Max Allan Collins's Blog, page 27

Come Spy With Me Launches

Nobody Lives Forever is the title of one of John Gardner’s James Bond novels. Gardner, like my friend Raymond Benson, was one of the official scribes hired by the Ian Fleming estate to continue the novel series. But while, as a title, Nobody Lives Forever has an authentic Bond ring, I must disagree with its sentiment.

Sean Connery will live forever, and so will James Bond. And especially Sean Connery’s James Bond will live forever.

That makes this the right time to finally share with you the cover of Come Spy With Me, the first of a projected trilogy by Matthew V. Clemens and me about retired UK spy, John Sand, who the novel implies was the “real” basis for James Bond. We had been told, at one point, that the book would not be out until December.

But it turns out the publication date is coming right at us – November 18 – available both as a Kindle e-book title and as a trade paperback. You can pre-order it now, and I hope you will.

When I began talking to editor Paul Bishop at Wolfpack about doing original titles for them – we had already agreed on a number of backlist novels and new short story collections to appear under their imprint – I knew figuring out the right property for that particular publisher’s launch of new M.A.C. titles was a priority.

E-Book:

Paperback:

I also knew I wanted to do some of what I had in mind with my longtime collaborator, Matt Clemens, with whom I began kicking around ideas. One was to do a new Reeder and Rogers political thriller, but we were hesitant at this (shall we say) “moment in time.” After all, we’d already done the Reeder and Rogers trilogy in which Supreme Court justices were targeted for murder (Supreme Justice), a megalomanic populist from the private sector ran for President (Fate of the Union), and an extreme right-wing group plotted a coup of the government of the USA (Executive Order).

We were almost afraid to come up with another outlandish premise like those.

At the same time, we were putting together for Wolfpack the original collection of our collaborative short stories, Murderlized, and needed to come up with the original files for each story. In rummaging around in his hard drive, Matt came upon the opening chapters of a novel we’d started twenty years ago – about the opening third, plus a detailed synopsis. He read over the material and said he thought it was pretty good. He sent it to me and I responded likewise.

A sizeable share of the Wolfpack audience likes action and adventure, and this untitled manuscript was an homage to James Bond and Ian Fleming. I will likely write in more detail about my love for Fleming and how caught up in the spy cycle of the mid-‘60s I was, but not right now. The origins of what has become Come Spy With Me are peculiar and a little amusing.

Matt and I had been writing short stories together for a while, but had not yet embarked on the series of TV tie-ins (CSI, Dark Angel, Criminal Minds, Bones) that we’d be doing for something like fifteen years. We were, in fact, discussing doing some kind of novel series together.

And along came a strange opportunity. A new publisher was going to bring out (wait for it) erotic novels in which all of the sex was between married people. Married to each other. At the time, I pointed out to them that few married people, particularly if they’d been married a while, did their fantasizing about their mates. But this, the publisher insisted, was a time that had come.

Okay.

Matt and I kicked around the notion of, “What if at the end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, James Bond’s new wife (SPOILER ALERT) was not killed by his arch-nemesis, Blofeld? What if Bond got married and quit the spy game, and then got pulled back in? Adding to this was the concept that Ian Fleming had been a colleague of our “John Sand” and had based James Bond on him. We both loved that idea.

We were signed to do the novel, and got to work…but the married-people-having-sex concept turned out not to appeal (imagine that) and the publishing idea went belly up. Well, it was soft-core porn, so let’s call it “tits up.”

Matt and I were frustrated, because we really liked what we’d written. But we shelved it, as the tie-in market summoned us and, well, no project lives forever.

Or does it?

Wanting to get something out with Wolfpack as quickly as possible, we developed what became Come Spy With Me, with a few changes. We removed the soft-core porn aspect – although there are erotic moments between man and wife – and (at the suggestion of Raymond Benson) were more coy about the Sand/Bond connection, although it’s certainly implied. But neither Fleming nor Bond are mentioned by name in the novel.

And that opening third of the book was heavily re-thought and rewritten. However – it still gave us a leg up on the project (sorry if that phrase sound soft-core porny in and of itself). Soon we were seeing the possibility of at least doing a trilogy and began plotting it, as well. Our work method on Come Spy With Me, as always, was to plot together with Matt doing a somewhat short first pass and me doing a complete, fleshed-out second pass.

My initial title was Come Die With Me (the title, by the way, of a terrible Mike Hammer TV movie). Paul Bishop was not in love with that. But he responded well when I tweaked it into Come Spy With Me. Now Matt and I are toying with doing “spy” puns for any subsequent titles.

Both of us are old enough to be veterans of the initial James Bond craze. And – in this Corona Virus environment – we are happy to do novels not set in the present. The early 1960s seemed like a more fun place to spend time right now than the 2020s.

We are rather determinedly in the area of Connery’s Bond, not Moore or any other pretender, except perhaps Timothy Dalton. There are dark quips of the “Get the point” variety, but some people forget that such things began with Connery. Like Fleming’s novels, Come Spy With Me is fairly hardboiled and fans of Quarry, Nolan and Heller should not feel shortchanged.

For us, as much as we like the actors who followed in Sean Connery’s footsteps, we consider him the one and only true James Bond. Every one else is a kind of place holder, someone to build a Bond film around. But when Connery said, “Bond. James Bond,” it was forever.

* * *

Ron Fortier at Pulp Fiction Reviews provides this wonderful review of the second Caleb York novel, The Big Showdown.

A good place to order the new Ms. Tree: Skeleton in the Closet collection is my old pal Bud Plant’s mail-order company, specializing in comic art and illustration.

M.A.C.

What Is on the Ballot

As those of you who follow these blog/updates know, I do my best to steer clear of politics. I have dipped a toe in the water a few times, losing a toe or two in the process, but mainly I’ve stayed mum. I think many of you already know where I stand, although not necessarily.

