Max Allan Collins's Blog, page 16

A Stocking Stuffer and Christmas Crime

E-Book:
Trade Paperback:

If you are looking for a stocking-stuffer type gift – a book, say – you might consider Blue Christmas and Other Holiday Homicides from Wolfpack, available in trade paperback (also e-book, but I’m not sure how you stuff one of those in a stocking).

I’ve told this story before, but I’ll tell it again on the occasion of the Christmas Season. Just before Thanksgiving 1992 – right before – I received a letter from the Chicago Tribune Syndicate editor letting me go from the Dick Tracy strip after my 15 year run. Shortly thereafter Bantam cancelled Nate Heller and returned the novel Carnal Hours to me after the editor there had accepted it enthusiastically. (The previous entry, Stolen Away, had won the Best Novel “Shamus” award from the Private Eye Writers of America.)

On Christmas Eve 1992, still shellshocked, I wrote “A Wreath for Marley,” the lead story in the Blue Christmas collection. It has been published several times, including in the Otto Penzler anthology, The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries. The story is what they call (hideously) a “mash-up” – of A Christmas Carol and The Maltese Falcon. Its significance is that it showed me getting back into the game after two bad batterings. The story is a long one, probably 15,000 words, and was done in one fevered sitting. It remains my favorite short story of mine.

It almost became my second indie movie – there’s a script, you will not be surprised to learn – but the success of Mommy led to us deciding to do Mommy’s Day instead.

Anyway, on the occasion of the Christmas season, what follows is largely a rerun from 2020, but reworked with some new stuff interspersed.

Let’s start with the five great Christmas movies:

1. Scrooge (1951). Alistair Sim is the definitive Scrooge in the definitive filming of A Christmas Carol. And let’s definitely not start with the current Spirited, an overstuffed turkey that some misguided souls are already calling a Christmas classic. It has a nice premise (the story told from the ghosts’ POV) and lots of songs, most of which sound like each other, and tons of gymnastic dancing and one shaky premise blending into another (Is it about people being able to change? Or about having no friends and finding one? Is it the story of the Ghost of Christmas Past falling in unlikely love, or the story of his charge getting over himself?). As an added bonus, it goes on forever. Actually, the stars – Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds – have nice, funny moments now and then. But we have a candy cane of an eighty-minute movie stuffed inside a two-hour stocking full of lumped coal.

2. Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Hollywood filmmaking at its best, with Edmund Gwen the definitive, real Santa Claus, Natalie Wood in her greatest child performance, John Payne reminding us he should have been a major star, and Maureen O’Hara as a smart, strong career woman/working mother who could not be more glamorous. Beware at all costs the 1994 remake.

3. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Heartwarming but harrowing, this film is home to one of James Stewart’s bravest performances and happens to be Frank Capra’s best. This one got a good TV-movie, gender-reversed remake that may turn up again this year: It Happened One Christmas (1977) with Marlo Thomas and Wayne Rogers.

4. A Christmas Story (1983), Jean Shepherd’s unlikely claim to fame, and a Christmas movie with Mike Hammer and Carl Kolchak in it. Now if only the four PBS specials about Ralphie and his family would emerge on legal home video! What we have instead is a weak Christmas Story 2, a true sequel with a tragically miscast Charles Grodin in the McGavin role (A Summer Story), and this year’s A Christmas Story Christmas with the original Ralphie, Peter Billingsley, uneven but worth a watch.

5. Christmas Vacation (1989) uncovers every Christmas nightmare possible when families get together and Daddy tries too hard. This holds up very well and has unexpectedly eclipsed the original film. Its secret is nailing every real Christmas-at-home horror and taking each up a notch. And it’s easily Chevy Chase’s best performance.

Other worthwhile cinematic Christmas cheer:

Bad Santa (2003). This dark comedy has a warm heart, but you have to wade through a whole lot of black humor to get there – well worth it, though. Billy Bob Thornton is wonderful, but the late John Ritter (who apparently died during the production) has the funniest moments in a side-splitting film. Its very underrated sequel, Bad Santa 2 (2016), is perhaps even funnier with Kathy Bates almost stealing the picture playing Billy Bob Thorton’s genuinely evil mother. The original film is out there in two versions, a Director’s Cut and an Unrated Cut (well, a third version if you want the theatrical cut). Both versions are good and you might alternate them from Christmas to Christmas, year to year. The unrated cut is twelve minutes longer.

Holiday Inn (1942) is easily better than White Christmas, although the latter has its charms – it’s helped keep Danny Kaye from being forgotten, and my pal Miguel Ferrer’s mom is in it. The original is funnier and ultimately more heart-warming, though the Lincoln’s Birthday blackface number is not just tasteless, it’s one of Irving Berlin’s worst songs (“Abraham”). Shudder for a few moments, then fast-forward.

Bell, Book and Candle (1958) is an old favorite of ours, the movie Kim Novak and James Stewart made together right after Vertigo, serving as kind of an unlikely happy-ending coda to that great film. With Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs bouncing beautifully off each other, it’s a precursor to Bewitched with a great George Dunning score.

The Family Man (2000) with Nic Cage, a modern reworking of It’s a Wonderful Life, is heartwarming and funny. Cage may be an over-the-top actor, but the man commits – he gives one thousand percent to every performance, and this time he has a terrific movie to do it in. There is a melancholy feel to the ending, though, as the path not taken by Cage dissolves behind him at the close, meaning some cute kids bite the imaginary dust.

The Twelve Days of Christmas (2004). This shameless reworking of Groundhog’s Day as a TV Christmas movie is funny and rewarding – good-hearted but with a darkly comic sensibility. Steven Weber is excellent as the successful slick businessman who has twelve tries to get Christmas Eve right. Molly Shannon gets her best post-SNL role. If Hallmark movies were this good, we wouldn’t be bitching about them.

Three Godfathers (1948). This John Ford western stars John Wayne and is surprisingly gritty and even harrowing before a finale that you may find too sentimental – that combination is typical Ford, though. It’s dedicated to Harry Carey and “introduces” Harry Carey, Jr., who is very good, as is Pedro Armendariz.

Prancer (1989). This features a naturalistic performance from child actor Rebecca Herrell in a smalltown/rural variation on Miracle on 34th Street. Is the reindeer the little girl helps back to health really Santa’s Prancer? Sam Elliot is uncompromising as the father who doesn’t understand his daughter, whose mother has died.

Remember the Night (1940) is the second best (after Double Indemnity) of the films Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray made together. Written by Preston Sturges, it makes its humanistic points with sentiment, not sentimentality, with an occasional noir jolt.

I, the Jury (1953). On the joyous occasion of its 3-D Blu-ray/4K release, note that this much underrated first Mike Hammer movie is set at Christmas and plays off of that throughout, with holiday cards and carols the connective tissue. Biff Elliott (like the movie itself) is much underrated, and the cast is filled with wonderful character actors. The great John Alton shot it. And I am thrilled that many of the reviews of the Classic Flix limited release are giving this strong private eye film reconsideration and overdue praise.

A Christmas Horror Story (2015) features William Shatner as the comic glue (a disc jockey) holding together inter-related stories about Krampus and Christmas. There are almost as many horror movies about Christmas as there are Christmas movies, but this is one of the best in a now cluttered field. It was put together by many of the Orphan Black people.

Office Christmas Party (2016) is a very funny raunchy comedy that eventually betrays a good heart. The great cast includes Jason Bateman and Kate McKinnon. I would recommend the theatrical release, as most of the raunch included in the unrated cut isn’t particularly funny and tends not to involve any key players.

Scrooge (1970) is the second-best Christmas Carol movie. Albert Finney is wonderful as Ebenezer in this musical version, with the Leslie Briccuse score perhaps the one most like his work with Anthony Newley, who did not contribute to this score but who played Scrooge in the much-seen British stage version (which came after the film). The best song in the current Spirited (“Good Afternoon!”) is a rip-off of this film’s “Thank You Very Much.”

