Max Allan Collins's Blog, page 35

An Un-Likely Miracle and a Marvelous Movie

I am reporting a small miracle, which is that Girl Most Likely turned up on the shelves of the Davenport Barnes & Noble. Sightings of Thomas & Mercer (Amazon) titles in B & B bookstores is pretty rare. So this was fun to see (evidenced by way of the pic included here). This is, I believe, a result of an upcoming book signing Barb and I will be doing in June at the Davenport store for Antiques Ravin’.

Girl Most Likely seems to be doing well, and holding at four stars at Amazon with 66 reviews as of the last time I checked. The first flurry of reviews, which came from the UK, were at times mean and often ridiculous, but those have been overwhelmed by positive responses among good ol’ USA readers, often young women, who are welcome additions to my readership.

The negative reviews seem to fall into two groups (and both are outweighed by the positive ones): male readers who want Quarry and maybe Nate Heller and Mike Hammer and are outraged that the novel is something of a change of pace; and female readers with agendas – sort of feminist but really just odd (like finding the word “attractive” offensive). One UK reviewer complained that I had noted that a couch and two chairs were in a room and a chair was selected to sit upon (“Thanks for telling us she didn’t sit on the floor!”) (you’re welcome!).

Which brings me to Avengers: End Game.

[Note from Nate: mild spoilers follow.]

I just read a Huffington Post essay complaining about how hollow the “girl power” moment rings in the film’s final epic battle. This is in the context of a lot of complaining about the boys in the film getting more time than the girls. I thought the moment was a kind of nice if heavy-handed reminder of the number of strong female characters that have been developed at Marvel, particularly in recent years. Why has nobody complained about Black Panther charging through the battlefield, with the Infinity glove, weaving and dodging like a running back? How stereotypical is that?

Or maybe we should all just lighten up.

The bottom line – other than that nothing satisfies anybody these days, particularly when political agendas come into play – is that Avengers: Endgame constitutes a remarkable achievement, a coming together of talent and skill on a staggering scale. The actors play the intimate moments just as well as the more epic ones, the visuals are eye-popping even in this jaded atmosphere, and the screenplay assembles so many Avengers, giving them meaningful and often funny moments, that it’s easy to forget just how difficult that task was. We’re talking, after all, about a cast that encompasses more name actors than any in history – where Robert Redford and Natalie Portman get walk-on roles. The original basic cast, of course, has plenty to do; but what about the newbies like Captain Marvel, Black Panther and Antman? One can imagine the difficulty of satisfying this line-counting bunch with the assurance of a least one really good scene.

As for us moviegoers, it helps to first revisit at least Avengers: Infinity Wars before heading to Endgame, and Barb and I did that – we re-watched several other Marvel movies, as well, including both Guardians of the Galaxy movies (our favorites of all the Marvel films).

I grew up on comic books, and bought Amazing Fantasy 15, Spider Man #1, The Fantastic Four #1, The Hulk #1, Avengers #1 and X-Men #1 off the stands. I gobbled up every superhero comic book Marvel put out, until Jack Kirby stopped drawing Fantastic Four. I was a charter member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. And though the specific comic books being referenced by recent Marvel movies are largely lost on me, I was a pig in shit at Endgame. It’s clearly the best superhero movie ever made.

If you pay attention to this update/blog, you’ll know I haven’t always liked Marvel movies. Barb and I have walked out on several, including (somewhat notoriously) The Black Panther. But in retrospect, the care that has been taken, over a 22-film cycle (!), to plant narrative seeds to grow and then harvest in these last two Avengers movies is an impressive, even unparalleled achievement.

Over these last several decades many comics fans have resented my insistence that taking superhero/costumed-hero stuff too seriously is to deny the childhood roots that spawned them, to ignore that the creators were mostly kids and their audience kids, and unsophisticated ones at that. To those fans I say, it is humor that has saved the Marvel universe.

Actually, the Marvel universe was built on Stan Lee’s quirky way of being pompous and then kidding himself about it. The Fantastic Four save the city, and then get thrown out of their penthouse superhero digs because being a superhero doesn’t pay anything. Peter Parker is Clark Kent but with all the funny and tragic foibles of being a teenager, his capeless hero “your friendly neighborhood Spiderman,” with Perry White lampooned as Jonah Jameson, “Spidey” up against overt-the-top villains earning their own silly nicknames, like “Doc Ock.” The comic books knew they were absurd at heart and didn’t care – in fact, reveled in it.

What made the Marvel movies work, from Iron Man on, is Robert Downey Jr.’s deft touch with throwaway sarcasm. He deserves an Academy Award nomination for this Endgame performance, because – while some of that flip sarcasm remains – he brings a tragic, human edge to the proceedings that remind us that he is an incredible talent, and a human being who has experienced both triumph and loss on a rather grand scale.

The comic aspect of the absurdity of a time-travel attempt to turn back the clock on an epic tragedy comes across in many moments in Endgame. Give an MVP award to Paul Rudd, who brings just the right humanity and humor to the party. So does Chris Hemsworth, whose first two Thor movies were turgid and humorless, but who revealed in Thor: Ragnarok a comic touch comparable to Ricky Gervais. And in Endgame he’s a beer-bellied, dissipated god of thunder, a wonderful characterization from the writers carried out with aplomb by Hemsworth.

The Guardians movies paved the way for allowing in more humanizing humor than even Downey delivered, and just in time. Ironically, much of the Guardians cast is benched until the final reel or so of Endgame, but the strength of their influence and of the characters established in those films comes roaring back, in so beautifully familiar a fashion.

My wife, accidentally, summed up the film perfectly: “It’s a marvel.”

Nuff said.

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Wild Dog gets an ESPN shout-out.

Here’s a nice Girl Most Likely review.

Another Girl review, also nice.

And, finally, another.

M.A.C.

My Debt to Lone Wolf and Cub’s Genius Creator

Kazuo Koike, the great creator of the manga classic, Lone Wolf and Cub, has died at age 82.

My name appears in many of his obits, along with Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino, because of the influence he had on our individual work. Road to Perdition is often mentioned, of course, sometimes stating that it was an American version of Lone Wolf and Cub.

My interactions with this incredible writer were decidedly odd.

At one point, I received a very friendly e-mail from an associate of his saying Kazuo Koike would be in America soon and was an admirer of my work, and wanted to meet. This was perhaps a year after Road to Perdition, the film, came out. The meeting would have been in Los Angeles, if I recall, and I had to explain that I lived in Iowa, nowhere near L.A. I said I would have loved to meet with him, and that I was a great admirer of his work.

Then at the 2006 San Diego Comic Con, I attended a panel that was just Koike and a translator and someone from Dark Horse, his American publisher. During the question-and-answer session, Koike complained that his work had been plundered, and mentioned Road to Perdition as an example, complaining that these plunderers might at least have given him credit.

Afterward, I went up with my son Nate and caught Koike before he’d left the stage, and Nate startled the great man somewhat by introducing me in Japanese. (As many readers of these updates know, Nate is a translator of Japanese into English and has done novels, manga and video games.) Nate told him that I was a big fan and meant to pay homage to him, and would like to shake his hand. He shook my hand, and signed a book for Nate.

Kazuo Koike, SDCC 2006

A few years later, at another San Diego con, Koike was appearing again, and (Nate again with me) I approached the Dark Horse people about arranging a brief meeting between us. They checked with him. I was told he did not want to meet with me.