I avoid politics here because, on the one hand, I respect your opinions, or at least your right to have those opinions. On the other hand, I don’t wish to alienate potential or current customers (as Mickey Spillane described his readers). Some time ago – and many of you already know this – I stopped posting anything on Facebook that was inherently political. I do post these updates there, and if someone posts something about a book or movie of mine, I sometimes share it.

And I belong to groups at Facebook on topics ranging from comics to movies, from paperback collecting to pin-ups. Within these groups, I often make comments – apolitical comments.

When I was on Facebook and getting into the political battle – even aware, as I was, that no argument has ever been won on the Internet – I lost or at least damaged one of my most cherished friendships. There are people I work with and people I love do who not share my politics, which is another reason why I have (largely) kept my mouth shut here.

But – as eighteenth century Irish statesman Edmund Burke said – “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” My collaborator Matthew Clemens included that quote within the text of our forthcoming novel, Come Spy With Me, when JFK urges secret agent John Sand to come out of retirement.

So. I am going to urge you to vote. But I am also going to remind you what – not who – is on the ballot this time.

Civility. Decency. Science. Honesty. Equality. Empathy. Democracy.

I am tempted to add these words from the opening of the old Superman TV show: “Truth, Justice and the American Way.” Here. Take a look.

Now, notice I haven’t mentioned anyone by name. Barb and I have already voted. If you know who I’m talking about, and are considering voting for him, I would invite you first to reflect.

M.A.C.

Ms. Tree Comes out of the (Skeleton) Closet

Paperback:

E-Book:

I have not seen a copy yet, but this update will appear on publication day of Ms. Tree Vol. 2: Skeleton in the Closet from Titan.

It reprints in color the rest of the DC comics run from the early ‘90s, and is essentially a casebook – five graphic novellas often dealing with controversial subject matter (gay bashing, date rape, etc.) that unfortunately hasn’t dated at all. There’s also a flat-out horror tale that reveals the roots of the Collins/Beatty team in EC Comics.

I am thrilled that Titan is publishing these books, finally getting all the work Terry and I – influential work, I will immodestly say – in a more permanent form.

This is some of our best work. Volume Three will start at the beginning and the subsequent volumes will continue in the order of original publication.

* * *

For the first time, every person who entered one of my book giveaways – this one for Too Many Tomcats and the Eliot Ness novels – got a book. While that pleases me, it makes me wonder if I’m having too many of these and wearing you people down…particularly those of you who’ve entered and never been rewarded with a book.

The problem is that Wolfpack has been generous enough to put a whole passel of my books out over a short period of time, including Murderlized, a new one. So I don’t mean to swamp you, although it’s important to get reviews for these books out there, including the reprints. Which is the point of the giveaways – to prime the review pump. Well, Amazon Prime the review pump.

The Wolfpack e-book versions have been made available a bit before the trade paperback editions, at times; but I have received copies of most of the books by now and they are beauties. And I am very favorably impressed with the level of the Wolfpack covers. Murderlized is wonderful. So is Too Many Tomcats. And Mommy (while somewhat re-fried as Mommy’s Day) blows me away.

We have new editions coming of Regeneration and Bombshell, the two stand-alone collaborations by Barb and me, and I’m stoked to see what kind of covers Wolfpack whips up with for those.

But the most important Wolfpack release will come in December – Come Spy With Me, the first in the new series by Matthew Clemens and me. It’s set in the early ‘60s and is an unabashed homage to Ian Fleming and the Connery-era Bond films, and the whole spy craze of my youth. Matt and I are going over the galley proofs now, and we have seen the cover, which I hope to share with you soon – it’s a beauty.

I’ve made a huge investment of time and property (in the sense that my backlist titles and short story collections are properties) in Wolfpack. If those of you who enjoy my fiction in general support those efforts, Wolfpack is the rare company that will let me do what I want creatively. A series that other publishers consider “busted” I can write a new entry for. There could be a new Mallory or Disaster Novel or Jack & Maggie Starr. We are seriously considering doing Reeder & Rogers at Wolfpack and Krista Larson, too. If we have some success, Spillane material will appear there.

Consider Quarry. Quarry as a crime novel series had been dead commercially for decades. But editor Charles Ardai, the guru of Hard Case Crime, encouraged me to write a new Quarry novel many years later. No other publisher would have done that. And it has led to many new Quarry novels, an award-winning short film, a feature film, and a Cinemax TV series.

Not long ago Charles encouraged me to write a new Nolan novel. Nolan also has been “dead” for decades, but Charles liked the series and wanted a new one. Now we are looking seriously at Nolan for a TV series on a streaming service (early days, of course, and these things often tank, but…we’re talking about a series I started in 1973). And Hard Case is bringing all of the Nolan novels out again (two to a book). There will also be audios of them read by the great Stefan Rudnicki.

The new Nolan, Skim Deep, will be out the first week of December.

The support you continue to show the work that I produce, my own and the collaborations, means a great deal.

Thank you.

* * *

Here’s a very interesting look at Quarry, the novel of that title, expressing some interesting insights, as well as some thoughts on the Cinemax series.

This is one of several previews of the second Ms. Tree collection, Ms. Tree: Skeleton in the Closet from Titan.

Scroll down at this entry at the entertaining Atomic Junkshop and see a brief but very strong review of Murderlized by Matt Clemens and me – and a great look at the wonderful cover provided by Wolfpack.

This article presents the Nathan Heller novels in order of publication (includes the short story collection and the novella collection) with nice thumbnails on each. Whether this is the best order to read them in, I can’t say. But I did write them in that order, so it makes sense in terms of following my growth (or decline!) over the years.

M.A.C.

Wolfpack Giveaway #2 – Untouchable Cats

I am in the middle of the third of the three novellas I’m doing about a brand-new character (stay tuned) for Neo-Text. So I will try to distract you for the lack of a real blog entry this week with the second Wolfpack book giveaway.

I have four trade-paperback copies of Too Many Tomcats, my wife Barb’s terrific collection of tales about evil, dead and stuffed felines. I co-authored a couple and wrote the intro. If you are a hold-out among my readers who has avoided reading Barb’s work and/or our collaborative work, now is your chance to finally get wise.