Arthur Christmas (2012) is a CGI cartoon with a smart, witty script. The voices in this British production include James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent. The neglected son of Santa rises to the occasion when a toy isn’t delivered despite a state-of-the-art technologically advanced system of his favored brother’s. My seven year-old grandson Nate likes this one and so do I.

There are several special Murdoch Mysteries Christmas movies, and not all are good. But one of them is: “The Night Before Christmas” (2021), a witty Agatha Christie Old Dark House tribute. This long-running show is comfort food for Barb and me, and this example shows why we put up with the occasional clinker (to quote Ralphie’s Old Man) for the joys of most episodes.

The two Poirot/David Suchet Christmas episodes are also worth seeking out for seasonal viewing: “The Theft of the Royal Ruby” and the movie-length “Hercule Poirot’s Christmas.”

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Publisher’s Weekly chose The Big Bundle as one of its “Books of the Week.”

Finally, here’s a great You Tube review of the I, the Jury disc.

M.A.C.

A “Big” Book Giveaway

Hardcover:
E-Book:
Digital Audiobook:

I had hoped to do a book giveaway with copies of the Spillane bio, but I don’t have enough copies to do so – what I have has to go out to a handful of professional reviewers. Apologies.

But we do have a book giveaway this week – the new Nathan Heller, The Big Bundle, from Hard Case crime. I have ten trade paperbacks of the novel (which will be published initially in hardcover – these are ARC’s, Advance Reader’s Copies).

[All copies have been claimed. Thank you for your support! –Nate]

Because the physical copies of the book are tied up at the London docks, the novel won’t go on sale until some time in January. But the e-book is available Dec. 6 and the audio (indeed read by the great Dan John Miller!) is available now. So you should be able to post Amazon reviews as soon as you’ve read the book.

By the way, I received copies of the audio of The Big Bundle a few days ago, so it exists!

Speaking of which, here’s a spiffy review of The Big Bundle from the Considering Stories web site to whet your appetites:

THE CASE OF THE MISSING $300K:
MAX ALLAN COLLINS’ THE BIG BUNDLE
by Daniel Robichaud

When detective-to-the-stars Nathan Heller is called in to consult on the kidnap job in 1953, he’s got a few successes under his belt for work he’s done. The big marks on his record in terms of working kidnapping jobs was the work he did on the Lindbergh Baby case, which history has shown did not end at all well. Still, he’s a fresh set of eyes and ideas for the job, and the person or people who took Robert and Virginia Greenlease’s son Bobby from a boarding school are not exactly criminal masterminds. They snatched the kid just fine but walking the parents and the authorities through the ransom process has been trial after trial, with bumbling, idiocy, and amateurism on the kidnappers side. However, the ransom is the biggest on record so far: $600,000 in cash.

Well, Heller finds himself involved, but not as much as he might’ve wished. The FBI is calling the shots, when the local law is not interfering, and when Nate has the opportunity to wait for the perps and tail them or beat the answers out of them, he’s pulled away in an effort to save the kid’s life. By the novel’s midpoint, that particular mystery is mostly resolved: the fate of the kid is answered, the kidnappers are identified, and the money is recovered. Well, half of the money is recovered. The rest of the cash just vanishes into midair. All of that is historically correct, author Max Allan Collins finding gaps in real history to find a space for his fictional detective’s involvement along with some sly reworking of the facts and involved persons in order to make a satisfying narrative. As Westlake alluded in the opening of his tabloid-themed novel Trust Me On This, the real world seldom relies on plausibility while novelists are constrained by an audience’s suspension of disbelief.

One could consider the book to that point a rather involving work in its own right, but once that case is resolved, Collins really opens up the period and the scope, as parties are interested in figuring out just what happened to the missing cash. Fast forwarding to 1958, we find Senator Robert Kennedy convinced the money has made its way to the Teamsters via gangster connections—his Senate Rackets Committee is trying to find a platform to prosecute the leadership of that union. However, Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa believes the cash ended up in crooked hands. Both of these men want Nate Heller to go looking, and all roads lead him back to Saint Louis where the money disappeared in the first place.

It is there that Nate finds himself once again in crosshairs, people working angles and exploring various lines for locating the missing cash. Some familiar faces might know more than they are letting on, but all of them are interested in getting their own piece of the action, whether that’s a percentage of the missing fortune or a kickback. Will Nate find out what happened to all that boodle, or will he wind up one more victim, his career or even his life laid upon the sacrificial altar of mankind’s greed?

Max Allan Collins has been chronicling the life, times, and career of Nate Heller.

The Big Bundle is the eighteenth novel featuring the detective, though he’s also appeared in numerous short stories and novellas. Heller’s adventures kicked off with 1983’s True Detective (which takes place in the 1930s). The books are generally engaging historical thrillers, balancing good research, engaging characters, and twisty mysteries. This eighteenth volume is no exception, either.

In

The Big Bundle, we find Heller in his late forties. He’s got enough experience to know how to handle himself, and he’s not as prone to the sorts of leaps that younger folks get up to—but he’s also not so old that he’s completely risk averse. There’s a measured quality to his embrace of trouble that is engaging. Here’s a guy who will still get in over his head, who better understands the stakes as well as his own abilities. It’s the perspective of age that makes this adventure all the more intriguing. In fact, Collins has never shied away from involving Heller in some major historical crimes and situations.

The historical elements in

The Big Bundle are big headline stuff from the times, in fact. The details behind the Greenlease Kidnapping and its resolution are easily available to true crime afficionados, and the general beats of the case are unchanged here. Those in the know will not find surprises in the flow of the case itself, but Collins does inject his character into the scenario in unexpected ways. Because Nate Heller has a history with corruption himself, he’s just as often seen as a force of law and order as a tool of the Chicago mob, and this dual reputation gives him access to places and people that normal law enforcement cannot. Collins uses the duality quite nicely here. That he gets to engage with people on both side of the case is quite enjoyable.

The later stuff takes a bit more license with history, using some big events and personalities as well as some created characters. It all rings just true enough that I don’t feel compelled to check a history book, which is how I most enjoy my historical fiction. A lived-in sense of the world, and a quirky perspective on the times are more enjoyable for me than a strict, dry, academic approach to the subject. Fans of James Kestrel’s

Five Decembers will find plenty to love in Collins’ playing with history. The Big Bundle is a straight-ahead suspense yarn, a pairing of mysteries nested comfortably in real world events, more or less.

And though it is the eighteenth book in the Heller series, it stands on its own quite well. The first person narration hits on some of the events from past novels but does so without spoiling the secrets and suspense those books contain, inviting us to continue with the Heller series if we like the character here.

And there is plenty to appreciate. Nate Heller is a detective, and therefore a kind of knightly character committed to the resolution of mysteries. He’s not necessarily as righteous as Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, but he does walk down some mean streets. And given the aforementioned dual reputation, he’s as bound to rub elbows with racketeers or hoods as he is with honest citizens or law enforcement. In fact, Heller is a just character in terms of his understanding of right and wrong, as it applies to the way he operates and leads his life. But he also compartmentalizes this moral code while operating in a tough world.

The Big Bundle is a sprawling epic of mystery and suspense, a private eye story without any dames walking into offices but plenty of big, bad world to challenge our point of view character’s moral compass and detective skills. The book is bound to win new fans to the author’s series character, and one hopes Heller gets a bit of the same treatment as either Collins’ Quarry or Nolan characters, which both saw new releases as well as reissues of the earlier books in slick, new Hard Case Crime editions. The book is a dynamite read.

The Big Bundle is available for pre-order in eBook, hardcover, and audiobook editions from the fine folks at Hard Case Crime. The earlier novels have appeared in affordable eBook, paperback, and audiobook editions along with much of the prolific author’s backlist.

Check out the website here.