Lots of peculiarity here. First, why had I been approached for a friendly meeting earlier? Would it have been an ambush of some kind? Also, I have always gone out of my way to acknowledge Lone Wolf and Cub as one of the inspirations for Road to Perdition. Koike quotes serve as epigrams at the start of the graphic novel and the two prose sequels.

If anything, I have – and certainly others have – exaggerated Road’s debt to Lone Wolf. As I’ve mentioned in any of number of places, I was most of all drawing upon John Woo movies, including Heroes Shed No Tears (1986), a very overt (wholly uncredited) updating of Lone Wolf and Cub. In the ‘80s, I was watching a lot of Hong Kong crime movies, gray market VHS copies, when director/writer Woo was fairly unknown in America. I saw Heroes Shed No Tears before I saw any of the Lone Wolf movies.

Image by Ruiz Burgos

Further, in Road, I was drawing upon the real-life Rock Island gangster, John Looney, and his homicidal son Connor, and the falling out that several formerly loyal lieutenants had with Looney. In a more basic way, I was combining the movies about ‘30s bank robbers (Bonnie and Clyde, Gun Crazy) with gangster films (St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Godfather). The notion was to bring the worlds of the rural outlaws and urban gangsters of the ‘30s together. And I’d already been doing Nate Heller for some time (Looney and son are mentioned in True Detective, 1983).

No question that Lone Wolf was in the mix. I specifically thought that the shogun and his assassin had parallels in a mob godfather and his chief enforcer. And the father and son seeking vengeance while they were being chased was an element, too, although my anti-hero’s son was an adolescent, not a baby in a cart. Robbing banks where the mob cached their cash came from the terrific Don Siegel-directed film, Charley Varrick (1973), and striking back at the mob for vengeance through their bank books was from John Boorman’s Point Blank (1967). The latter was also the start of what became my Nolan series

A lot of what I do draws from popular culture I like, but with a twist. Quarry has some of its roots in another Siegel film, The Killers (1964). Mommy is The Bad Seed flipped. Nate Heller is Philip Marlowe/Mike Hammer thrust into real unsolved crimes of the Twentieth Century. Girl Most Likely, to some degree, transposes the Nordic noir to the USA.

Lone Wolf did inspire the saga-like structure I originally had in mind. The idea was to have Michael O’Sullivan and his son on the road for 900 pages (in 100-page increments). But Road to Perdition (1998) was published as a single graphic novel (and not three 100-page “issues”) when Paradox Press (DC’s noir graphic novel line) went bust. After the film came out, I was able to go back to do another 300 pages of the father and son on the run (Road to Perdition 2: On the Road). The rest of the story was told in two prose novels – available from Brash Books – Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise, and another graphic novel from DC, Return to Perdition.

My debt to Kazuo Koike is undeniable, if perhaps not as great as he imagined. What is great is his body of work, and his masterpiece, Lone Wolf and Cub. He might wince to know I turn up so often in his obits, but I am nonetheless honored to be in his company.

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Another of my favorite manga creators, Monkey Punch (Kazuhiko Kato), also died recently, at 81. His Lupin III is a classic, and inspired perhaps the greatest anime, Cowboy Bebop. If you’ve never seen Monkey Punch’s thief in action, seek out the feature length Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1997), directed by the genius animator, Hayao Miyazaki.

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Check out this write-up about Kazuo Koike’s passing.

Here’s a top-notch review of Girl Most Likely from Criminal Element.

Here’s a short but sweet Girl Most Likely review.

Another decent Girl review can be seen here.

And this may be my favorite review of Girl Most Likely yet.

M.A.C.

Books on Sale at Amazon & The Last Word on Reviews

Perhaps to celebrate the release of Girl Most Likely – which is still on sale as a Kindle title and as a “real” book – Amazon is having a sale till the end of the month on my other thrillers for their Thomas & Mercer line. This includes What Doesn’t Kill Her and the Reeder and Rogers Trilogy, Supreme Justice, Fate of the Union and Executive Order.

$0.99


$0.99


$0.99



Or all 3 for $2.67



$3.99

For all the talk about Girl Most Likely being my take on Nordic Noir, the first attempt was What Doesn’t Kill Her, which was meant to be an American twist on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, minus the social comment.

Matt Clemens co-wrote all four of those, though he only got cover and title page credit on Fate and Order. I had to push for that, but you should know that he was fully the co-author of the other two.

A very astute reader of mine told me he thought some of the pushback against Girl Most Likely (more on that later) had to do with my describing it in terms of an American version of Nordic Noir. For what it’s worth, that was never the intention or the plan. It just came up in the first interview I did about the book and it kind of took hold.

Not that it wasn’t an aspect of how the book came to be. I really liked such Scandinavian TV series as The Bridge, Wallander, Varg Veum, and The Killing, and wanted to do something in that vein. No thought of tying my wagon to somebody else’s star was in the mix, although obviously the “Girl” in the title followed that particular trend. Attracting some female readers makes only sense in a marketplace where the fairer sex outnumbers us loutish male readers something like ten to one. That kind of math I can do.

So, reviews. I’ve talked about them here quite a bit, more than anybody wants me to, but I am going to take one last (hooray) swing at it. Let’s start with professional reviews.

Understand that I have been writing fiction a long time, and am rather set in my ways, and arrogantly feel that I know what I’m doing. But to be honest I never did pay much attention to the advice I was given in professional reviews. Almost from the beginning, I had enough faith in my work to believe in it, and me, more than the opinions of others. I mean, once you’ve been schooled by Donald E. Westlake, Mickey Spillane, Walter Tevis and Richard Yates, who cares what anybody else thinks?

No, to me the professional reviewers are all about marketing – about libraries and booksellers seeing good comments from Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist and the irascible Kirkus, and then ordering books. Editors and publishers like to have good reviews from those sources to blurb on covers, fore and aft, and on the first page or two of reprint editions. This is not to say I don’t enjoy reading a positive review from one of those sources. But for me, it’s strictly business. A marketing tool or, if a review is bad, a marketing obstacle.

Now and then, particularly in a newspaper or a really good blog (like The Rap Sheet), I get a glowing review that is really, really smart. Where the reviewer understands what I was up to. Now and then a positive criticism actually does take hold with me, too. Mostly, though, I love it when somebody gets it.

This is often true of the magazine reviews in Mystery Scene, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Crimespree, and Deadly Pleasures, among others. These tend to be written by smart, knowledgeable people, and they are a great source for quotes, and often are positive and give me a nice little ego boost. When I do get criticism worth listening to, it’s frequently here. EQMM’s Jon Breen practically discovered me.

What’s interesting to me is how seldom reviewers notice the weaknesses in a book of mine that I knew were there. This may be because I know how to hide such things, through sleight of hand or sneaky execution. Let’s take Girl Most Likely. A major flaw about it drives me crazy – I did my best to figure out how to fix it or avoid it, and instead I merely had to finesse it largely through pace.

But the two things that the reviewers – mostly amateur ones – have complained about were done by me with full knowledge of the risks. It was absolutely intentional that I did a lot of clothing description, and the occasional brand names were on purpose, too (I’ve already said why in previous updates). The abrupt ending was a choice as well, very much in the Spillane tradition – story’s over, time to get out, let the credits roll. A good number of people hate that. I’m sorry – not really – but I felt it was called for. My book. My way.

