Howard Robens and Jack Wassermann met when their wives shared an office at a New York college. Both were born in Germany and raised in Israel. Robens visited Vancouver in 1967 to collaborate with Wassermann on a science text. They co-authored a based-in-Vancouver thriller, Hambro's Itch, about a Pentagon-devised virus designed to decrease Third World populations and thereby limit the potential for outbreaks of nuclear war.

Robens, a Vancouver high school teacher, was born in Mulhausen in 1931. Wassermann (not to be confused with the popular columnist Jack Wassermann) was a Vancouver editor, born in Dusseldorf in 1929. He co-authored books for children with his wife, Selma, and also wrote a dining guide to Vancouver. He later self-published two books via CreateSpace: Measuring Up and a thriller called AJay’s Millions. He died on January 24, 2015.

BOOKS:

Vancouver on 5,000 Calories A Day: A Guide to Dining Out (November House, 1971).

Hambro's Itch (Doubleday, 1979)

[BCBW 2017] "Fiction" "Advice"