I have completed Too Many Bullets, the even newer Nathan Heller novel (out some time next year), and thanks to my indefatigable editor at Hard Case Crime, Charles Ardai, it’s really completed. Charles is blazingly fast, at least with my books. As almost a practical joke, I sent the novel out on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, saying it was just in time to ruin the long holiday weekend.

Well, Charles had finished his read-through and had all his notes…Friday morning! I spent the day dealing with his notes and fixing typos and such he’d spotted (and I’m pleased, even proud to say he likes the novel a lot). And now, with the ink barely dry…the novel is finished. Really finished.

Charles and I even worked on the backcover copy, which will also appear on the HCC web site.

All that remains is, at some point, a proof-reader to go through it and I’ll have a few questions to answer. Understand that this process can take months. And months. To finish a novel and two days later be doing the corrections and editorially requested tweaks is…astonishing.

Now I feel a little lost. I puttered around Saturday not knowing what to do with myself. This is a common feeling I have when I finish writing a book. I am working my ass off to finish it, then…what am I to do with myself?

I am taking most of December off from novel writing – I will have my draft of Antiques Faux to write come January. But I will be working on the video edit of the Mike Hammer play with Gary Sandy, Encore for Murder. I’ve seen the first act of two from editor Chad Bishop, and I like it. Not sure what to do with it, since it is after all an amateur production…though Gary, a real pro, is at its center; and the local cast seems pretty darn good to me.

As you may recall, this is a radio-style production, scripts in hand, though there is costuming and a big screen for scene-setting slides. We did this professionally, twice, in Owensboro and Clearwater, and I think this one stacks up nicely.

One idea I have is to include it as a bonus feature on the proposed disc of the expanded documentary, Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane, which is in progress.

* * *

A movie recommendation and a Blu-ray recommendation….

The Menu (in theaters now) is an excellent black comedy with a strong cast led by Ralph Fiennes and Anna Taylor-Joy (in probably her best post-Queen’s Gambit role). Writer Seth Reiss is a veteran of the Onion and Comedy Bang! Bang!, his co-writer Will Tracy comes from Succession. Those credits make a lot of sense, because The Menu is very funny and very dark. The critics have mostly liked it, but miss the point by focusing on the film as a satire on the foodie culture when it’s much more about class in general.

From Flicker Alley on Blu-ray comes El Vampiro Negro, another outstanding Eddie Muller discovery, the best yet of the South of the Border noirs he’s dug up (which is saying something). Despite the “Vampiro,” this is not a horror film – rather, amazingly, it’s a remake of Fritz Lang’s seminal crime thriller M (1931), in which Peter Lorre made himself known to the world in all his creepy glory. M is one of the great movies, and it spawned a strong American remake of the same title by director Joseph Losey, a film doomed to be underrated.

What is amazing about El Vampire Negro is that it rivals the original and, in my admittedly skewed view (but one that Muller agrees with), is my favorite of the three versions. It just might be superior to the original. (Muller agrees.)

While Negro has familiar elements from Lang – the whistling by the serial killer of “Hall of the Mountain King,” for instance – it has an entirely new twist by putting women…the mothers of the little girl victims…at the center of the narrative. The main character, nowhere to be seen in M, is a chanteuse (Olga Zubarry) in a seedy nightclub. Madame Zubarry is excellent, alternately recalling young Marilyn Monroe and Gloria Graham. The seeming hero, a pillar of law enforcement, is a bully and a creep (though humanized by his love for his crippled wife). The shadows and Dutch angles are superbly rendered. This is a genuine noir find.

* * *

Rod Lott, guru of Bookgasm, also has the Flick Attack movie site, where he talks about I, the Jury (1953) and does so intelligently.

M.A.C.

Thankful for Nathan Heller

I have completed Too Many Bullets, the next Nate Heller novel, with the exception of my final read-through doing corrections and tweaks. That will take much of the week, particularly since Thanksgiving is in there.

And I am certainly thankful to have finished it. My health was sketchy throughout much of the process, but I seem to be back to normal now, thanks to my general practitioner being on top of things, adjusting meds and such.

I began the writing of the book around the start of September. I’m actually surprised it went that quickly – it will be about three months when I wrap up the corrections, which for a 400-page (double-spaced) manuscript is a decent pace. I thought my health issues – the A-fib stuff, which included two cardioversions – would have slowed me down. But in retrospect I can see that I felt my best and the most myself when the work was distracting me.

On the other hand, I seem to have spent the previous three months researching the book. I didn’t have George Hagenauer helping me this time, so the process where he and I would divide up the reading and then discuss it as we go was not in the mix. I have never worked harder on research. The books were gathered, but the number of biographies of RFK and the stack of books about the assassination were daunting. I was determined to be really well-organized this time, so when I’d finished enough of the research to write a working synopsis – broken into chapters, about a half a page to a page per chapter – I went through my filled notebook of the research and annotated each chapter break-down with the page number in the research book, so I’d know where to find what I need writing that chapter.

In addition to that, I wound up filling three notebooks – this is more than any previous Heller – and I had a lot of on-the-fly Internet research, too, particularly on locations, everything from defunct restaurants to Griffith park to Caesars Palace and the Classic Cat strip joint in LA.

I feel good about each chapter but have my usual fear that when I read the book as a whole, they may not cohere. This has never happened but I always I’m afraid it might.

As I’ve mentioned here before, my original plan for this novel was far different from what it became. It was going to focus on the 1950s Heller/Hoffa story (often referred to in other Heller entries) with the RFK assassination an envelope that would take up around 100 pages, 150 at most. But as I researched the Sirhan Sirhan case, I realized I had a tiger by the tail and this new version has the Hoffa story jettisoned, perhaps to be handled next time, but this time with Hoffa barely mentioned at all.

The other factor was that my synopsis for the novel, the chapter breakdown I mentioned, included a B-plot and a return of mad doc Dr. Gottlieb from Better Dead, who in fact turned up in the history. But the B-plot would have weighed things down, and – coming along in the final third – be a distraction; and Gottlieb’s presence just over-complicated matters.

In fact, I did more composite characters than usual, too, in an effort to keep things moving and doing so smoothly. If this book is good – and I think there’s a chance it will be among the best Heller novels – it will mean I’ve mastered this difficult process of my own creation. It’s only taken three and a half decades.

I am sharing the cover with you, even though you haven’t even been able to lay hands on the previous Heller, The Big Bundle – the new Heller in terms of publishing.

The Big Bundle is a book I am very proud of, and I am frankly pleased that it is so different from the novel I just completed. It’s a point of pride to me that no two Heller novels are alike. The Big Bundle was designed to be “right” for Hard Case Crime – to have traditional noir elements that would introduce Hard Case Crime readers unfamiliar with the Heller books to what I’m up to in a way that would be user friendly. In a sense, I wanted The Big Bundle to be a strong example of a traditional private eye novel while hitting the notes that are unique to Heller. It is a change of pace, of sorts, as the crime itself is not a familiar one to most (though it was incredibly famous at the time).

My hope is that following up with the very different Too Many Bullets – with an extremely famous crime at its center – will demonstrate to new readers, and remind longtime readers, exactly what it is I’m up to.

The needle I’m trying to thread is keeping the Hard Case Crime readers interested when they have entered my domain by way of Quarry, mostly. I love doing Quarry and the novels are much more fun to do than Heller, which is a brutal damn process. But I know that my best work, my most important work (if any of it is important), is the Heller memoirs.

I have had to struggle to keep doing them. It’s unusual that I’ve been able to keep Heller alive at various publishing houses – in my time in this field, it’s become obvious that nothing is harder than moving a series to a new house. And if you manage it, you manage it once. I’ve managed it five times.

No question about it. I am a stubborn mofo. It is my hope, even my dream, for the Heller novels to be recognized in the upper echelon of private eye fiction, alongside Hammett, Chandler and Spillane. That hasn’t happened yet and it may not happen in my lifetime, but I am gambling my time and energy – and to some degree my income-earning ability – on these novels.

