Max Allan Collins's Blog, page 48

Thanksgiving 2016

In a year like the one I’ve experienced, it might seem tough to be thankful.

Those of you follow these updates know that I’ve had some health issues. The year began with carotid surgery preceding open-heart surgery, during which I had a stroke. While not major, the stroke left me with a fairly useless right hand – couldn’t type, didn’t even have a signature. And a writer losing his or her signature has lost a key piece of identity.

What followed was a lot of work getting my hand functional again and recovering from the surgery with physical and occupational therapy. Also, in the run-up to the heart surgery, something growing in my lower right lung lobe made itself known, requiring keeping an eye on. Eventually I was scheduled to go in for surgery that would probably be just a closer look, but might result in more serious surgery.

While all of this was going on, my son Nate’s bride Abby gave birth to Sam Collins, a preemie who fought a brave battle for life. Nate and Abby practically lived in the hospital for a month while this little tadpole of a kid fought to be a baby. We visited as often as we could, though this was going on concurrent with my heart condition stuff, and that limited us some.

Then both Barb and I managed to get pertussis, which is to say whooping cough. I got mine in August and she got hers a few weeks later, and we are still coughing (the hundred-day cough, they call it). My adventures, recounted in detail in previous updates, included rushing back from New Orleans the moment I landed because Barb’s pertussis had sent her to the emergency room; and having my lung surgery postponed for a month to allow me to get over my bout with the stuff.

The surgery wound up being more serious. A baseball-size thingie was taken out of my lower right lobe. It’s now been diagnosed as MALT-lymphoma, which has nothing to do with old Pop Jenkins down at the soda shop.

Then, while I was recovering from the lung surgery, glued to the TV, I witnessed Donald Trump being elected president of the United States.

So what the hell do I have to be thankful for?

Almost everything (except for the Trump part).

We can start with this career that has allowed me to concoct stories and get paid for it for four decades. We can move from there to my wife Barb, whose love and support got me through all of the bullshit above – she always knows when I need a tender shoulder and also when I need a kick in the pants. She is not a self-pity fan.

From there we can move to my great son and his equally great wife, who gave me this wonderful grandson who has overcome all of the obstacles and is now smart and healthy and very funny. You may have a baby or a baby grandkid who seems pretty cool, but can yours do an evil maniacal laugh at sixteen months?

As for my travails, I was typing almost immediately when I got home from the hospital. Initially all I could move was the mouse, and for some weeks the sensitivity of the computer keyboard was how my weak right hand was able to register anything. But two weeks home after my three-week hospital stay (two of it in O.T. and P.T.), I was working on my draft of Antiques Frame. Before long I was writing The Will to Kill, the new Mike Hammer, and Executive Order with my pal Matt Clemens. Throughout every stage of various recoveries, I have found that my writing has been unimpeded, that it is a place I can go and think of nothing but the story at hand.

Every day I filled at least a full notebook page with my signature, and within a month I had it back. If you ever need an M.A.C signature, my wife can tear one of out the notebook I filled with them. (Ask for one from a later page.)

The pertussis Barb and I shared brought us even closer together, because we were dealing with it at the same time. I won’t pretend it didn’t suck, but something odd happens when you are sick and have a reasonable expectation to get well – you start to really, really appreciate normal, everyday life. To look forward to the most trivial damn things – a meal out, a movie, a walk on an autumn day.

As for the lung thing, I am in a wait-and-see mode, and have a few more tests to take, but I am assured this is a treatable, very survivable condition…and I may have no recurrence. At this point there’s been no talk of chemo or radiation.

If that comes, rest assured I will do everything I can to keep writing, and taking advantage of the support and friendship my readers, editors and my great agent Dominick Abel have always provided. Do not worry about me. I am fine, and I am blessed.

Thanks.

* * *

Here’s the Brash Books blog with stuff about Road to Perdition the novel and Quarry as well.

Here’s a nice latterday review of Kill Your Darlings, though oddly the Bouchercon aspect of the story (usually the favorite aspect of readers) is not so favored here.

Finally, here’s a cool review of Dan John Miller reading Better Dead.

M.A.C.

Jerry Lewis

This weekend past Barb and I traveled to St. Louis to spend some time with son Nate, daughter-in-law Abby and grandson Sam (16 months). In part this was an experiment to see how I’d do on a trip like this, post-surgery, and the answer is not bad, although lots of naps were required.

The other occasion for the trip was a one-man show, “An Evening With Jerry Lewis,” at the Family Center in St. Charles. Since Jerry is 90, this would not be a wild, screaming, song-and-dance performance – in recent years, Jerry has been reminiscing and showing film clips while seated in a center-stage director’s chair.