Barb’s short stories are in the vein of the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV show and Roald Dahl, and she’s been compared to both (and not just by me!).

In addition, I have two copies each of the four Eliot Ness trade paperbacks – The Dark City, Butcher’s Dozen, Bullet Proof, and Murder by the Numbers.

Now, this gets tricky. You need to write me at macphilms@hotmail.com and include your snail-mail address, even if you entered previously, even if you’ve won previously. Then list your preferences of these books in order. That’s a lot of work for a free book, but I know you can do it. If there’s a book you don’t need (like if you already own Too Many Tomcats or one or more of the Ness novels in previous editions), leave those off your list. You can also say, “Any Ness book.”

With me?

This is for USA only – mailing overseas and even to just Canada was expensive before the Pandemic.

Here’s the important part – this isn’t really about free books. It’s about getting reviews on Amazon and/or at your own review site, if you have one. Most of you participating in these book giveaways have been good about doing those reviews. But please hold up your end of the bargain.

* * *

Here is a video interview wherein my pal Andrew Sumner talks to me about Ms. Tree, and specifically about the soon-to-be-published second Ms. Tree collection, Skeleton in the Closet.

And here is the appearance (via Zoom) by my co-author A. Brad Schwartz and I at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas in support of Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher. Includes a power point presentation! Excited?

Finally, here is a nice look at Road to Perdition as Tom Hanks’ most under-rated movie.

M.A.C.

Wolfs and Cats, Living Together, Sunday Fun, and a 5-Day Script

Ebook:

All of the copies in last week’s book giveaway of Murderlized and Murder – His and Hers have been shipped. I unexpectedly received more copies of Murderlized that allowed me to send ten copies out, not just five.

Now we have another Wolfpack release, thus far only available on Kindle, but a physical book will be along soon. It’s Barb’s Too Many Tomcats, an anthology of her stories for the various Cat Crimes collections; I wrote the intro and co-wrote a couple of stories.

Do not be dissuaded by the title and subject – these are dark tales, very much in the Roald Dahl/Alfred Hitchcock Presents vein. While Barb does not (exactly) dislike cats, she is fact allergic to them. The cats in these stories, among other things, tend to be evil, murder victims, and/or dead. It’s a wonderful collection, reflecting many of the tales having been chosen for the Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories anthologies edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, two great men both sadly gone.

* * *

I am pleased to announce that the project that SCTV’s Dave Thomas and I are in the process of writing has found a home.

Much more about that later.

* * *

For those of you not sick to death of me (which does not include my wife) (or myself for that matter), I did a ZOOM interview with S-F/Fantasy & Mystery author Russ Colchamiro. Russ is a fine, fun interviewer and we talked about things that haven’t made it into my zillion other interviews.

Russ is one of the Crazy 8 Press group of genre writers, which includes (among other excellent scribes) my old pals Peter David, Glenn Hauman, Robert Greenberger and Paul Kupperberg.

Check out the talk between Russ and me right here:

* * *

Although this update/blog appears on Tuesday morning, I often write them the Sunday night before. That’s the case this week.

You may recall I’ve written about a handful of very carefully orchestrated outings that Barb and I have undertaken (an unfortunate word in a pandemic), getting carry out meals to eat in the car or at a park, and slipping into a bookstore or some other retails outlet at an off-time when few if any other customers can be spied. And, of course, only stores where you have to wear a mask to enter, even if you aren’t robbing the joint.

Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but the three times we’ve gone out on such outings have been lovely – it felt like the old days, way-way-way back in February of this year, when only our president and Bob Woodward knew the truth about Covad-19.

We had our day planned – another Quad Cities trip. We would again go Portillo’s, a wonderful drive-in restaurant, and then Barb would slip into the Van Maur department store at North Park Mall in Davenport while I would do the same at the Barnes & Noble, for perhaps half an hour. We timed it to arrive at Portillo’s around 10:45 a.m. and the mall at 11:30 (when it opened). We planned it with a precision that Nolan and Jon (if you’re reading this you really should know who that is) would envy.

Then we got up this morning and read the Quad City Times Sunday edition. It told of the 500 cases of Covid logged in the QC’s this week, mostly Iowa side of the river. It also mentioned that Iowa is number four among Covid hot spots in the nation.

And we stayed home.

And you know what? It wasn’t bad. We spent some time together in the morning (none of your business), I got us breakfast at Hardee’s (Mickey Spillane ate their biscuits every day), prepared the living room for carpet cleaning early this coming week (I will be upstairs and the cleaners will be downstairs) (in masks), and I finished up cleaning my office to prepare for beginning a new project tomorrow. Barb and I spent the evening watching three episodes of the British crime show New Tricks, which we have been bingeing. We ate hot dogs that were damn near Portillo’s-worthy.

Of course we also had to watch the president of the United States take a motorcade to nowhere to wave at his fans. Your tax dollars at work.

No, I’m not going to get political, because I have too many friends and business associates who are not just Republicans but support the president. Their privilege, and I don’t want to alienate any of my readers, either.

But just between us, the inside of my head is exploding, twenty-four hours a day.

* * *

I had a wild week, reminiscent of my pre-heart surgery younger days. With another deadline looming, I nonetheless agreed to write a first-draft screenplay for a movie based on “A Bullet for Satisfaction,” a non-Mike Hammer crime novella written by Mickey Spillane and yours truly. (It appeared as a sort of short subject before the main attraction in The Last Stand, the 100th anniversary Spillane novel.)

Basically I had to turn out twenty pages of finished script a day (“first draft” merely means the first version of a script, not something loose or sloppy or haphazard). The novella is a gloriously crazed collection of noir tropes, which attracted an established, Hard Case Crime-loving indie filmmaker to the material. My job was to assemble a bunch of short, fun, off-the-wall scenes into a more coherent whole, combining them, and making them play believably, mining a plot out of the mineral content, without losing what attracted the filmmaker in the first place.