Possibly I’m a fool. (Possibly?!?!) I always think of Conan Doyle, who felt Sherlock Holmes was a trifle and that his historical novels would be his enduring legacy. He was wrong and I may be wrong, but neither of us would have done it any differently.

* * *

This is the Thanksgiving edition of my weekly update/blog. I am thankful for a lot of things – my health, my family, but also my readers. I am thankful for you.

* * *

It’s a tragedy for the mystery field to lose Mystery Scene, a truly great magazine founded by my late friend (and much missed) Ed Gorman, and continued with flair by Kate Stine.

Read my thoughts on the subject and those of others right here.

Digital Audiobook:

You can pre-order the audio of The Big Bundle here. It seems to be read by the great Dan John Miller, though I haven’t had that confirmed (Audible thinks it is, anyway).

Here is another strong review of the I, the Jury Blu-ray/4K/3d release.

And another.

M.A.C.

Upcoming Titles, A Recommendation & A Couple Warnings

I have received a handful of ARCs of Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction, the upcoming biography of Mickey by Jim Traylor and me. It’s a thing of beauty! Mysterious Press did an outstanding job with the packaging. I will soon be doing a book giveaway for a few copies (possibly five) of this trade paperback version of what will be available in hardcover on (note new pub date) Feb. 7, 2023.

The new Nate Heller, The Big Bundle, is delayed, a fact that has dismayed some readers. But the book exists and is in fact a December 2022 title…it’s just held up at the UK docks by a strike. It will be available on Dec. 6 on e-book.

Better news for those dying to read something by yours truly – the first Kindle boxed set from Wolfpack of my work, Max Allan Collins Collection Vol. One: Eliot Ness is a Kindle Deal running from Wednesday, November 30 to Wednesday, December 7, 2022. The price will be dropping from $3.99 to $0.99 during that time period. That’s a quarter a book, which is what I used to pay for new paperbacks when I was in junior high. This is all four of the Eliot Ness in Cleveland novels (Nate Heller guests in two of ‘em).

A Big Bundle book giveaway is coming soon, too. Remember, if you get the novel prior to its publication date (some of you received it via NetGalley), your review can’t appear till we hit that date.

I am working now on the final chapters of the next Heller, Too Many Bullets, about the RFK assassination. It’s a big book, on the lines of True Detective, and in a sense it’s the bookend to that first Heller memoir. It’s been very difficult, in part because of my health issues (doing better, thanks) but also because it’s one of the most complicated cases I’ve dealt with. It has required more time compression and composite characters than I usually employ, and I spend a lot of time discussing with Barb what’s fair and what isn’t fair in an historical novel. I’ve been writing those since 1981 and I still wrestle with that question.

Also, there has been replotting, which is not unusual in the final section of a Heller as the need to tighten up the narrative frequently means a sub-plot gets jettisoned, particularly one that doesn’t rear its head till the last hundred pages.

But I’ll tell you what’s really unfair: using Barb as a sounding board when she’s working on her own draft of the next Antiques novel (Antiques Foe).

I am also wrestling with (and I’ve mentioned this before in these updates) how long I should to stay at it with Heller. The degree of difficulty (as I’ve also mentioned before) is tough at this age. Right now I am considering a kind of coda novel (much like Skim Deep for Nolan and Quarry’s Blood for Quarry) that would wrap things up. The Hoffa story still needs a complete telling.

Should I go that direction, and should my health and degree of interest continue on a positive course, I might do an occasional Heller in a somewhat shorter format. Of course, the problem with that is these crimes are always more complex than I think they’re going to be. I thought The Big Bundle would be an ideal lean-and-mean hardboiled PI novel, perfect for Heller’s debut at Hard Case Crime. But the complexities of a real crime like the Greenlease kidnapping tripped me up. On the other hand, the book – probably a third longer than I’d imagined – came out very well. In my view, anyway.

And with Too Many Bullets, I thought the RFK killing would make a kind of envelope around the Hoffa story, maybe a hundred, hundred-fifty pages of material.

Wrong.

* * *

Last week I recorded (with Phil Dingeldein) the commentary of ClassicFlix’s upcoming widescreen release of The Long Wait, based on Mickey Spillane’s 1951 non-Hammer bestseller. I like the commentary better than my I, the Jury one and have been astonished by just how good I think both the film of I, the Jury and The Long Wait are, since I was used to seeing them in cropped, dubby VHS gray-market versions (and because Mickey himself hated them). Widescreen makes all the difference on Long Wait, and Anthony Quinn is a wonderful Spillane hardboiled hero.

I will report here on when the Blu-ray/4K release is scheduled. It won’t be as pricey as I, the Jury because the 3-D factor is absent.

* * *

Living under a rock as I do, I had somehow missed the fact that the Enola Holmes movies (there are two, one quite recent, both on Netflix) starred the talented Millie Bobbie Brown of Stranger Things. I also got it into my head that these were kid movies. Wrong again!

These are two excellent, quirky Sherlock Holmes movies, with Henry Cavill excellent as the young Holmes, and very tough films despite a light-hearted touch manifested by Enola (Brown, absolutely wonderful) breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience. It’s tricky and charming, and reminiscent – but actually kind of superior – to the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies.

Do not miss these.

Here’s one you can miss: Lou. A lesser Netflix flick, it stars the excellent Allison Janney and starts fairly well, but devolves into ridiculous plot twists and makes a bait-and-switch out of the entire movie.

Also, I have made it clear here that I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s movies, particularly starting with Inglorious Bastards – prior to that, the self-conscious references to his favorite films were too on the nose for my taste, although I revisited them after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (a masterpiece) and had less trouble.

I don’t usually criticize other writers, but after trying to read his new book I am convinced Tarantino needs to stick to film, where he colors wildly but within the lines.

His Cinema Speculation is opinionated blather about ‘70s and ‘80s films that reminds us that Tarantino once worked at a video store. This is absolutely the kind of stuff a motormouth, know-it-all video clerk used to put us through when we were just trying to rent the damn movie.

* * *

This is a re-edit of an interview I gave to the Des Moines Register back in 2016 (I think). It’s not bad.

And here you can see a much younger me (and Chet Gould and Rick Fletcher) on the occasion of Dick Tracy’s 50th birthday.

M.A.C.

Physical Media Lives – Sort Of

A couple more great reviews for The Big Bundle have come in.

Hardcover:
E-Book:
Digital Audiobook:

This is from the DIS/MEMBER web site:

The Big Bundle
by Max Allan Collins

“What kind of world are we living in, Nate?” “A world where men like us can get ahead, Bob. Can make a nice life for ourselves and our families. But it’s also one where men of envy and greed and stupidity and flat-out evil are ready and willing to take everything away.”

The President of Chicago’s A-1 Detective Agency makes his grand Hard Case Crime debut in The Big Bundle. The latest from living, breathing noir encyclopedia and prolific genre staple Max Allan Collins.

The year is 1953 and six-year-old Bobby Greenlease, son of Kansas City Cadillac magnate Robert Greenlease, has been kidnapped. Following a series of cartoonish attempts to ransom the boy, Chicago detective Nathan Heller is called to K.C. Having been appealed to by the boy’s desperate family and hired on as one of the many caseworkers, both local and federal, drawn into the crime.

But what starts as a kidnapping quickly spirals into something much, much more complex. Pitting Heller against crooked Teamsters, thuggish cabbies, out-of-luck bent cops, and Robert F. Kennedy on the warpath for the mob. All immaculately strung across a colorfully detailed, powerfully researched depiction of the 1950s. A time when Jimmy Hoffa was in every newspaper and “The Outfit” (aka The Mafia at it’s height) kept everyone looking over their shoulders.