Let’s get to the amateur reviewers, who specifically rule at Amazon, where a good deal of misbehavior is tolerated by Amazon itself, which ironically is the publisher of Girl Most Likely.

First, let me get this out of the way – the amateur reviews, overall, have been great. We are sitting at four-stars. The Associated Press review was, again overall, a fine one, and appeared all over God’s green earth. Of the pro publications, some of whom didn’t love it, Booklist was a near rave. So my difficulty with the reviews on Girl Most Likely has almost exclusively to do with the Amazon ones.

Now, if you follow this blog, you know that I encourage Amazon non-pro reviews – I give out books to readers specifically to increase the number of such reviews, and since people reading this weekly update tend to be longtime readers of mine, I can pretty much count on mostly decent reviews being generated by the book giveaways.

The negative reviews of Girl, among the many nice ones, fall into two camps. One appears to be young and female, and an unbiased reader named Barbara Collins thinks I am being punished for writing about a woman when I am apparently a man. (Lots of nice notices from the young women with book review blogs, though.) But I also see an occasional nastiness that reflects a certain breed of progressive that sees something sinister in a daughter who is a professional woman having respect for a father who is a longtime professional in that field himself. The worst of these criticized me for being “a white man.”

Now Amazon is supposed to reject reviews that are hate speech. Yet even the “white man” thing is okay with me. End of the day, it doesn’t bother me much because it’s the kind of review that reveals itself and its maker. Matt Clemens and I got a lot of those ugly reviews from alt-right nincompoops in regard to the Reeder and Rogers Trilogy. Certain early reviews of Supreme Justice were clearly written by people who had not read much if any of the book. Our sin? Of our two leads, one was a liberal, the other a conservative – and they got along!

The other negative reviews, and this reflects an almost surprisingly small number, are those from longtime readers of mine who don’t like the change of pace. For example, the book is billed as “a thriller,” although I have personally characterized it as a hybrid of thriller and mystery. And some have said that this novel – which includes three vicious butcher-knife murders, a street brawl, and the protagonists getting chased through the woods by a maniac – isn’t “thriller” enough. Perhaps this reaction comes from the world of Girl Most Likely not being the criminal one of Quarry, Nolan, Mike Hammer and Nate Heller. A new, more everyday milieu apparently jars some readers.

One particular review is a rather vicious attack on me by a self-professed longtime fan who claims to have read almost all of my stuff, some novels several times. But he is appalled by Girl Most Likely for all kinds of reasons. And you know what? That’s just fine. Everybody has a right to an opinion and to express it.

Of course, when he suggests I am selling out for “the sake of building a nest-egg to retire upon,” I have to wonder – does anybody who really follows my work think I look like I’m planning retirement soon?

Authors these days live and die on Amazon. Please support not just me, but all of your favorite authors – write positive reviews (again, even a line or two is fine), click on “helpful” on the more detailed reviews when you agree with whatever insights they provide.

Amazon is the biggest bookstore in the world. Go in there and support your favorite authors. If you read a book, particularly one you buy there, that you really like, tell the world about it, in a brief (or an extended) review. It’s a way to pay your favorites a favor, and to keep them in business.

Authors are real people, trying to make a living out of entertaining you. Any time you can express your satisfaction with a positive review at Amazon and other sites, you are helping the writers whose work you enjoy stay in business. If they disappoint you, you have every right to say so in a review.

Just don’t be a dick.

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Check out this very smart review of Girl Most Likely.

This reviewer has an interesting take or two on the novel.

Finally, here’s a very nice look at the Nathan Heller series.

M.A.C.

Girl Most Likely – On Sale!

Paperback:

E-Book:

MP3 CD:

Audio CD:

Girl Most Likely is on sale right now at Amazon – $4.99 on Kindle (regularly $15.95) and $10.97 for the trade paperback edition (again, regularly $15.95).

Signed copies of the book are available from vjbooks for $24.99.

Last week I did a TV appearance on Paula Sands Live, the very popular local show on KWQC-TV in Davenport. Some of you may remember Paula from Mommy’s Day, in which she played herself…sending herself up somewhat, and really delivering.

Then this past week – Thursday, April 4 – I made an appearance at the Dubuque Public Library, promoting Girl Most Likely (Galena is a short drive across the river from Dubuque). We had a very nice turn-out – sixty or so – and just about everybody bought books. Great people – fun and friendly, with lots of excellent questions. Among the crowd was my old pal Steve Moes, location manager on the two Mommy movies.

The next day we spent some time Galena, including dropping by the police station to deliver some signed copies of Girl Most Likely to Chief of Police Lori Huntington.

The reviews for Girl Most Likely have been largely favorable, with the exception of a couple of nasty ones at Amazon (which have largely been terrific). One reviewer from Seattle finds the idea that Millennials would even bother having a ten-year class reunion “unlikely” (untrue) and finds the book “definitely written by a white man.” Hmmm…was it the author’s photo that gave it away?

A review by someone who claims to be a big fan who has read all of my stuff, some of it multiple times, advises all fans of my work not to read Girl Most Likely: “What utter crap this book is!”

On the other hand, we had a very nice review – balanced but ultimately highly favorable – that was sent out by the Associated Press to papers all around the good ol’ USA. In the past week, the review has been appeared in 20 publications, at least, and probably many more (the 20 are just the ones that appear online).

And the blog reviews are even better. I’ll list some links later in this update. If you received a copy of Girl Most Likely in my recent giveaway, and don’t agree that it’s “utter crap,” be sure to post a review at Amazon and elsewhere. A review by one of the getaway winners that Amazon wouldn’t publish – for no good reason – was easily posted at Barnes & Noble.

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Remember how I liked the Marvel Captain Marvel movie a while back? Well, I like the DC Captain Marvel movie even more, though the name “Captain Marvel” doesn’t appear anywhere in Shazam.

Don’t be put off by the somewhat deceptive advertising that might make you think this is a kid’s movie – it’s more the equivalent of a YA novel, with plenty of adult themes and scary villainy, perhaps a little too safely political correct, but what the hell – diversity is here to stay and a good thing to honor in a movie that will have a large teen audience.

What I like about it – beyond its acknowledged debt to Big (via a brief walking piano sequence) – is Shazam’s ability to be funny without completely sacrificing the darker elements expected these days. It’s kind of the anti-Deadpool, and I say this liking both of those films; but this has a good heart and the humor never walks the dark side – that’s left to the bad guys.

Zachary Levi is the unnamed Captain Marvel and Asher Angel is Billy Batson, the kid who can turn himself into a super-hero with a word.

The filmmakers go out of their way to honor the original source material – a comic book drummed out of business by DC in 1953! References to the C.C. Beck classic (Beck gets a co-creator screen credit with writer Bill Parker) are frequent, from the high school being named Fawcett (after the comic book’s original publisher) to setting up the most unlikely super-villain of all for a possible sequel. They even make a joke out of Billy Batson’s super alter-ego not having a name. Plus, we get appearances by Captain Marvel Jr. (also not named) and Mary Marvel.

For a rapidly ageing comics fan, this was bliss.

Do you want a plot summary? Just go to it, if nothing I’ve said here scares you off.

On the television front, Barb and I continue to adore Schitt’s Creek, which has done much to quietly normalize the notion of gay romance and now marriage. The show is reportedly wrapping up after one more season, which is a shame but what a run they’ve had – a post-SCTV triumph rivaled only by Christopher Guest’s films, which also starred Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara.

