Lauran Bosworth Paine (born Lawrence Kerfman Duby Jr.; February 25, 1916 – December 1, 2001[1]) was an American writer of Western fiction.
In the 1930s, he worked as a cowboy, competed in rodeos, and was a movie stuntman in several Johnny Mack Brown westerns and 1936's The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Because his publishers only accepted a limited number of books under a single author's name, Paine adopted dozens of pseudonyms including Mark Carrel, John Kilgore, Clay Allen, A.
A. Andrews, Dennis Archer, John Armour, Carter Ashby, Harry Beck, Will Benton, Frank Bosworth, Concho Bradley, Claude Cassady, Clint Custer, James Glenn, Will Houston, Troy Howard, Cliff Ketchum, Clint O'Conner, Jim Slaughter and Buck Standish among others.
[2] Many of his books, published by Robert Hale of London and distributed solely in the UK, have only in recent years been appearing in the United States, usually as large-print editions.