Though standing as the 18th Nathan Heller Novel (excluding short story collections and “casebooks”), The Big Bundle is immediately accessible for those who might be coming to the series fresh. From page 1, Collins provides a wonderfully succinct primer on Heller’s exploits thus far. Economically delivered and chock full of rich characterization, Collins eases readers into the life and immensely readable voice of Heller.

Better still, the novel’s main case is truly compelling. Made even more so by the liberal peppering of real-life history Collins deploys throughout the book. The Greenlease Kidnapping was huge news and compared to the Lindbergh case at the time. Yet another canny connection to our man Heller. But as such, Collins adapts and reconstructs real history, people, and places into the narrative. Providing his driving, constantly twisty plot with sumptuous detailing.

To say any more would spoil The Big Bundle‘s best turns. But trust when I say, if you are looking for old-school, eminently readable crime fiction, The Big Bundle is a damn safe bet. Chock to bursting with character and deftly delivered by well-practiced hand, this new effort from Hard Case Crime does right by Chicago’s A-1 gumshoe. And providing him a welcome new home at the publisher.

The Big Bundle by Max Allan Collins is available for pre-order now and releases December 6th.

Joe Maniscalco has done a review for Good Reads and Amazon that’s worth sharing:

After first meeting Nate Heller in True Detective back in 1983, this reader has eagerly read each of Max Allan Collins’ novels featuring the life and times of a former Chicago cop who goes on to meet some of 20th centuries’ most famous and most infamous. Nate Heller begins as a reluctant cop, who encounters the Chicago underworld, and then eventually morphs into the famous owner of the A-1 Detective Agency with several branches across the United States.

The Heller novels are notable for Collins’ extensive research that bring the felons and politicos of the years of each of the books to life. (And sometimes felons and politicos describe the same person.). Heller has gone on to solve real life historical mysteries, and even occasionally bedded some well known women of the day, not widely thought of as femme fatales.

The Big Bundle is set somewhat mid career for Heller as he is called on to investigate the kidnapping of a child of a wealthy businessman. Heller had investigated another kidnapping that made worldwide news twenty years earlier, thus his presence in this job makes perfect sense.

There is a moral principle that Heller follows which determines how much of his investigations remain strictly legal, but always justifiable. Here Heller deals with small time hoodlums, famous union bosses, and a young politician about to make his name as he investigates organized crime.

Heller himself hints that the union boss, the politician, and he will meet again, and perceptive readers will likely have some inking how those meetings will turn out, and will change the course of American history.

Readers do not have to start with Heller’s first “memoir.” What’s certain is that nearly 40 years after his first appearance, the author and his creation have not lost any of their power to entertain and put a new spin on twentieth century history and the mysteries and crimes which have brought us into the twenty first century.

Let me remind you that a dock strike in the UK means the availability of the physical book (what I like to call a book book) of The Big Bundle will be delayed till January 2023; but the e-book will be available Dec. 5. I will be doing a book giveaway of the trade paper ARC (the book itself is a hardcover) in a week or two.

In the meantime I am deep into the next Heller – the RFK assassination Heller – Too Many Bullets. I’m at 302 manuscript pages with five chapters left to go (plus the bibliographic essay).

Perhaps because the degree of difficulty – I no longer have George Hagenauer helping me on the research side – has made this one such a bear, added to health issues throughout, I am seriously considering making the follow-up to Too Many Bullets my final Heller.

On the health front, I had a very good report from my heart doctor and will soon be seeing my general practitioner about various other fun and games. But keeping the heart beating is a high damn priority and that looks positive right now.

* * *‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.’

The time has come to discuss physical media.

First let me say I am fine with e-books for those of you who find them handy and dandy. They have their place – for example, on a commuter train or when a reader needs to control of the size of print to be able to read the stuff. Where they don’t have a place is on a bookshelf.

Now understand that e-books have kept me and my career alive. Thomas & Mercer (who have lost interest in me as a current contributer, but that’s another story) chose me a decade ago as one of three authors whose back list they would use to plump up their e-book library. The other two were Ian Fleming and Ed McBain, and if there’s better company than that I don’t know who it might be.

Even now the monthly sales of Heller, Mallory, the Disaster Series and the Reeder & Rogers Trilogy add up to a tidy little paycheck – of varying sizes, but steady. Readers having access to my backlist is a great thing. Heller sales are up over a million copies because of Thomas & Mercer’s good efforts. So I am not one to cast aspersions on e-books. They have kept me afloat.

And yet. They are not books. They are not those wonderful things with pages and covers and images on covers that can sit on shelves and be plucked out from the pack for perusal at a moment’s notice. I can tell you with certainty that books from the ‘30s and ‘40s are already disappearing. Even with ABE, you can’t find copies of any number of things, sometimes by authors who were fairly famous in their day.

Then there’s movies. I have far too many DVDs, Blu-rays and, yes, laser discs. If the Internet of a few years ago (and even now) was to be believed, all movies would soon be available to us with a mouse click. Anything we could dream of seeing, we could see, at our whim. Of course that was bullshit.

Any of us who have been paying attention know that a vast number of films are already gone, from the silent days on. A bunch of Charlie Chan movies starring Warner Oland are in the ether, for instance (of course the rest will probably be turned into guitar picks over political correctness, but never mind). And if you look something up on SEARCH on your Roku, you will discover that plenty of stuff is either not available or you have to pay for it, for a temporary rental or a “purchase” (which of course is air you’re purchasing, not something physical you can hold or put on a shelf). We are already used to Netflix and other such services announcing what titles are leaving this month. HBO Max has been one night of the long knives after another.

The death of physical media is more murder than natural causes. So I am not about to divest myself of my library of movies, which will be left to my son, who is also smart enough to know that physical media has its place.

If you think I overstate, take a spin into Best Buy, which for decades made movies a loss leader that brought movie fans in to go through aisle after aisle of cinematic and televisionary offerings. Yesterday, in Cedar Rapids, I entered a Best Buy and the child working the door asked me, “What brings you in today?” Really? I need an excuse now?

Well, maybe I do, because the Blu-rays and 4K discs on offer were a pitiful selection that took up so little space its former grand area was just partitioned off and empty. Shades of Suncoast, Tower Records, and Camelot….

So I come to celebrate the Blu-ray labels that are devoting themselves to obscurities – horror and science fiction and noir, giallo (Italian crime/horror), B movies, C movies, Z movies, and the two who tower over the rest for their superior packaging and extensive bonus features are Severin and Vinegar Syndrome. They are not alone, but these labels are outstanding in their bold selection. Also praise worthy (among a number) are VCI, Shout Factory (Scream Factory), and especially Arrow, who bridge the gap between Criterion’s arty fare and Severin/Vinegar’s aggressively grungy selections.

Severin, for example, recently offered a 4K release of The Changeling, a first-rate George C. Scott haunted house film; My Grandpa is a Vampire, a so so movie for older kids more than redeemed by a valedictory performance by Al Lewis (I hope you don’t have to be told he was Grandpa on The Munsters and a staple of Bilko); and two (so far) Blu-ray boxed sets of Christopher Lee’s European output.

Vinegar Syndrome has recently released The Werewolf Vs. The Vampire Woman (with an 80-minute documentary about Spanish cult horror star Paul Naschy as a bonus feature!); The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 on 4k with voluminous bonus features; and Cutter’s Way with Jeff Bridges in a VHS-style box. Vinegar Syndrome also does a lot of classic porn for those of you who think the words “classic” and “porn” can reasonably appear together in the same sentence. Like all their stuff, the porn has fancy schmancy sleeves and classy presentation.

Look, not all of this material is for everybody. Some of it seems to be for nobody, so we’re in that fuzzy area between “buyer beware” and “how cool!”

But this is a world of physical media that has been spawned by the real world’s lack of interest thereof. So we can find Arrow Video releasing Years of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers and (on 4K) Mike Hodges’ Croupier. And Scream Factory releasing a 4K of Army of Darkness and a boxed set of Jackie Chan (1976 – 1982).

