
1911–1981
A prolific mid-20th-century writer, he moved easily between pulp paperbacks, nonfiction, and screen work. His life included years teaching overseas and surviving wartime internment in Hong Kong, experiences that later fed into his writing.
1 Audiobook
Murderer's chain
by Wenzell Brown
About the author
Born in Portland, Maine, Wenzell Brown was an American author and teacher whose work ranged across mystery, general fiction, nonfiction, and later some science fiction. Sources agree that he studied widely—at Rollins College, King’s College London, and Columbia University—and that he taught in places including Puerto Rico and China before becoming known as a professional writer.
Brown’s life took a dramatic turn during World War II. While teaching at Lingnan University, he was caught up in the conflict in Hong Kong, interned in Stanley Camp, and repatriated in 1942. He later drew on those experiences in Hong Kong Aftermath, a book described as partly fictionalized.
As a writer, he became especially associated with crime and juvenile-delinquency fiction in the 1950s, and he also wrote for film and television. Reference sources also note a smaller body of speculative work, including magazine stories and the 1975 novel Possess and Conquer.