We also consumed the sixth season of the Morse prequel, Endeavor, and found it to be the strongest yet, and probably the best of the British crime series. A subtle aspect of these four movie-length episodes is the collision between the rough-and-tumble Sweeney style policing of the early ‘70s and the more cerebral Morse style policing of the late ‘80s-onward – both series having starred John Thaw, whose daughter Abigail is an Endeavor series regular.

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Here’s a nifty review of Girl Most Likely from bookfan.

And a great one from Jonathan and Heather.

Plus this one from Mrs. Mommy Booknerd.

M.A.C.

Girl Most Likely

Audiobook Sample (MP3)

Paperback:

E-Book:

MP3 CD:

Audio CD:

I am, no fooling, writing this on April 1, which is the pub date of Girl Most Likely. The Galena, Illinois, based mystery/thriller, introducing police chief Krista Larson and her retired homicide cop father, Keith, marks a slight change of pace for me – although nothing so radical that anyone interested in my work will find themselves untethered.

First, if you live in or near Dubuque, Iowa, here’s what might like to spend the evening of Thursday, April 4 – I will be making the only major scheduled appeared for the new book at Carnegie-Stout Public Library, 360 W 11th Street, in Dubuque, starting at 7 p.m. The event will be hosted by River Lights Bookstore, who will sell books, including Girl Most Likely of course, and my appearance will be in the library’s auditorium space. I’ll give a short reading/talk, followed by an audience Q&A and the book signing. Barb will also be at the event and our “Barbara Allan” Antiques mysteries will be available there, too.

Second, those of you who have won advanced reading copies of the novel can now post your Amazon reviews. I have had one reader encounter difficulty getting Amazon to print a review – for reasons neither he nor I can figure out – but he was able to post the review easily at Barnes & Noble. So there’s your Plan B if you need one.

As I’ve said in interviews, Girl Most Likely grew out of my desire to do something reflective of the approach I’ve seen in the Nordic Noir of The Bridge, The Killing, Wallander, Varg Veum and other mystery/thrillers that combine wildly melodramatic bad guys with, generally, detectives who are a little more real than the P.I.s, hitmen and small-town theatrical divas I’ve been writing about in recent years.

Girl Most Likely is also reflective of my wanting to develop something more thriller-oriented for Thomas & Mercer, where such novels have been successful for them – including mine. The Reeder and Rogers political thrillers for T & M by Matt Clemens and me are among my best-selling novels ever. Supreme Justice has in particular racked up strong sales.

I view Girl Most Likely as an opportunity to expand my audience – to bring in more women, and younger readers who aren’t Baby Boomers like a lot of the Heller, Quarry and even Antiques readers are. The novel alternates points of view chapters between 28-year-old Krista (youngest police chief in the nation) and her 58-year-old father Keith, which allows me to court such new readers, as well as have the nice contrast between generations.

I shared here recently some of the odd reviews I got from the UK a while back – Girl was an Amazon Prime “First Read” title over there, last month – though most of the advance notices here have been pretty good to great. GoodReads (where I hope readers of these updates will consider posting reviews) has been somewhat spotty. This week we are likely to see more reviews and get a better general feel of the reaction.

The two complaints – from younger readers and often female ones – seem to be about the clothing description, which I’ve discussed here previously, and that the ending seems abrupt. The latter is because I ended the story without a post-game wrap-up chapter – you know, like on Perry Mason when Paul Drake says, “Perry, why did you have me drop dry ice into the Grand Canyon from a helicopter?” Instead I revert to my Spillane training and end the story when it’s over, in what is (I think) a punchy way.

One recurring compliment from readers posting reviews has been how much fun the book is – that it’s a great “beach read.” That’s at once nice to hear and a little bewildering. The novel has a number of second-person POV chapters, in which you are in the skin of a butcher-knife-wielding maniac. The violence, when it comes, is as rough as anything I have done elsewhere.

For me, as these early notices (like the wonderful review and article in The Big Thrill), have come at a distracting time, as I have been writing the sequel, Girl Can’t Help It. In fact, I finished that yesterday, or at least shipped it to my editor – one never knows if one is really “finished” until the editorial notes come in.

But working on a book in a series while reviews for the previous entry are coming in can be disconcerting – you feel like people are reading over your shoulder. Nonetheless, complaints about too much description, for example, are not going to convince me to send my characters running around naked in empty rooms – I will stubbornly continue to clothe them and put them in specific locations.

I do suspect – and it’s just a suspicion, and there’s no “boo hoo” in this – that some female readers may not be crazy about a man writing a woman’s point of view. I have of course done this many times before – Ms. Tree, anyone? – but I am occasionally getting that who-do-you-think-you-are vibe, imagined or not. This includes the objection that I sometimes call a female character “attractive,” as if I am imposing a cultural stereotype in so doing. But “attractive” is a subjective word – it’s one of those words that allows readers to plug whatever their idea of attractiveness is.

At any rate, I hope you will judge for yourself. I am very proud of this novel – and its sequel, which finds me dipping into my decades of rock ‘n’ roll in a way no novel of mine has before – and hope you will give them both a try.

Dan John Miller’s reading of the new novel is available now, too (haven’t listened to it yet – but Barb and I will, as Dan always performs in a stellar fashion). And I think Thomas & Mercer did an incredible job on the cover.

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I see that Jordan Peele’s new horror film, Us, has topped $200 million at the box-office. Nonetheless, Barb and I walked out on it yesterday.

Hey, we gave it a good shot. Stayed for an hour. But we found it dreadfully slow in its opening act, rife with over-blown scary music to make up for the lack of scares, pitifully hammy, the dialogue an embarrassment, and the doppelganger menace (and its explanation) downright dopey. During the flashback that begins the picture, I immediately figured out the “big surprise” (confirmed by Wikipedia’s write-up, which I checked when we got home).

This is a 94% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, so your mileage may really vary.

On a happier note, Captain Marvel is an entertaining super-hero flick with a great lead in Brie Larson and (no kidding) a relatively restrained performance from Sam Jackson. Now, any director who achieves the latter is one fine director (although there were two on this one, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck).

I am also looking forward to the fun, goofy-looking real Captain Marvel movie, Shazam. I am still pissed that DC forced Captain Marvel off the comic book racks when I was five years old.

In other cinematic news, all seven Road movies with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour are now out on Blu-ray (that talented trio was not available for Road to Perdition, by the way). I have loved these movies since childhood, and saw Road to Bali and the somewhat unfortunate The Road to Hong Kong in the theater. Barb loves them, too, and over the years we’ve watched them on VHS and then on DVD and now on glorious Blu-ray. Lots of fun going through them in order.

The casual, somewhat adlibbed repartee between these two performers remains modern and amazing. Crosby, who cheerfully plays a rat throughout all but the first film, and Hope, who plays a cowardly schlemiel, are magical together. Some say the men were not friends off-screen, but this is doubtful – they were in several businesses together, went golfing, guested on each other’s radio shows frequently, etc. But who cares?

I mention this chiefly because when I was searching Google for articles about the Road series, I came across one that informed me that Hope and Crosby were not funny, because Hope was a womanizer and Crosby beat his kids. Apparently, this means the rest of us shouldn’t watch those movies and laugh.

This is a most unfortunate era we’re living in. As the divide between us increases, like Hope and Crosby straddling a widening icy chasm in Road to Utopia, we are all in danger of falling.