Best of times, worst of times. Take your pick.

* * *

And, no, I haven’t forgotten Classic Flix. I am recording a commentary for Mickey Spillane’s The Long Wait tomorrow. And here is a terrific review of their I, the Jury 4K/Blu-ray/3-D release.

Finally, my friend and editor Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime has a wonderful interview with my buddy Andrew Sumner of Titan about Charles’ terrific Gun Honey comic book, the archive editions of Ms. Tree, and a little something I like to call…The Big Bundle!

M.A.C.

Good News and Bad News Is No Mystery….

There’s good news and bad news this week, starting with this stellar review for the new Mike Hammer book (Kill Me If You Can) from Mystery Scene courtesy of private-eye guru, Kevin Burton Smith, mastermind behind the Thrilling Detective web site (https://thrillingdetective.com/).

Hardcover:
E-Book:
Digital Audiobook:
Audiobook MP3 CD:
Audiobook CD: Kill Me If You Can
by Max Allan Collins
Titan Books, September 2022, $24.95

By now Max Allan Collins’ name has appeared on more than half of the Mike Hammer novels, whether you regard them as canon or not. But Collins wasn’t one of those pens-for-hire parachuted in to keep a corporate cash cow mooing—he was handpicked by Spillane himself, who left behind a treasure trove of unfinished manuscripts, rough notes, and story ideas. He told his wife shortly before his death that “Max will know what to do.”

It’s clear, after 14 cowritten novels (plus a handful of short stories and non-Hammer material gleaned from Spillane’s leftovers) that Collins knew exactly what to do—he “gets” Spillane in a way much of the mystery establishment still doesn’t.

You need look no further than his latest, the bruising Kill Me If You Can, which takes place somewhere in the mid-fifties lost years of the Hammerverse between Kiss Me, Deadly (1952) and The Girl Hunters (1962). Never the most stable of detectives, Mike’s particularly unchained now—the love of his life, Velda Sterling, is gone, maybe kidnapped, maybe dead, and he’s responding the only way he knows. By drinking too much, wallowing in self-pity, guilt and rage, and vowing revenge—or at least violence. And plenty of it.

The first line, “I had nothing to keep me company but my .45 and an itch to use it,” pretty much sums it up, and the action never really lets up. Mike is in free fall, cut loose from anything (i.e., Velda) that tethered him to a world of laws, and the result is an alcohol-fueled fury that eventually costs him his PI ticket, his only real friend (NYPD homicide dick Pat Chambers), and even his beloved .45, as he tries to set a trap, with the help of former bootlegger turned nightclub owner Packy Paragon, for a burglary crew he suspects may have had a hand in the disappearance of Velda. The trap, though, goes horribly, violently awry.

Those more familiar with Collins’ other work (particularly his masterful Nate Heller series, a string of complex, richly detailed and nuanced tales of a fictional private eye thrust into the maelstrom of some of the twentieth century’s most notorious true crimes) may not at first recognize Collins’ style here. But the coauthor has no problem serving up Hammer the same way Spillane did, with plenty of mayhem, violence, and sex, dished out in straight-ahead, no-frills prose, right on target, so direct, with no room for sissy stuff like digressions, detours, or doubts. Hammer is a shark that needs to keep swimming to survive, and Collins tosses plenty of chum into these waters.

Like the murder of his old pal Packy Paragon, who may—or may not—have been killed for trying to help Mike. Or was it the ledger of mob secrets Packy supposedly possessed? Or an overly ambitious rival? An old grudge? Hammer isn’t sure, but he’ll follow the clues to the savage, bloody end—whatever it takes—to avenge Packy.

It’s the real deal, folks: primo, primal detective fiction. Pass the peanuts.

(If that’s not enough, there are five bonus stories included by Spillane, curated and tweaked by Collins, two of which feature Hammer. You know, just in case…)
Kevin Burton Smith

The bad news? Mystery Scene is assembling its final issue right now. This valuable – make that invaluable – part of the mystery scene has been with us since 1985 when Ed Gorman and Bob Randisi began publishing it. I was in on the ground floor with these two top writers, and wrote the movie review column in the magazine for ten-plus years. (I stepped down when I began making indie films myself and thought expressing my opinions about other people’s work in a high-profile magazine was lacking in grace.)

The exceptionally able Kate Stine has been at the helm since 2002. She has been supportive of long-established mystery writers but, more importantly, of new writers in the field. It’s a crushing blow to writers both new and old and in between to have this source of intelligent reviews disappear, as well as in-depth coverage of the field past and present. It’s really a gut punch to the mystery-fiction industry to lose this publication.

Of course it’s no surprise that making it with a magazine in this digital age is tough, and I am hopeful that Mystery Scene will stick around on line. But it ain’t gonna be the same.

And I never will get that Mystery Scene cover….

* * *

Here’s a great Booklist review of Kill Me If You Can:

Kill Me if You Can.
By Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
2022. 288p. Titan, $24.95 (9781789097641)

Collins, the literary executor of Mickey Spillane’s estate, continues to do fine work in completing the Mike Hammer novels left unfinished when the iconic crime writer died in 2006. Celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first appearance of Hammer in I, the Jury (1947), this tale finds the quintessential hard-boiled private eye still reeling from the disappearance of his secretary, Velda, at the end of Kiss Me Deadly (1952). The action takes place in the mid-fifties with Hammer in full revenge mode, searching for Velda and her abductors, but also trying to find the killer of another close friend, nightclub owner and former gangster Packy Paragon.

Hammer’s over-the-top blood lust is in full cry here, and while that’s not a personality trait endearing to most of today’s crime-fiction audience, it’s an essential part of the Hammer persona, and it helped define the hard-boiled hero in the postwar era of paperback originals. Always rough around the edges (in terms of content and style), Spillane was nevertheless the best-selling mystery writer of the twentieth century, exceeding both Chandler and Hammett. Collins, a first-rate storyteller who started his own career with paperback originals, adds some narrative finesse to what he calls the “Hammerverse” but remains true to Spillane’s essence. This volume also includes five previously unpublished Hammer stories, adding extra pizzazz to what is a fitting celebration of a genre giant.

— Bill Ott

Here is ClassicFlix’s new trailer for their Blu-ray of Mike Hammer in I, the Jury.

Three giveaway copies of the final Caleb York, Shoot-out at Sugar Creek, are still available. [All copies have now been claimed. Thank you! –Nate]

* * *

Recovery from my A-fib bout continues. I am on the upward move – would put myself at about 75% right now. I run out of steam around late afternoon and am spent by mid-evening. Next morning, rarin’ to go.

I’m getting good work days in, and Too Many Bullets continues to grow pages. It will take to the end of the year, I’m afraid; but it’s happening.

I’m told that a strike on the dock in the UK will delay delivery of The Big Bundle till sometime in January. The e-book will be available very early December, however. I will be doing a book giveaway soon on this book designed specifically to get Heller off to a good start at Hard Case Crime.

Heller has now been at TOR, Bantam, Dutton, Forge and, now, Hard Case Crime. This is unusual to say the least, but it reflects my dogged determination to tell Heller’s entire story. Publishers do not like to pick up a “busted” series. But the reviews have supported me. Even the sales for the series are up over one million copies now.

Last night (well, early morning) I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and knew at once I needed to do some replotting, as I head into the final third of the book. I was back in bed at 5:30, content I’d fixed it, removing two story threads. Then at 8:30 a.m. I awoke again and put them back in…but smoothed ‘em out.

Heller never gets any easier.

* * *

Here are some really good reviews of The Big Bundle at Goodreads.

Ron Fortier reviews Kill Me If You Can here. He finds the novel (novella?) okay, but really likes the five short stories.

Here’s a review of the I, the Jury Blu-ray/4K/3-D disc. Let me again say that if you don’t have the ability to play 3-D discs, the Blu-ray and 4K discs make this well worth the price.