I had a wonderful time. I just loved doing it.

Will it go anywhere? You never know. We have not signed a deal yet, but I had a window in which to work, so I grabbed it – if the project falls through, I’ll wind up with a screenplay, so no harm, no foul. If it goes forward, I am not carrying the ball – I am not the director, who will be doing a second draft from my first. Doesn’t bother me – he’s the director, and it’s his movie. Having talked to him at length, I liked what I heard, and we seem to be on the same page.

But this is the movies, and you never know. My version of The Last Lullaby – my script was faithfully novelized by me into The Last Quarry – was used by a young director to raise the money. I was the Road to Perdition guy, remember? Then a producer came aboard with his own writer and my screenplay was rewritten by someone I’ve never met. After that, I was able to do a polish, but I still wish my initial version had been shot.

On the other hand, despite certain problems with it, The Last Lullaby is still a damn good crime movie and probably a more accurate rendition of Quarry than the Cinemax series (though technically the main character is not Quarry – he’s “Price,” a name I think was appropriate).

Anyway, it’s the movies. I love the damn things, and I love my excursions into screenwriting.

But there’s a reason why you write novels.

They are yours.

* * *

A reminder that this coming Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, A. Brad Schwartz and I will be appearing via ZOOM at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas to talk about Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher. You don’t have to go to Vegas to participate, either.

And here’s a great review of the paperback edition of The Big Bang, only the second of the Spillane/Collins collaborative Mike Hammer novels.

M.A.C.

A Wolfpack Book Giveaway and an Adventure in the Wild

NEWS FLASH! All through October, almost every day, one or another of my novels will be part of the Kindle 99-cent Daily Deal, starting with The War of the Worlds Murder. Throughout this sale, both Girl Most Likely and Girl Can’t Help It will get the one-day, 99-cent treatment, as will all the “Disaster” mystery titles and all three Reeder and Rogers titles, including the very appropriate-at-the-moment Supreme Justice. Check every day!

* * *

This week marks the first of several Wolfpack trade paperback giveaways. First up, two short story collections: Murderlized and Murder – His and Hers.

Murderlized collects most of my short story collaborations with Matthew V. Clemens, co-author of the forthcoming Wolfpack release, Come Spy With Me. Matt and I also co-wrote CSI: Crime Scene Investigations, Dark Angel, and Criminal Minds novels, as well as the Reeder & Rogers trilogy (beginning with Supreme Justice), the standalone thriller What Doesn’t Kill Her, and the two J.C. Harrow novels (starting with You Can’t Stop Me). The title story of Murderlized features Moe Howard of the Three Stooges as an amateur sleuth.

Murder – His and Hers, originally published by FiveStar – collects stories co-written by Barb and me as well as a few of our individual stories. Barb is the co-author of the “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” series (most recently Antiques Fire Sale) and is also the co-author of our son, Nathan Collins. Two standalone thrillers we wrote together, Regeneration and Bombshell, will be brought out in new editions by Wolfpack soon.

As usual, to enter, write to me directly at macphilms@hotmail.com. You are agreeing to write a review of the book at Amazon and/or on a blog or review site of your own (you are released from this duty if you hate the book). This is strictly USA, and you must (even if you’ve won previously) include your snail-mail address.

I only have five copies of each of these two books, so list your preference. If Murderlized is gone and you already have Murder – His and Hers in its previous edition, please let me know.

* * *

This past week I shot the Noir Alley segments with host Eddie Muller that will wraparound the show’s presentations of two of my favorite noir films, Kiss Me Deadly and Born to Kill. Both host and guest were in their respective home offices, joined by a Zoom-like link and with top flight folks at TCM handling the remote logistics and tech.

Actually, on my end, my son Nate was handling the tech, and he was here throughout the several hours it took to prep and shoot the two shows (well, the wraparounds for two shows). I would have been lost without him, as a bunch of new equipment was sent by TCM to bring us up to broadcast standards.

If that sounds like an ordeal, it wasn’t, except maybe for Nate and the TCM folks, because Eddie and I had a blast. We were talking about two movies we both love and, more broadly, the crime/suspense genre that we both love. I believe the segments, when aired, will run something like ten minutes per episode, and we went easily twice as long and could have talked all afternoon. We were like two old pals in a bar catching up and comparing notes and having a hell of a good time, drunk on each other’s enthusiasm.

Eddie is a sweetheart and beyond knowledgeable. He has done more to popularize and explain film noir than anyone on the planet, and his efforts to mount film festivals and work for preservation of this sacred/profane style of cinema are second to none. His book on Gun Crazy, which is in my top five films of any genre, is the best book I’ve ever read about a single film. It’s available here.

I am, no flying shit, honored to be on Noir Alley, and talking about Kiss Me Deadly – a movie who nobody but the French gave a damn about when I first discovered it, around 1961 (in junior high!) – feels like a privilege and a vindication.

It airs on TCM on Nov. 21. Write that down, but I will almost certainly remind you.

* * *

Today (Sunday, Sept. 27 as I write this) Barb and I emerged from our modified sheltering-in-place to undertake an outing. The preparation rivaled D-Day and the execution was only slightly less harrowing. And that’s coming from the author of Saving Private Ryan.

Iowa is a place where a good number of the half of this state who support Donald Trump have decided to express their admiration by not wearing masks, pooh-poohing social distancing, and insisting that the death of over 200,000 Americans is a hoax perpetrated by those pesky libtards.

So stepping out into this shit storm takes a good deal of fortitude laced with foolhardiness.

One of our favorite little jaunts is to drive the hour and fifteen minutes from Muscatine to Amana, one of the several Amana Colonies. Two restaurants there, serving German-American food (what’s good enough for the Bund is good enough for us!), are among our favorite dining experiences, although their family-style service isn’t, well, perfect for a pandemic.

But workable for carry out, perhaps? We set out in rain summoned by God to dissuade us. He should know by now that we will not be intimidated when it comes to matters of self-indulgence.