* * *

This is an article I wrote for Crime Reads about the rewards and benefits of a writer like me doing a change-of-pace novel.

Here’s a very nice Girl Most Likely review at Where the Reader Grows.

Girl Most Likely gets the number one slot in twelve good books to read in April, as selected by Cosmopolitan magazine.

The New York Post has chosen Girl Most Likely as one of its five best books of the week.

Finally, Matt Damon considers my novel version of Saving Private Ryan to be one of his five most life-affirming books!

M.A.C.

The New Mike Hammer Audio Rocks (Said the Author)

Note from Nate: The entire Barbara Allan Trash ‘n’ Treasures series of eBooks are on sale now through April 1. Most are $1.99, but a couple are $.99 or $2.99. The newest novel, Antiques Ravin’ comes out April 30, making this the perfect time to catch up and fill in any you’ve missed! I’ve provided links to all major online eBook storefronts, but if I’ve missed your preferred store, please leave a comment and I’ll add it.

Scroll down for this week’s regularly scheduled update. Thanks!

* * *

Audiobook (digital):

Audiobook (MP3 CD):

Audiobook (Audio CD):

Barb and I are listening to the audio of Murder, My Love in the car. We had a trip to Cedar Rapids recently (more about that later), which took us through half of it. Another trip, this time to the Quad Cities and back, got us about 3/4’s of the way.

It’s quite wonderful.

I have been very blessed to have perhaps the actor most identified with Mike Hammer – Stacy Keach himself – reading all of the Hammers for audio starting with The Goliath Bone and ending with Murder Never Knocks. I have no way to express how cool it was to hear that voice, so identified with Mike Hammer, reading the books I’ve written in posthumous collaboration with Mickey Spillane himself.

Stacy also was Hammer in the two audio book radio-style presentations of mine in the New Adventures of Mike Hammer series (I wrote volumes two and three of the three produced) – The Little Death (Audie award winner for best script) and Encore for Murder (Audie award nominee for best script). I actually acted with him in a couple of scenes on both. Bliss.

When for various reasons, the very busy Mr. Keach stepped down, another of my favorite readers took over – Dan John Miller, the voice of Nate Heller, who read The Will to Kill and Killing Town. He did a fine job and made a particularly good younger-sounding Hammer, appropriate to Killing Town in particular. (He has just done Girl Most Likely, which I haven’t listened to yet, but definitely will.)

Now Stefan Rudnicki has picked up the mantle. Stefan claims to love my work, and I certainly love his. He’s been the reader of the Quarry novels for a while now, and also did an award-winning job on the massive Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago by A. Brad Schwartz and me. An amazing job by a reader/actor who really knows how to bring a book alive.

Now he’s taken on Mike Hammer, and he is doing a fantastic job. He gets every nuance of the tough-guy and smart-ass stuff, as well as the noir poetry. If you have stepped away from these audios, because Stacy isn’t doing them anymore (and I get that), you need to get back on board. Stefan in particular brings an older Hammer to life, which is perfect in Murder, My Love, a chronologically later book in the canon.

Don’t miss these. Also, we’ll get to keep doing them if you buy ‘em. The problem with a long-running series, particularly on audio, is that at a certain point the audio publisher feels there are enough books in a series – say, Mike Hammer – to suffice.

Speaking of Scarface and the Untouchable, if you’re going to Bouchercon, and haven’t sent in your Anthony ballot yet, shake a leg. That book is eligible, as are Killing Town and Antiques Wanted, and the Spillane/Collins stories “The Big Run” (EQMM) and “The Punk” (Mystery Tribune).

* * *

Last week Barb and I appeared at the Ed Gorman Celebration of Popular Fiction at Coe College in Cedar Rapids. (We were the only guests at the inaugural event. As Miles Davis once said, told he was going to be late for the show, “I can’t be late for the show, man – I am the show”).

Barb and I taught a full classroom of interested and obviously bright students, who took lots of notes and asked plenty of smart questions. That evening I spoke for an hour, a good portion of my talk devoted to my late friend Ed Gorman and what a wonderful writer he was, and what an incredible friend he was to me (and to Barb, whose writing career he encouraged and supported with anthology invites).

Ed’s lovely, gracious wife Carol drove us around and kept us company. We stayed overnight at the DoubleTree in downtown CR, because it was a long day. I mention this because some of you may be wondering why I so seldom do this kind of thing anymore, especially since I tend to be really good at it (no brag, just fact, some asshole said) and so obviously enjoy myself doing such dates. The signing afterward was similarly fun and I loved talking to longtime readers and new ones alike.

But I have to say such events are going to be few and far between now. I doubt I’ll do more than one convention a year, and it will probably be Bouchercon. I am available to be a guest of honor at just about any other mystery or comics con, as I am easily flattered and like to have my hotel room and transportation paid for. Who doesn’t?

Coe made for a long day. We took that hotel room so I could rest between the teaching session and a cocktail party meet-and-greet followed by the speaking engagement. The long day required me to go up a lot of stairs and walk all over the campus, or at least it seemed that way to me. Listen, I’m not really complaining – I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I got a lot of laughs during my speech, which is almost as good as a fat royalty check. Almost.

This is not about my health issues, or at least is only partly about them. The medication I’m on can give me dizziness, and my gait gets unsteady when I get tired, ever since the minor stroke I had on the operating table. People think because I am energetic and charming and witty as hell that I am a Superman. Maybe, if he had pockets full of Kryptonite.

This is something Barb and I are dealing with. I noticed it for the first time in Vegas at the Mob Museum, where at my first of two appearances I felt I stunk up the joint (I was very good at the second event, a day…and a bunch of rest…later.) At the same time, I am preparing for my band Crusin’ and our “season,” which begins early summer and lasts through early fall. Last year we played around nine gigs, mostly out of doors, which makes me wonder if I should make this my last gigging season.

Nonetheless, I am hoping we will make a new CD this summer, all original material.

The one thing that doesn’t seem to be terribly impacted by age and occasionally sketchy health is my writing. I am more prolific than ever, which makes it hard for some readers to keep up with me. But that’s when I feel the most myself and the most alive – at the machine. Making up stories.

I am not looking for sympathy, which I do not deserve, and don’t mean to imply I am unwell, which I am not. I feel very good almost all of the time. It’s a matter of energy, and I think when this dreadful Midwestern winter gets tired of torturing us, and I get out walking again – and gigging again – I will start to feel in shape.

Just know that the reason my book signings and con appearances are more and more infrequent doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It means that I have to watch my energy level and make sure any appearances are infrequent and, when I do take one on, designed to give me time for rest…and to drop me at the door by car of wherever I’m appearing, with Barb at my side.

What I want to spend most of my time doing now is writing books, and short stories and non-fiction pieces and movie and TV scripts. And I think that’s probably how you’d prefer I spend my time, too.

* * *

Here is what I consider a first-rate interview with yours truly, in support of The Girl Most Likely.

Supreme Justice is chosen one of the best 21 legal thrillers of the 21st Century. Hey, Matt Clemens – we are in some heady company, my friend!

The Rock Island Dispatch-Argus lists some men who made their mark who come from the Quad Cities area. I sort of make the list by hanging onto John Looney’s coattails.

Finally, here’s some stuff about Batman: Child of Dreams by Kia Asamiya and me. Looks like some collectibles were generated from that, unbeknownst to me.