And another.

This will lead you to the British Blu-ray release of I, the Jury, which does not include the 3-D disc. It’s Region B.

The top 12 (this write-up says) of comics-adapted movies. Road to Perdition is one of them.

M.A.C.

Give Me a Little Sugar (Creek), Baby

Hardcover:
Paperback (New Release!):
E-Book:
Digital Audiobook:

This week features a book giveaway of the mass market edition of Shoot-out at Sugar Creek, which looks to be the final Caleb York novel.

As usual, write me at macphilms@hotmail.com and include your snail mail address (even if you’ve entered before). I have ten copies in return for your assurance that you will write a review at Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble (or your own book review blog). [Due to shipping costs, U.S. residents only, please. –Nate]

I hate having to hang up my Stetson and shootin’ iron, but Kensington has not requested another in the series, and one of the few other publishers of westerns, Five Star, is shutting down its corral. That leaves Wolfpack, but my sales there don’t yet justify doing more novels for those fine folks (not sarcasm – Mike and Jake Bray and my old buddy Paul Bishop are tops).

Anyway, as I’ve indicated here recently, I am slowing down by choice and necessity. Part of it is health concerns and just the reality of growing older (more about this later), some of it is shrinking markets for my work, and another concern is not wanting to work so damn hard.

My somewhat decreased output will be in line with what most writers would consider their normal output, and the trickle (as compared to a deluge) of M.A.C. books will not be readily apparent, as several completed things are coming up yet this year and next. The Big Bundle, the new Heller, is out in December from Hard Case Crime. Two more Fancy Anders novellas will be coming out from NeoText, who are also doing the Barbara/Max collaboration, Cutout, also a novella and a damn good one.

And I am just past the half-way point on Too Many Bullets, the Nate Heller taking on the Robert Kennedy assassination. I have in mind one further Heller, finally dealing head-on with Jimmy Hoffa (and RFK), which I hope to convince Hard Case Crime to let me do next year.

That is likely to wrap up the Heller saga, although one never knows. This cycle of three RFK-related novels (The Big Bundle, Too Many Bullets and the untitled Hoffa book) will be chronologically the last. I consider the Heller saga to be my best work, but they are exceptionally hard to do. My longtime researcher George Hagenauer has not been involved with the more recent books, except peripherally, which obviously puts the research on my shoulders.

My intention (and this is obviously subject to change) is to finish up this Heller/RFK cycle and then return to a few Quarry novels. If the Nolan movie happens, he and Jon could return…but only in the event of that movie happening (the series has been optioned by Lionsgate).

On the Mike Hammer front, I have signed to do the final two for Titan. A few fragments remain that might become short stories; but closing out the Hammer series is another indication that I am winding down.

And next on my docket is my draft of Antiques Foe (Barb is working on her draft now).

Let me assure the handful of you who care that as long as I have my marbles I will be writing prose fiction. I may do one last Perdition novel, for example, and I have a Neo-Text project that will include novellas about Audie Murphy and John Wayne as well as an unlikely third American hero.

The third act nature of what I’m up to has reflected itself in the recent work. Quarry in Quarry’s Blood finds our boy an old man now, of 70 or so; and the next one I do is likely to be a follow-up with him again in that age range. Nate Heller in Too Many Bullets (and to a degree in The Big Bundle) is an older guy who gets involved in cases that resonate with his past – i.e., the similarity of Zangara in True Detective and Sirhan Sirhan in Too Many Bullets.

Speaking of The Big Bundle, stay tuned for a book giveaway – I have some ARCs that will be available in a week or two.

* * *

A number of you have been kind enough – though I’ve discouraged you not to – to write me both in the comments here and in private e-mails with your concern and best wishes for my A-fib adventures. Everyone has my blessing to skip the rest of this section of the update as I deal with what happened since last week’s entry.

I was scheduled to have the cardioversion procedure at Trinity in Rock Island on Thursday (Oct. 20). But I had a couple of bad days and really bad nights early last week, and Barb insisted on Tuesday morning that I call my heart doc’s nurse, first thing, and let her know what my symptoms were. (For the record, extreme shortness of breath, wheezing, and an inability to sleep unless I sat in a chair and leaned forward. This was very much like what I experienced before going in for heart surgery in 2016).

Anyway, the nurse told me (in forceful but less colorful terms) to get my ass up to the emergency room in Rock Island at the heart center. We were convinced I’d get an EKG, some meds, and be told to report back on Thursday as planned. But, no – the efficient staff got me right in, and in an astonishingly short four hours, I had the cardioversion procedure and was heading home (Barb at the wheel).

The doctor was female (not my usual cardiologist, though he was consulted by her several times) as were most of the techs, and their kindness, good humor and efficiency gave me hope for the human race. (Not a lot of hope, but hope.) I was extremely impressed, and gobsmacked by having my problem addressed so quickly and well.

I am still in recovery mode. I still have the same symptoms, but dialed back considerably. This may be a side effect of some heavy medication I am still on that was part of getting me ready for the procedure.

Okay, I understand this is not the exciting stuff I reported in 2016, when after my heart surgery I ran naked down the hospital corridor thinking murder was afoot in the Columbo episode I was hallucinating (note to self: continue to avoid Ambien).

But it will have to do.

And thank you all for your concern. I can only say that my biggest concern during all this was dying before I finished the Heller.

* * *

A few quick words about movies and TV that Barb and I have enjoyed (or not enjoyed).

See How They Run, a British mystery centered around Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, is strangely flat, conveying a sense of everybody being all dressed up with no where to go. It is perhaps the only Sam Rockwell performance (he’s inexplicably cast as a British detective) I’ve seen that underwhelms. A while back someone wrote in saying how they cringed when I called something “painfully diverse” in its casting. Well, I’m saying it again about this one. Agatha Christie’s archeologist husband Sir Max Mallowan is portrayed by a Black actor, and a producer is planning to leave his wife and marry his Black secretary. In the early 1950s. It’s very possible that younger viewers will have no problem with either, but for those of us who have been on the planet a while, the historical inaccuracy of that is a big stumbling block.

We walked out of Amsterdam, despite its stellar cast (so stellar as to be distracting and even annoying). It’s apparently a comedy, but plays like a bad imitation of Wes Anderson. You will come out humming the art direction. (Fun fact: the historical event it centers upon is the one from the 3-part pilot of City of Angels, “The November Plan.”)

Barb did not see Halloween Ends, which is streaming on Peacock (and is in theaters). I did. It’s surprisingly good, making an effort to do something different and not just pile up the gory kills. After an initial Michael Myers attack, the next hour is…wait for it…story. Jamie Lee Curtis pulls it all together.

Confess, Fletch is a good little comic mystery with John Hamm fine as Gregory Mcdonald’s celebrated anti-hero. It reminded me of going to the movies in the ‘70s and ‘80s and seeing something small but entertaining.

Did I already mention Bullet Train here? It’s a ride.

* * *

Here’s a nice interview with Andy Rausch, who is writing a biography about someone or other.

Here’s where you can get Deadly Beloved and Other Stories. It’s not my Ms. Tree novel of that title, but a collection of Johnny Craig stories from the EC comics that corrupted so many youths (including mine).

A nice little write-up here celebrates Conrad Hall’s posthumous Road to Perdition Academy Award.

Check out the classic “Theme from Ms. Tree” right here.

Finally, have a gander at this terrific review of the Blu-ray of I, the Jury.

M.A.C.

M.A.C. Collection From Wolfpack & A Spillane Rave

Another short update, I’m afraid.

My medical issues are coming to a head and I will be trying to deal with them this week. Good thoughts and crossed fingers are appreciated.

Here is the appearance by Barb and me on the Paula Sands Show recently, promoting Antiques Liquidation.

The first in a new series of e-book boxed sets from Wolfpack is available now – The Max Allan Collins Collection, Volume One: Eliot Ness. Works out to less than a buck a book!