We ordered by phone, when we were fifteen minutes out, and the Ronneburg Restaurant (our other fave is the Ox Yolk Inn) was terrific in putting together carry-out cartons for us. The cashier and wait staff were properly masked (traitors!) even if their patrons mostly weren’t, and appeared to be conducting business in a thoughtfully careful way.

We ate our food in the car, like refugees with a Cadillac SUV. I had forgotten the sensation of being so deliriously stuffed to the gills. Caution thrown thoroughly to the winds, we set out for…wait for it…the outlet center at nearby Williamsburg, where for nearly half an hour we took our lives in our hands by shopping at Coach (Barb) and Book Warehouse (me).

In all seriousness (really) (no kidding), we were impressed by the measures the Williamsburg outlet took – masks were required by patrons and employees alike. I can’t speak for Barb at Coach, but Book Warehouse was definitely helped by the size of the place, with its generous aisles, and of course the lack of interest expressed by Americans of all political parties when it comes to reading books. Where would we be without that?

Best not think that one through.

Now, back in Muscatine in this haven of Blu-rays, reading material, and hoarded food products, Barb and I have returned to sheltering in place, warm and well-fed and terrified that we caught something out there.

Can’t wait for the holidays.

* * *

Footnote to the above: on our adventure, we finished listening to Quarry’s Ex as read by Stefan Rudnicki for Skyboat Audio.

Man, does he do a great job with Quarry. He so gets it. At first it may seem like his warm deep baritone is too old for Quarry, whose boyish charm makes the terrible things he does and thinks go down so smoothly. But Stefan really, really understands the character and conveys the humor that the otherwise excellent Cinemax series completely missed.

And, anyway, these are the memoirs of Quarry, written mostly when he was an older man (as old as me, say), which is the way I view the Heller novels, too.

Stefan has also taken over on Mike Hammer for Stacy Keach, with Masquerade for Murder the latest. Haven’t listened to that one yet, as we do our listening in the car and, as this update indicates, we aren’t driving anywhere much. It took two Quad Cities outings and this Amana trip to get through the four CDs of Quarry’s Ex.

Listening to a Quarry novel, when I hadn’t been working on one for a while, brought something home to me – I can see why someone who likes the Quarry books might be confused by Girl Most Likely and Girl Can’t Help It.

A writer – like an painter, actor or a musician – has a right, perhaps even an obligation, not to just do the same thing over and over. I am able to stay fresh with Quarry and Nate Heller and Mike Hammer by painting in other colors, speaking in different voices, and performing in different keys, with the likes of the Antiques series, Caleb York westerns, and the Krista and Keith Larson novels. Same is true of the Reeder and Rogers political thrillers I do with Matt.

It’s likely Quarry and Heller and Mike Hammer fans will be comfortable with John Sand, hero of Come Spy With Me, but I can’t guarantee that. I will say only, to readers who only like one thing or another that I do, I have to write more than just a couple of things or I’ll get bored.

In which case, so will you.

* * *

I’m doing a Zoom interview with Russ Colchamiro this Wednesday (September 30) at 8 pm ET.

And here’s a short but sweet look at Hard Case Crime.

M.A.C.

Bang, Zoom – You’re the Greatest! Also 99-Cent Nate Heller

Till the end of the month, the latest Nate Heller novel, Do No Harm, is available for $2.99 as an eBook.

And starting September 22, all of the following Nate Heller novels are available for a mere 99-cents each on Kindle. This sale last only till September 28, so act fast!

These are the titles (in no particular order):

Damned in Paradise

Carnal Hours

Stolen Away

Chicago Confidential

Majic Man

True Detective

The Million-Dollar Wound

True Crime

Neon Mirage

Flying Blind

Blood and Thunder

Triple Play

Chicago Lightning

and this non-Heller title:

The Lusitania Murders

The promotion is here:

https://www.amazon.com/b?node=13819722011

* * *

Suddenly I’m ZOOMing.

Not long ago I did a panel promoting a book not by me, but by Susanna Lee, Detectives in the Shadows, on the impact of hardboiled private eyes on our popular culture. It’s an interesting book, with some observations I agree with (and some I don’t), focusing on a limited number of literary (and television) P.I.s. My participation came out of Ms. Lee doing a solid chapter on Mike Hammer and Mickey Spillane.

The panel was moderated by my pal Kevin Burton Smith, whose Thrilling Detective web site is a place any fan of private eye fiction can (and should) spend a lot of quality time. Other panelists, besides Ms. Lee, were Ace Atkins (Spenser being a topic of a Detectives in Shadows chapter), Alex Segura, comics writer and P.I. novelist (the well-regarded Pete Fernandez series).

It’s a pretty good discussion, although I talk too much (big surprise). Alex got a bit short-changed, but Ace had smart things to say, particularly when he was agreeing with me. Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Here it is.

This afternoon (Sunday September 20, 2020), A. Brad Schwartz and I were interviewed about our non-fiction book, Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher. We were interviewed by Scott Sroka, a recognized Ness expert, and the grandson of one of the real Untouchables (Joe Leeson), and himself a former federal prosecutor. We were hosted by Quail Ridge Books (thank you, Rebecca!).

It’s a decent discussion, I think, and since Brad and I will not be doing any bookstore signings or appearances, this is a somewhat rare opportunity to hear us talk about the second Ness book.

Brad and I will be doing one more of these appearances, this time at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas (where we appeared in person for Scarface and the Untouchable): THE SECOND ACT OF ELIOT NESS: BATTLING THE MOB IN CLEVELAND, October 8, 2020, 7 to 8 p.m.

Information on how to attend at the museum or online is here.

And that’s just the start of my ZOOMing adventures. This coming Wednesday I will be interviewed by Eddie Muller for his TCM series, Noir Alley (always a must watch, even when I’m not on it) (or, depending on your point of view, even when I am on it). I will be interviewed for two separate episodes on a pair of my favorite films, Kiss Me Deadly and Born to Kill. They should both air yet this year, and when I have air times (and permission to share them) I will post them on this update/blog.