M.A.C.

Mike Hammer Returns…and Another Book Giveaway!

Hardcover:

E-Book:

Audiobook (digital):

Audiobook (MP3 CD):

Audiobook (Audio CD):

The day this post appears is the pub date for the new Mike Hammer novel from Titan, Murder, My Love.

I am offering ten copies to readers who are willing to post a review at Amazon and other sites, such as Barnes & Noble and Goodreads. We also have eight Advance Reading copies of the new Barbara Allan, which is not out till April 30, Antiques Ravin’. And five more Advance Reading copies of Girl Most Likely. When you enter, list your order of preference for which book to receive (and let me know if you already have a Girl Most Likely or if there’s one of these three titles you simply aren’t interested in).

With Antiques Ravin’ and Girl Most Likely, you will need to wait till pub day to review at Amazon. Elsewhere you should be good to go.

You need to be in the USA – foreign mailings are expensive – and you must send me your snail mail address (even if you won in the past).

Send requests to macphilms@hotmail.com.

As you may have noticed, if you follow the comments section, there has been misunderstanding about the reader reviews that are the point of these books being sent out. They are not being sent out of the goodness of my heart. They mean to generate positive reviews and nice star ratings at Amazon.

For that reason, I’ve made it clear that anyone who wins a book in one of my giveaway from me, and winds up not liking the book, need not feel obligated to review it. I don’t mean such readers should lie and say that liked the book, just that they not slag it at my expense. These book giveaways are an expensive and time-consuming undertaking. The one Barb and I are launching here will run me around $150.

This is why I suggested that if you win a book, and can’t at least give it a mixed but predominantly favorable review, you just don’t bother. That you chuck it in the circular file or take it to Half-Price books and earn yourself a dime or so.

I don’t think this is unreasonable.

On the other hand, review copies sent to readers for honest reviews by Amazon or the publisher’s PR reps can say whatever they please – obviously. Ditto for book giveaways at Goodreads. An honest bad review is a perfectly acceptable response in that kind of giveaway.

Just don’t ask the author for a free book and then trash it in public.

Now, I admit to being annoyed with the First Read reviewers who get free books from Amazon and then savage them. But I can’t do anything about it except bitch.

A few words about Murder, My Love.

This is the first Mike Hammer novel that contains no Spillane prose – strictly Collins. Every single novel of the dual-byline Spillanes that preceded had at least a chapter or two by Mickey, although I always expanded and manipulated that material to extend the Spillane influence and his sound. This time I did, however, work from a fairly detailed synopsis of a novel he intended to write, although it may have been a synopsis of Mickey’s for a Mike Hammer TV movie for Stacy Keach and producer Jay Bernstein (my introduction explains my reasoning and sets the novel’s place in the chronology of the series).

The next Hammer novel, which I haven’t started yet, does have some Spillane prose in it, though it too is mostly a synopsis.

For those who have wondered, I will likely be converting some non-Mike Hammer material – two screenplays and several starts on novels – into Hammers, if Titan moves forward with another contract (or two).

I think Murder, My Love came out rather well, and it certainly feels like authentic Hammer to me. I’ll be interested in your opinion.

* * *

One of my favorite crime writers is the late Ted Lewis, whose novel Jack’s Return Home (1985) became the great Brit crime film, Get Carter (1971). I wrote about Lewis in an introduction to the Jack Carter prequel novel in 2014, Jack Carter’s Law, originally published in 1978.

Recently I read a solid bio of Lewis by Nick Triplow, Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir, published in the UK in 2017 by No Exit Press (it’s also available here). Lewis is an interesting but sad, even tragic figure, another artist taken down by self-doubt and alcoholism. I was fascinated (but not surprised) to learn that Lewis had been heavily influenced by Spillane and by Richard Stark’s Parker novels, to which Lewis had been led by the film Point Blank…because that was exactly the case with me. So Nolan and Quarry grew out of the same influences as Jack Carter.

But something strange and oddly wonderful, at least in my view (Small World, Dept.), popped up late in the book, in a discussion of Jack Carter’s Law, the very book I would one day introduce and praise. Triplow had difficulty finding any contemporary press reviews for that novel, with the only one turning up coming from the Carroll Daily Times Herald, the “Iowa Book Shelf” by reviewer R. Choate, who praises the book as offering a “realistic background of the London criminal element,” but says it’s “not recommended for those with squeamish stomachs.”

In the very next paragraph of the bio, Triplow talks about what I had to say of the same novel in my 2014 introduction. He of course doesn’t mention I am also from Iowa, and perhaps doesn’t know.

Here’s what had my jaw dropping: “R. Choate” is almost certainly Richard Choate, at the time a Des Moines area actor who was one of Michael Cornelison’s best friends. Do I have to tell readers of these updates that Cornelison was also one of my best friends, and that he had major roles in every one of my indie films and narrated both of my documentaries? That his one-man show of my Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life is streaming on Amazon Prime right now?

I met Richard through Mike, and it’s entirely possible that Mike – knowing of my interest in crime fiction and film – made Choate aware of the book called in America, Jack Carter and the Law.

Richard Choate – who I haven’t seen since the public tribute to Mike, where I spoke – was originally going to have a major role in my indie film, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market (2000). In fact, I wrote the part for him (he’s a wonderful actor), but a last-minute unexpected conflict with his day job made it necessary for me to re-cast the day before we went into production.

So what? (you might reasonably wonder).

But I ask you to put yourself in my place, innocently reading a book about one of your favorite authors and then having the coincidence of those two adjoining paragraphs gobsmack you.

To put it in some kind of less than ridiculous context, it was likely the one review Lewis got came from my talking up Get Carter to Mike, which likely led to him mentioning it to Richard, who then gave the prequel novel its only known review, until I wrote that 2014 introduction….

Cue Rod Serling and the music.

Two postscripts.

I believe Richard is in Oregon now and still involved in theater, and also in addiction treatment and counseling.

Also, Carter himself, Michael Caine, has a book out (Blowing the Bloody Doors Off) that is wonderful reading, not an autobio exactly (he’s done several of those), but reflections on his acting career and how what he’s experienced and learned can be translated to other professions. Much of what he says can easily be transferred to the writing game.

But, interestingly, he says little about Get Carter and doesn’t seem to particularly value it as anything special. This is odd because in Great Britain it is widely considered the best UK crime film of all. I would rate it Caine’s best, even above The Ipcress File and The Man Who Would Be King. I do agree with him, though, that the third Harry Palmer film, The Billion-Dollar Brain, is woefully underrated.

* * *

If you read this the day it’s posted (Tuesday, March 19, 2019), I will be appearing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at an event for writers dedicated to the memory of my late friend and great writer, Ed Gorman – a free 7 p.m. presentation in Sinclair Auditorium at Coe College in Cedar Rapids.

Here is an article – which is among the better in depth articles written about me ever, by the way – with the details.

And here is a terrific article about Ms. Tree (and the upcoming series of collections from Titan) at the generally terrific Stiletto Gumshoe site.

Finally, here’s where you can get a signed copy of Girl Most Likely. (Not a giveaway!)

Spending $50 at Amazon, and Not Everyone in the UK Loves Me

The forthcoming audio read by Dan John Miller

A rumor is around that you can’t review a book for Amazon unless you buy it from them. That appears to be false. What seems to be true is that you have to occasionally buy things from Amazon to be able to review there – which is different. You need to have spent at least fifty bucks at Amazon during the last twelve months. That’s it.