E-Book:

There will be five e-book boxed sets in the overall Max Allan Collins Collection, plus a Mickey Spillane collection.

Come Spy With Me is set for a $.99 Kindle Countdown Deal Oct 19th – 25th.

E-Book:

The first review of the Spillane bio by Jim Traylor and me has just appeared, and it’s strong, despite being from the meanest, toughest reviewing service in the world: Kirkus.

SPILLANE King of Pulp Fiction
Author: Max Allan Collins
Author: James L. Traylor

Review Issue Date: November 15, 2022
Online Publish Date: October 20, 2022
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Pages: 400
Price ( Hardcover ): $26.95
Publication Date: January 10, 2023
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-1-61316-379-5
Section: NonFiction

A full-dress biography of the most polarizing practitioner of 20th-century crime fiction.

As Collins and Traylor note, nearly everyone deplored the sex and violence of Mickey Spillane’s (1918-2006) midcentury novels about private eye Mike Hammer—though that didn’t stop the millions of readers who catapulted him to the top of bestseller lists and kept him there. Delving into Spillane’s roots, the authors examine the evolution of comic-book hero Mike Lancer into Mike Hammer, cite contemporaneous reviewers who talked up or trash-talked Hammer’s adventures, and explore Spillane’s multimedia activities during the 10 years (1952-1962) of Hammer’s absence from the printed page. (Why the long silence? Collins and Traylor believe Spillane was waiting for his disadvantageous contract with film producer Victor Saville to expire). Warning in their opening chapter of spoilers ahead, the authors proceed to summarize the mysteries and solutions of all Hammer’s early novels. They’re at their best when mapping the Spillane metaverse, which includes novels, stories, articles, comic strips, radio broadcasts, TV programs, and movies, and weakest in their uncritical praise of their subject as a plotter, stylist, Jehovah’s Witness, and human being (a verdict his first two wives might have contested). “Mickey encouraged our best efforts, all the while sharing his humanity, generosity, and down-to-earth nature,” they write. “This book reflects not just our love for his work, but for the man, with thanks for his encouragement and friendship.” Spillane’s appealing directness provides an endless stream of anecdotes. The authors conclude with a formidable array of appendices, ranging from an autobiographical fragment that takes Spillane from birth to age 14 to an essay on “Ayn Rand and Mickey Spillane” to a brace of bibliographies and an account of some of their own extensive dealings with the author when he was alive and the work Collins has continued to complete since his death.

Fans who’ve been waiting for a life of Spillane will gobble this up.

A decent review of the new volume in the Titan archival Ms. Tree collections comes from the Slings and Arrows site.

M.A.C.

Poetry Slam: Terry B. & M.A.C. Plus Ms. Tree On TV!

I am still dealing with my A-fib (going in for a jump-start next week) and am slowed down by the condition as well as some heavy meds I’m on in prep for the procedure. So this week the update here is represented by this interview with Terry Beatty and me by the best pop culture interviewer on the planet, Andrew Sumner. Terry and I have rarely done joint interviews, so this is something of a rarity:

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(Or at your local or online comic book store!)
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What is possibly the final Caleb York western (of six) will soon be published in paperback, Shoot-out at Sugar Creek. (Tuesday, October 25)

This is a review of the hardcover of Sugar Creek that appeared last year, and it’s a very good, smart one that’s worth reading for the first time or revisiting it.

I loved doing these westerns, and it’s unfortunate Kensington didn’t ask for more. But what had been an unproduced screenplay (for John Wayne) by Mickey Spillane has generated six fun books, so I have nothing to complain about.

This is a really nice write-up about the new Mike Hammer novel, Kill Me If You Can, at the lively, fun site Jerry’s House of Everything.

And the similarly fun Borg site has a discussion of Tough Tender, the two-fer of Nolan novels, Hard Cash and Scratch Fever, the final two novels of the original Nolan run. Available from Hard Case Crime, my lifeline to readers!

M.A.C.

No Book Today, No Antiques Giveaway (Sung to the Tune of “No Milk Today” by Herman’s Hermits)

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We would have liked on this update to announce a book giveaway for the Barbara Allan mystery, Antiques Liquidation, from Severn, the publication date of which is…today. But the copies we requested for the promotion have not yet arrived, so that will have to wait.

You may have more difficulty than usual finding this new novel about the comic misadventures of Brandy and Vivian Borne, because the last two books don’t seem to have made it into the Barnes & Noble buying system, at least not in any major way. Or BAM! either. That may change, and the handsome trade paperback of the previous one, Antiques Carry On, may be easier to find. (The return policy of our UK-based publisher is kinder on the trade paperbacks than the hardcovers.)

The focus of Severn (not exclusively, but their main market) is libraries, where the Trash ‘n’ Treasures mysteries have always been strong.

Barb is working on her draft of the next one, Antiques Foe (pun on “faux”) while I work on the Nate Heller RFK book, Too Many Bullets. We have another book on the Severn contract so there will be at least one more of those. Barb is making noises about wrapping up the series, and she may be serious, but she has been making that threat for the last several books. They read fast and are fun, but they are hard books to write.

A long-running series has its delights and pitfalls, which are sometimes the same thing, like the pleasure of spending time with old friends (Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe are too of my favorite people even though they never really existed) and the nagging feeling you’re repeating yourself.

Probably the best (and hardest) thing about writing the Nate Heller novels is that each real crime/mystery I deal with is so different from the others that I never fall into the trap so many mystery writers have in their series – writing the same book again and again. Chandler is as good they come and yet he worked a very small patch of farmland over and over and never even bothered to rotate the crops.

Even when a Heller has a similar crime – the forthcoming The Big Bundle, like Stolen Away, is about a kidnapping – the difference in eras and personalities involved as well as the circumstances of the crimes keeps thing nicely different.

Barb is endlessly inventive in ways to get the girls into trouble, and I hope she’ll do at least three or four more of ‘em.

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I hesitate to talk about my health issues because it only gets people writing me with concern even as I come across alarmist and whiny. But just about everybody my age has health issues, and lately mine has been A-fib. I had the cardioversion procedure not long ago – the third or fourth I’ve had since my 2016 heart adventures began – but it didn’t take (this is where I am jump-started like an old Buick). I have to go back in to repeat the procedure later this month.

Prepping for it, I was put on a really strong medication that set me on my ass (a medical condition, obviously) whereby my shortness of breath and wheezing, related to the A-fib, got much, much worse. Last night was an utterly sleepless one. Obviously, a bad reaction to the meds.

So I have stopped taking that particular medication and am close to normal (as if I ever was) but I tire easily and will be lucky just to keep up with my work till I get this behind me.

There is a very good chance that stress is responsible, and of course that I am responsible for that stress. I am a rave and ranter. My wife, in her first-floor office, hears coming from above blistering flurries of obscenities and rage that would bring tears to the gentle eyes
of any United States Marine. I am trying to keep in mind the mantra from Bill Murray in Meatballs – “It just doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter….”

And it really doesn’t. But everything I’ve accomplished in my career has come out of enthusiasm and intensity, by caring more about my work than I logically should. My biggest concern right now is that I don’t die before finishing Too Many Bullets. Which is a dumb-ass thing to be thinking, particularly from a guy who has been finishing one Mickey Spillane novel after another.

The punchline of this self-pitying soliloquy is that that’s why his week’s update is so damn short.

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Some very nice reviews for Kill Me If You Can, the 75th anniversary Mike Hammer novel, at Amazon. Here’s a link where you can read them (and order the book!).

A very nice review of the Hammer short story “Skin” appears at the essential site, Paperback Warrior. [“Skin” can be found in the short story collection A Long Time Dead. The e-book is currently only $2.99 at Amazon and B&N. –Nate]

Here’s an interesting look at the locations used shooting the film version of Road to Perdition.

* * *M.A.C.