I was scheduled to be on Noir Alley in March but the Pandemic decided I shouldn’t travel; and I was thrilled to be asked anyway, thanks to viewers getting used to seeing Zoom and Skype transmissions on bigtime TV.

Getting ready for Noir Alley has meant upgrading my computer set-up, and Turner Classic Movies has sent some higher-end stuff including a microphone that looks like it belongs on Johnny Carson’s desk and an HD camera that is far too realistically able to show the world what a 72-year-old version of a boy wonder looks like.

My son Nate has been vital in getting these technological upgrades installed and tweaked for a parent who doesn’t text and fears Apps the way Kevin McCarthy does his fellow citizens in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

And tomorrow – the day before this first appears – I have to do a dry run with TCM to make sure we’ve correctly installed this stuff, though I’m pretty sure their techs have little if anything on Nathan Allan Collins.

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I am happy to report that the first batches of the Wolfpack trade paperbacks have arrived, and they are beauties. These folks do a great job. I don’t have enough on hand to start mounting book giveaways, though that will happen very soon.

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This is the second time I’ve titled one of these updates with a variation on Ralph Kramden’s toothless threat to send his wife Alice to the moon, and I suppose that’s risky in this climate. Will the day come – perhaps it already has – that a generation arrives who find The Honeymooners an offensive assault on their tender sensibilities?

Already, for decades, the all-African-American cast of gifted performers who made the Amos ‘n’ Andy TV show one of the funniest sitcoms in history have been consigned to the scrap heap of history. The creator of Harry Potter has a man in a dress killing women, I hear, and a whole lot of people who haven’t read the book want it boycotted.

As I have said many times: the place where the far right and the far left meet is a book burning…they’re just bringing different books.

I am always astounded at the things people complain about in my books. Quarry is viewed as having sexist views which they find just terrible (but nobody complains that he’s murdering people). Nate Heller also sizes up the attractive young women he counters, cataloguing their hair color and figures and facial features; but no one ever mentions that he often just flat-out kills people at the end of the books. I get attacked for writing sex scenes, mostly by priggish males, but don’t recall any complaints about gore.

Nothing new about that. That pre-dates political correctness, and just indicates how uncomfortable Americans have always been about sex and how comfortable they are with violence.

And now the Academy Awards are defining what elements a Best Picture nominee has to have, from the content of the screenplay to the ethnicity and sexual identification of the cast and crew. These are creative people who’ve banded together to promulgate this offensive nonsense, trivializing real problems and concerns into feeling smugly good about themselves.

It used to be Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Now the fiddlers burn other fiddlers while Nero and his boys sack Rome.

M.A.C.

R.I.P. Emma Peel…and a Wolfpack Spy Revealed

I am, obviously, at that age when the icons of my youth are going on ahead of me into whatever lies ahead. Emma Peel is gone. Not at all forgotten.

Still, losing Diana Rigg at 82 sounds much too soon – she was still displaying her considerable acting skills and powers of personality in Victoria and the forthcoming Black Narcissus.

The British Invasion was the Big Thing when I was in high school, and that of course immediately brings to mind the Beatles and their fellow rock ‘n’ roll invaders. But the British Invasion was also James Bond, and the Spy Craze – even The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was an Ian Fleming brainchild (thought that fact has been lost in the shuffle a bit). Sometimes the rock aspect collided with the spy craze, as when Johnny Rivers did the theme song for Secret Agent (as the Brit Danger Man was retitled for USA consumption). And would Michael Caine’s career have gotten its jump start if Harry Palmer hadn’t brought John Lennon to mind in The Ipcress File (1965)?

From the UK came the greatest of Spy Craze TV series, The Avengers (well, let’s call it a tie with The Prisoner). Emma Peel’s predecessor – as the black catsuit-clad partner of bowler-and-bumbershoot-sporting John Steed, portrayed by urbane Patrick Macnee – was Cathy Gale. The original distaff martial-arts Avenger (to “boys” my age, those Marvel Avengers should be called the Pretenders) was Honor Blackman, whose final curtain call preceded Diana Rigg’s by just a few months.

The Bond connections are many. Honor Blackman was (could anyone reading this really not know) Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964); and Patrick Macnee was James Bond’s Lordly sidekick in the Roger Moore entry, View to a Kill (1985). Macnee was not, as some would have, the cousin of (sort of) James Bond, David Niven (Casino Royale, 1965), though the two actors did appear together in The Elusive Pimpernel (1950).

Most significantly, Diana Rigg portrayed Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), and became not just the love of Bond’s life but his wife, albeit briefly. The former Emma Peel was, not surprisingly, appealing in the role and her presence shored up the place-holder presence of George Lazenby as Bond in what was the greatest James Bond movie Sean Connery never made.

Diana Rigg was an accomplished and much-lauded screen actress, and I won’t go into all of her remarkable list of credits here. I’ll mention only my favorite performance by her, after Emma Peel and Tracy di Vicenzo, which is Arlena Stuart Marshall in Evil Under the Sun (1982), the best of the big screen Poirot movies (feel free to disagree, but do so knowing I’m not listening).

What is significant about Diana Rigg, it seems to me, is how she managed to be an actress of incredible sex appeal and at the same time convey an undeniable, even intimidating intelligence, at a time (the first Bond era, remember) when “birds” were mostly mini-skirts, eye make-up, and lots of teased hair. She could even smirk with intelligence, and the way she and The Avengers spoofed the inherently absurd spy fad gave the series its special zing. Her range as an actress is astonishing. I always had a sense that she wanted to give the audience her best, but if they didn’t like it, that was their problem.

So it is with a bittersweet smile, and a gathering sense of my own mortality, that I blow a kiss goodbye to Emma Peel, knowing that she and Diana Rigg will live forever.