I actually think that’s fair. Why should a business where you don’t do business put your opinions on its web site?

Girl Most Likely is an Amazon Prime “First Read” selection the UK, so reader reviews of the novel are starting to appear there. Some are very good. Others are snarky and even savage. A certain breed of nasty UK reviewer seems to really relish attacking books – including books like mine, which they got for free – rather viciously.

Some of these reviews are appearing now at Goodreads. By the way, if you have been participating in my book giveaways, I hope you will post your reviews at Goodreads. I can especially use your reviews on Girl Most Likely, as the UK ones have pulled down the star rating, despite some really nice write-ups.

Don’t forget Barnes & Noble, and other blogs, including your own, if you have one.

Also, if you participate in my book giveaways, and if you don’t like the book, you are not obligated to review it. I am not insisting on good reviews, mind you – even I would not sink that low (I did create Nate Heller and Quarry, however). But every book I send out to you costs me time and money, and if you don’t care for the book you got free from me, that’s what the wastebasket or the Half-Price Books “buy” counter is for.

Let’s take an ill-advised look at Goodreads. (Pause for my son Nate to roll his eyes and reach for the phone.) This is where those UK readers – possibly taking Brexit out on me – have had their say already, weeks before the book will be on sale here. While there have indeed been some excellent reviews from the UK, and some mixed but fair ones, we also get things like this from Ceecee:

“I understand this is a book in the tradition of a Scandi noir of which I have read many and enjoyed most. So here goes. Brace yourselves.”

Never a good sign when a review begins with “Brace yourselves.” And what follows is an attack on me for calling my characters Scandinavian (it’s pointed out that they are actually Americans, which was interesting to learn). Problem is, the word “Scandinavian” does not appear anywhere in the novel.

Here’s a paragraph from later in Ceecee’s review that manages to be lengthy without presenting any examples to back up her opinions, and also not to have much to do with the novel:

“Danes are Uber cool. Probably the coolest of the Scandinavian countries. Sorry if you’re Swedish. Or Norwegian. You are cool too. Just quite not as cool as the stylish Danes. I didn’t detect too much cool in this setting in Illinois apart from the weather. Sorry if you are cool and from Illinois. I’m sure there’s plenty of you.”

This negative review from Christopher Williams says:

“The perpetrator also turned out to be somebody I was completely unaware of through the whole of the book!”

But just above his review, Cathi Reynolds says, “The red herrings were fairly obvious too and I’d spotted the killer by half way.”

Sophie Andrews says, “The female characters are really badly written, and many characters behave in completely inexplicable or unexplained ways.”

What are Sophie’s choice examples of my bad writing and poor characterization? What from the book does she quote or even paraphrase to back up her opinions?

Nothing.

And that’s the problem with so many of these reviews, even some of the positive ones. Opinions backed up with nothing at all.

This fairly positive review from Dr R Gallow compares me to Agatha Christie (cool!), but then says, “It was like 10 little indians. Who was killing off the Class of 2009 and why?”

Problem with that is, only two members of the class of 2009 are killed off in the novel. That’s eight Indians short – even I can do that math.

Here, from Glen’s somewhat favorable review (an American, not from the UK or Scandinavia either for that matter), comes this:

“We get an awful lot of virtue signalling, just like in most Nordic Noir. There are also some of the usual MAC tics, like describing everyone’s clothes in minute detail…”

Much of this review is fine, but I had never heard of “virtue signaling.” I looked it up and this is what Wikipedia says: “Virtue signaling is a pejorative term that refers to the conspicuous expression of moral values….In recent years, the term has become more commonly used as a pejorative by commentators to criticize what they regard as empty or superficial support of certain political views.”

Hmmm.

I suspect the presence of a conservative reader who knows I am a liberal and believes I am spouting my dire views upon the unwitting public by putting words into characters’ mouths. Right. Like the way I do with that flaming liberal Mike Hammer. Or that bleeding heart Quarry. Or that oh so politically correct Nate Heller.

Bullshit says I. My characters, and I would say the characters of most proficient fiction writers, have views appropriate to said characters, and are designed to lend those characterizations weight and specificity.

Must we talk clothing again? How many times do I have to say that I describe clothing for characterization? And in Girl Most Likely, the brand names have to do with a very successful woman returning to her class reunion dressed to the nines, and (minor spoiler alert) revealing later that the designer fashions are on loan or rented, like the sports car she arrived in.

Look, all of these people have a right to their opinions. Obviously. Believe it or not, I appreciate the time they have taken to write about the book, no matter how they felt about it. A well-reasoned review with criticism is well within bounds and I have even learned from some – but for that to happen, the opinions have to be backed up with examples of what didn’t work and why.

I think brief reviews are fine. “Not my cup of tea” is perfectly acceptable. “I loved every page” is just fine – really fine! But if you go on at length, remember, it’s an essay. Points have to be proven. Examples provided – like I have here.

Also, and this is basic and if I’ve gone on about this before, my apologies…but the experience of reading fiction is collaborative. It’s the writer plus the reader. The experience is unique to that pairing. No two readers experience a novel the same way.

Where my fiction is concerned I am something of a control freak. I know you, the reader, will come to my novel with bag and baggage, with opinions and points of view, and that comes with the territory. But I want to come as close as I can in the words I put on the page to having you see in your brain what I saw in mine, as I was creating the story. I want my physical descriptions of people and places to create something close to what I saw. I want to clothe my characters, not send them naked into the world. I am not just the writer but the director, and the costumer and the set designer, and you will just have to live with it, or at least skim what doesn’t interest you.

I’ve said this before, in so many words – sometimes my little play (we’re a play now, not a movie, in metaphorical terms) is performed on Broadway by the finest actors in the world. Other times it’s performed at the Podunk Playhouse by a bunch of amateur gits (that was for you UK readers). How well performed my work is, to some degree, up to you and your skills.

Me? I’m just trying to help.

* * *

Here how’s it done in this lovely (but at times mildly critical) review of Girl Most Likely from Ron Fortier.

Mickey Spillane’s 101st birthday was last week (March 9) and there have been some nice remembrances, including this one from Paul Davison with a link to a piece of mine.

For all the Goodreads reviews and ratings of Girl Most Likely, you go here. There’s a book giveaway of Girl here, too.

And finally here, in full, because I don’t have a link, is the Booklist review:

Girl Most Likely.

By Max Allan Collins

Apr. 2019. 272p. Amazon/Thomas & Mercer, paper, $15.95 (9781542040587); e-book (9781542090582)

Someone is killing members of the Galena [Illinois] High School class of 2009. Six months before the 10-year reunion, class member Sue Logan is brutally stabbed in Florida, shortly after a tense meeting with her murderer. During the reunion weekend, the victim is attendee Astrid Lund, the “girl most likely to succeed,” who has become a well-known Chicago TV reporter. After trying to make amends for stealing her classmates’ boyfriends in high school, she too meets with her killer before being stabbed to death.

These murders—and a third, seemingly committed by the same person—land in the lap of another class member, Krista Larson, the country’s youngest female chief of police 28, who calls on her widowed father, Keith, a retired police detective, as a consultant. This is a change of pace for Collins, best known for his fact-based historical-mystery series starring Nate Heller, and he describes it as “an American take on Nordic noir.” As such, it’s a well-wrought tale, and, though it lacks the bite of the Heller novels, it will keep readers going through the suspenseful, if somewhat abrupt, climax.