Now, hoping it’s not a display of bad taste, I will segue into finally announcing the series that Matt Clemens and I are doing for Wolfpack. You’ll see the connection in a moment, or perhaps as soon as you hear the title of the first novel: Come Spy With Me.

Matt and I created the lead characters and developed the premise for the series twenty years ago in a couple of little seen short stories. John Sand is a recently retired British secret agent whose cover was blown world-wide when a famous series of novels by an ex-spy colleague of his became best sellers. The stories – at least the trilogy we have agreed to produce – take place in the, shall we say, Swinging Sixties.

John Sand has married a wealthy young woman named Stacey and, in Come Spy With Me, we join them on their honeymoon, where if we had any sense of propriety we wouldn’t witness their carnal conduct. I’ll leave it to you to decide how much propriety Matt Clemens and I have.

But not to worry. The mushy stuff is temporary – carnal gives way to carnage soon enough, and John Sand is as hard-edged a man of action as, well, the famous fictional spy that was based on him.

The name “Sand,” by the way, is a very much conscious tip of the jaunty ‘60s cap to the mono-named lead of Ennis Willie’s series of novels written in that era, which influenced me almost as much as Mickey Spillane, Richard Stark, and Ian Fleming.

You will hear more about this series as the weeks progress – the first book will, as I’ve indicated, be out well before the end of the year. We’ll have a cover to show you before too very long.

When Matt and I discussed getting an advance blurb from an appropriate author, only one name came to mind: Raymond Benson, author of officially licensed James Bond novels (and short stories and video games) and the landmark The James Bond Bedside Companion. Raymond is also the author of the Black Stiletto novels and Hotel Destiny – A Ghost Noir.

Raymond was gracious enough to look at Come Spy With Me in manuscript, and this is what he says:

“Come Spy With Me is a heck of a ride! The characters are smooth, the real-world cameos are fun, the action is electric, and the sex is rightly retro. This homage to Mr. Fleming, Mr. Bond, and all the other pulp spy thrillers of the 1960s will leave you craving for the next installment!”

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This is a lovely review of the forthcoming second Ms. Tree collection from Titan – Skeleton in the Closet.

Here is a compendium of reviews of Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher, mostly very good.

My co-author, A. Brad Schwartz and I, will be discussing Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher next Sunday, September 20, at 1 pm Central. Join us with your own questions.

M.A.C.

“Real” Books Now Available from Wolfpack!

This will be a brief update because my office is shutting down for my son Nate to install a new computer with various new programs.

But I will take the time to announce the following: print versions of both Mommy and Mommy’s Day are available for $9.99. Be sure to click on PAPERBACK at the listing to get the right price (and cover). [Note from Nate: The links in this update go directly to Amazon.]

Also available as “real” books from Wolfpack are Murderlized – the collected short stories of Matt Clemens and me (10.99); all four Eliot Ness books, The Dark City, Butcher’s Dozen, Bullet Proof, and Murder by the Numbers ($10.99 each); and Murder His and Hers, stories by Barb and me ($9.99).

Your support of these titles will be much appreciated. Their success paves the way for new original books (and further reprints) by me, me and Matt, and me and Barb.

Yeah, I know – that’s an obnoxious amount of “me” – and “I” know it.

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Here’s a great Kiss Her Goodbye review, reprinted from a long-ago post.

This is a rather tepid endorsement of Eliot Ness & the Mad Butcher.

Finally, here’s a list putting a story by Mickey Spillane and me on the “must-read” list.

M.A.C.

Charles Dickens, Anthony Newley and Real Books

The physical editions of my books at Wolfpack have started to kick in! You can get Murder – His & Hers right now. And all four Ness novels are individually available – [Amazon links] The Dark City, Butcher’s Dozen, Bullet Proof, and Murder by the Numbers. They share the same cover as the Eliot Ness Mystery Omnibus, but with variant colors.

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Barb and I – thanks to the efforts of our son Nate – were able to watch Bill and Ted Face the Music on its opening night, streaming it. We love Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and also like the sequel, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey; I would put this long awaited third installment on at least a par with the sequel.

Like its predecessors, it’s a very smart movie about a couple of lovable dudes who are perhaps not as dumb as they appear, rather are just of their time and generation. As Nate commented, in the midst of this Covid/Trump reality, for one sweet funny evening, the world felt normal again. Like nothing had changed.

But we shouldn’t get too cocky about the past. Of late, Barb and I have been watching a lot of film and TV adaptations of Charles Dickens novels, escaping from 2020 into the 1800s. That escape, though, has an uncomfortable number of parallels – homeless people (check), government-abused kids (check), an unfair court system (check), corrupt politicians (check), an uncaring wealthy class (check), pollution (check), disease (check)…and on and on.

Still, it’s another time and place and kind of a relief to be anywhere but here. So I’ll recommend a few of the really worthwhile Dickens adaptations. All of these are available on DVD and some on Blu-ray, with many available for streaming.

If you have the time, nothing beats the eight-hour-plus stage version (on video) of Nicholas Nickleby (1982), the Hamilton of its day. Standouts in a huge cast are Roger Rees in the title role and definitive Dickens actor Alun Armstrong as (among other characters) the ignorant, sadistic schoolmaster Squeers.

David Lean was one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and his two Dickens adaptations are as good as movie versions get: Great Expectations (1946) with John Mills and Alec Guinness; and Oliver Twist (1948) with Robert Newton and Anthony Newley (not the main actors but favorites of mine). Add to that list, of course, Scrooge (1951) with Alistair Sim (which I’ve lauded here many times).

Andrew Davies has scripted two relatively recent BBC mini-series that are the gold standard of Dickens TV adaptations: Bleak House (2005) with Gillian Anderson and

Charles Dance; and Little Dorrit (2008) with Claire Foy and Matthew Macfadyen. The Mystery of Edwin Drood (2012), scripted by Gwyneth Hughes, is first-rate, too, especially Drood actor Matthew Rhys, who is now (of course) Perry Mason.

As good as David Lean is, the BBC’s early ‘80s long-form renditions (often a dozen half-hour episodes, which suggest the serialized format of the original Dickens works) are in some ways superior, as they tend to adapt each novel in its near entirety. When certain colorful incidental characters in Dickens are, understandably, omitted from films two hours or less in length, much of the richness and humor of the original novels is lost.

Also, aspects of Dickens are distorted in the shorter form of films and TV movies. Yes, there are wild coincidences, but when woven throughout a very long narrative, filled with characters, those coincidences seem a part of the fabric of life and not convenient plot devices. And without the deeper characterizations, the principal characters can seem to be chess pieces Dickens is moving, a feeling one doesn’t get from the books.

For example, not just including David Lean’s version, Great Expectations has been filmed a number of times quite effectively. The BBC mini-series with Gillian Anderson and David Suchet is excellent. But the far less lavish 1981 BBC mini-series, with its six-hour length, tells the entire story of the novel, with much deeper characterizations than any other adaptation, especially for Pip (Gerry Sundquist) and his convict friend (Stratford Johns. The definitive Miss Marple, Joan Hickson, turns outalso to be the definitive Miss Havisham, bringing remarkable depth to a character who can be a cartoon.

Less celebrated Dickens novels come to worthwhile life, too, in the longer-form ‘80s and ‘90s BBC adaptations – Domby and Son (1983), another Andrew Davies script; Martin Chuzzlewit (1994) with Paul Scofield and Tom Wilkinson; David Copperfield (1999) with Bob Hoskins and Maggie Smith; and Our Mutual Friend (1998) with Steven Mackintosh and Keeley Hawes.

I mentioned actor Alun Armstrong above. Of the films and TV versions I’ve mentioned here, he is in about half. He has played villains, lovable sorts, and even made a great Inspector Bucket. We thought he did a great job in Martin Chuzzlewit, too, until we realized that was Pete Postlethwaite.

Look, there are plenty of good and at least watchable Dickens adaptations. But these are worth your time. Are there any that aren’t?

Hard Times (1994) with Alan Bates and Richard E. Grant is a hard go. Bates is a fine actor but he hams it up here, in a grotesquely arty, misjudged take on Dickens.

The Old Curiosity Shop (1979) is, in my probably worthless opinion, as bad as Dickens ever got; he seems to be spoofing himself without his readers realizing it, like the Turtles doing a parody of themselves with “Elinore” (“I really think you’re groovy, let’s go out to a movie”) and nobody getting it. But the novel deserved better than the 1979 BBC mini-series with its cringingly over-the-top Trevor Peacock’s Quilp at centerstage.

Of course, the ridiculously villainous Quilp is part of why I think Dickens is having a laugh at himself and his audience (right down to, SPOILER ALERT, killing Little Nell). Much better, though little seen (particularly in its longer, richer version), is Anthony Newley sending Quilp and himself up in the 1975 musical variously known as Mr. Quilp and The Old Curiosity Shop. The assumption that audiences who enjoyed Carol Reed’s recent Oliver! would adore Dickens’ dreary self-parody was probably the first mistake; still, this version is pretty good.

Newley, who as a child star made his first major claim to fame playing the Artful Dodger for David Lean, was coming full circle with his outrageously over-the-top Quilp, throwing in for good measure a solid score he wrote himself (not his best, as that was invariably reserved for his collaborations with Leslie Briccuse). Newley, who died at 67, enjoyed a final triumph starring in the Briccuse musical Scrooge on the West End and touring the UK provinces.

I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned Newley here before. He is on my very short list of “ideels” (as Li’l Abner described Fearless Fosdick). It’s a list including people like Bobby Darin, Mickey Spillane, Audie Murphy and Jack Webb. My ideels, each and every one it would seem, somehow demand defending – Darin was an obnoxious pretender, Spillane ruined mystery fiction, Murphy couldn’t act, Jack Webb was a joke. I have defended all of them and will continue to do so till my dying day.

As for Newley…

He is a genuinely quirky and willfully mannered performer, his distinctive vocal style the kind of thing that kept impressionists in business in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He is also the primary influence on David Bowie as a singer and performer, something Bowie often admitted.

With Briccuse, Newley wrote two great Broadway scores, each filled with standards: Stop the World I Want to Get Off and Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd. With Briccuse and John Barry, he wrote the theme for Goldfinger. He and Briccuse wrote the music for Willy Wonka – “Candy Man” and “Pure Imagination” and even the ditty sung by the Oompah Loompahs.

While to my knowledge it’s never been revived (Stop the World has been a number of times), Roar of the Greasepaint has not. Among the songs are “Who Can I Turn To,” “On a Wonderful Day Like Today,” “The Joker,” and the remarkably resilient “Feeling Good.”

In 1965 in New York, on summer vacation with my parents, I saw Roar of the Greasepaint at the Shubert Theater. I have seen many musical plays, including any number on Broadway and many more in Chicago, and countless concerts by stars of both the Vegas variety and the rock persuasion.

I’ve never seen anything better than Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd. Nothing as compelling or as funny or as mesmerizing. Newley’s was the single best performance I’ve ever seen. He was not unsupported: Captain Hook himself, Cyril Ritchard, was a regal “Sir” to Newley’s cockney Cocky – both were tramps, bums, with more than a hint of circus clown. Amid urchins out of Oliver!, with other contestants a beautiful woman and a black man, they played the Game of Life, with Sir making up and changing and rearranging the rules as they went.

I am going to share with you some of what I saw that night. Newley, right around the time I saw him performing at the Shubert, appeared on Ed Sullivan. In costume and in character, he delivered an amazing “Who Can I Turn To,” a song brilliantly conceived by its authors to work as an unrequited love song and, in the show’s context, as being addressed by Cocky to the God who has abandoned him. Have a look.

We’ll talk about his film Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? another time.

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Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher is deemed one of six true crime books you should be reading right now.

Finally, you kind of have to dig for it, but a discussion of one of my Batman stories can be found in this essay about Batman vs. Batman.

M.A.C.