— Michele Leber

71 Candles, the Anthony Awards & a Big Thrill

If you are attending Bouchercon this year, you probably have already received your ballot for the Anthony Awards nominations. This is your reminder that Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness and the Battle for Chicago by Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz is eligible in the non-fiction category. Your votes would be much appreciated, as it’s an opportunity for us to strike back at the Edgar snub.

Other things of mine you might wish to consider are Killing Town by Spillane & Collins and Antiques Wanted by Barbara Allan in Best Novel. Also eligible are the two graphic novels, Mike Hammer: The Night I Died and Quarry’s War in Best Paperback Original; and “The Big Run” by Spillane and Collins in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine; and “The Punk” by Spillane and Collins in Mystery Tribune are eligible in Best Short Story.

Only Bouchercon attendees can vote, and the ballot that will emerge from these early nominations will be distributed at the convention itself in Dallas, Oct. 31 – Nov. 3.

Deadline for returning the ballot (which you can do via e-mail) is Tuesday, April 30.

* * *

Yes, as I write this on March 3, 2019, I have turned seventy-one years old. Considering where I was three years ago – just getting out of the hospital after open-heart surgery and a stroke – I am pleased to be that. I am pleased to be anything.

But I think about the difficulties Harlan Ellison had staying an angry young man after fifty, and realize my boy wonder days are over.

My beautiful wife Barb (my only wife – that kind of sounds like I also have a plain wife and a homely wife stashed away somewhere) showed me a wonderful time today, despite the freezing cold weather. We spent the day in the Quad Cities, having breakfast at the Machine Shed (the best breakfast around), shopped at Barnes & Noble and BAM!, saw a very good black comedy/horror movie (Greta), and had my annual lobster dinner (at Red Lobster). The evening was spent watching episodes of the classic UK crime show The Sweeney, taking time out to watch myself and A. Brad Schwartz on Backstory with Larry Potash on WGN-TV.

It was pretty good. Brad and I come off well, although I am not thrilled that we were left out of a segment about the Eliot Ness scrapbooks at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. I mean, I discovered those scrapbooks and their value and pointed them out to Case Western, decades ago, and to Larry Potash, a few months ago.

On the other hand, there was footage of Brad shooting a machine gun. He is clearly having too much fun doing so, which is a joy to see.

Oddly, I’ve been on national TV several times lately. Muscatine and I are featured on Fireball Run, a gumball rally type show whose premise I do not understand – I was interviewed at the Musser Museum and displayed (brought from home) original Chester Gould art and Mickey Spillane manuscript pages, among other precious artifacts. [The series is available on Amazon Prime Video at this link; Season 11, Episode 12: “Max and Me” –Nate]

I was also interviewed for a full half hour show on Fox Nation streaming service. Below is the preview of the episode, but be forewarned that the suggestion – at times the statement – that the episode is based on the Collins/Schwartz book is not the case. And Fox has been so informed, and corrections have been made, but not everywhere. It’s an interview about the book, interspersed with vintage footage and, oddly, a photo identified as Ness and used throughout the episode that isn’t Ness at all.

Such are the vicissitudes of media coverage when you’re out promoting a book or film.

Among the best birthday gifts I received this year was an unintentional one – The Big Thrill e-magazine from the International Thriller Writers put me on their cover and have given me (thanks to writer Alex Segura) a fantastic review of The Girl Most Likely and an article about me drawing upon an interview I gave Alex. The pic shows me in front of the actual St. Valentine’s Day Massacre wall, as preserved at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. And this review/article is required reading.

M.A.C.

I Celebrate My Birthday By Giving You Such a Deal

Perhaps to celebrate my birthday day next week (March 3rd), Amazon is putting on sale almost all of my novels under their Thomas & Mercer imprint…for 99 cents each! It’s part of their Mystery, Thriller and Suspense Fiction book deals and runs throughout March, starting this Friday.

This includes all but the most recent Nathan Heller novels (the historical P.I. series that I consider my best work); here’s the list:

Chicago Confidential (2002)

Angel in Black (2001)

Majic Man (1999)

Flying Blind (1998)

Damned in Paradise (1996)

Blood and Thunder (1995)

Carnal Hours (1994)

Stolen Away (1991)

Neon Mirage (1988)

The Million-Dollar Wound (1986)

True Crime (1984)

True Detective (1983)

Also included in the Magical Max Allan Collins Birthday Sale is the entire run of Mallory novels:

Nice Weekend for a Murder (1986)

A Shroud for Aquarius (1985)

Kill Your Darlings (1984)

No Cure for Death (1983)

The Baby Blue Rip-Off (1982)

Also the “disaster” series:

The War of the Worlds Murder (2005)

The London Blitz Murders (2004)

The Lusitania Murders (2002)

The Pearl Harbor Murders (2001)

The Hindenburg Murders (2000)

The Titanic Murders (1999)

Plus these:

Executive Order (2017)

What Doesn’t Kill Her (2013)

Midnight Haul (1986)

So if you were wondering what you should get me for my 71st birthday, I am far too selfless to want anything at all. Instead, why don’t you treat yourself to some under-a-buck books by me? It’s possible I will give any royalties to charity.

I mean, it’s possible.

* * *

Here’s a gallery of photos from the Mob Museum in Las Vegas on Feb. 16 when my Scarface and the Untouchable co-author, A. Brad Schwartz, interviewed me before a nice audience about Road to Perdition and Nate Heller, specifically the Vegas-centric Neon Mirage.

* * *

The announcement of Titan bringing out volumes collecting the complete Ms. Tree got a lot of play on the Internet and even in the print world, via The Hollywood Reporter (their story here).

It’s gratifying that – especially in the comics world – Ms. Tree artist/co-creator Terry Beatty and I received so much cyber-ink on this announcement. I stopped counting at a dozen write-ups! As John Huston as Noah Cross says in Chinatown, “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

There does seem to be some confusion about what exactly this first volume is – is it a re-launch with new material? Is it a “best of”?

No, it’s the complete run, although (at my request) we are starting at the end, with the ten graphic novellas we did for DC Comics in the early ‘90s. Five of them are collected in this first book to make up a graphic novel called One Mean Mother. (My preferred title – Drop Dead, Handsome – was overruled.)

* * *

Scroll down to see a brief but nice review of Killing Town from Steve Steinbock in The Jury Box in EQMM.

Here’s another brief bit from a reader who indicates we’ll be hearing more from her about Quarry and me.

This is a review of Girl Most Likely from a blogger, and it’s essentially good review, but I hate it. The reviewer quotes from an advance copy, which clearly advises against quoting since it’s not the final text, and blames me for the insertion (by an editor) of a “#” (hashtag) in a “MeToo” mention in dialogue. I had already asked the hashtag to be removed. (And I wrote the reviewer complaining about this breach and he did not post my comment.) His general tone is patronizing, and he has no understanding of the use of clothing description for characterization purposes. He complains that a plot avenue isn’t resolved when it is. He says the killer’s identity comes out of left field when another reviewer accused me of making it too overly obvious (as we say in the comics, “Sigh”).

A much better review is scheduled to appear in the next issue of Booklist, which I’ll share next week.

Finally, guess what film based on a graphic novel is on a “best gangster movies of all time” list?

M.A.C.