I am an unrepentant Jerry Lewis fan. At 68, I grew up first on the Martin & Lewis movies and then on Jerry’s solo cinematic efforts. I also saw Martin & Lewis on television, and later Lewis alone, countless times. My adoration stopped at sitting through entire MDA telethons, but I did usually catch some of each one and often watched Jerry’s melodramatic rendering of “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” which always managed to be both stirring and embarrassing.

The late Bruce Peters, my musical collaborator with the Daybreakers and Crusin’, said more than once, “The only thing funnier than Jerry Lewis at his best is Jerry Lewis at his worst.” There’s some truth in that. In the ‘60s Jerry often tried to sound erudite and educated, and that way lay madness. He seemed at war with the unruly child that made him famous. Wanted us to know that the “kid” wasn’t the real him…though the opposite was obvious.

For those of us who were unruly children ourselves in those years, we were entranced by Jerry’s depiction of a big kid in such films as Who’s Minding the Store? (1963), The Disorderly Orderly (1964), The Patsy (1964), The Family Jewels (1965), The Ladies Man (1961), The Errand Boy (1961), Cinderfella (1960), The Bellboy (1960), The Geisha Boy (1958), and Rock-A-Bye Baby (1958). Then there were the sixteen Martin & Lewis films between 1949 and 1956 including, notably, Scared Stiff (1953), Hollywood or Bust (1956), and Artists and Models (1956). That latter film had young Jerry corrupted by comic books – heaven.

Martin & Lewis were the comedy Beatles. I never got over it when they broke up. I’m still not over it. And there isn’t even a Yoko to blame, though Jerry remains a prime suspect. I always recall what Martin himself said: “The two best things that ever happened to me were teaming up with Jerry Lewis, and breaking up with Jerry Lewis.”

Jerry directed many of his own best films – The Nutty Professor and The Ladies Man, for instance. For the latter he developed “video assist,” a tool found indispensable by directors ever since. His tome The Total Filmmaker (1971) was developed from almost 500 hours of Jerry teaching at USC, and is one of the best books on the subject ever written.

This is not to say that Jerry did not make some terrible films. By the late ‘60s, despite his youthful appearance, he finally had to abandon his “kid” persona on film. With The Nutty Professor (1963), that was no problem, and it proved to be his masterpiece. With such misguided films as Way…Way Out (1966), Three on a Couch (1966), Hook, Line and Sinker (1969) and Which Way to the Front? (1970), he lost his way, often delving uncomfortably into sex farce. But all of these misfires have moments of hilarity. Even the last film cited, Jerry’s notorious, barely-released Nazi spoof, has an extended sequence late in the film where the star/director takes on Hitler in an outrageously comic way that rivals Mel Brooks in The Producers.

You’ll note that for the most part here I refer to Jerry Lewis as “Jerry.” I think most Baby Boomers who grew up laughing at his films think of him that way. Some Baby Boomers came to loathe this man they grew up with, seeing him (like the Rat Pack) as representative of phony show biz at its worst. On SCTV, a fairly unrelenting take on the Lewis’ pretensions as a filmmaker became the subject of a Bobby Bittman (Eugene Levy) sketch. But also on SCTV, Martin Short revealed his love for Lewis in “Jerry Lewis Live on the Champs Elysees,” which celebrated its subject even as it somewhat acidly spoofed him. Jerry was apparently not offended, nor should he have been.

The live performance in St. Louis found Jerry, not surprisingly, in a reflective mood. Seated before a large audience in his director’s chair, a big projection screen looming above, Jerry nonetheless created an intimate atmosphere as he shared stories and an eclectic series of clips from his career, often showcasing others (Milton Berle, Sammy Davis, Henny Youngman, Totie Fields) more than himself. Plenty of Martin & Lewis clips were interspersed, as well as such famous sequences from his films as the staircase dance from Cinderfella and the mimed boardroom sequence from The Errand Boy. The musical typewriter bit, a Lewis favorite, he performed live. Throughout the evening he peppered his presentation with one-liners, some mildly politically incorrect by today’s standards, and while the expected clips from Nutty Professor and The Ladies Man were absent, he presented a number of obscure, hilarious pieces from MDA shows that would be lost to time if Jerry Lewis weren’t his own dedicated librarian.

Among the funniest moments were Jerry in the ‘50s doing a “Be My Love” pantomime and his unscheduled appearance as a clueless member of a male chorus on an ‘80s MDA telethon; among the most moving was a pair of late ‘50s renditions of “Sonny Boy,” first with his father Danny and then with his ten year-old son (and rock-star-to-be) Gary. Of course he presented the Sinatra-arranged reunion of Martin and Lewis on the 1976 MDA telethon.

The show was a quick hour-and-a-half, and lacked the promised audience Q and A. But for this Baby Boomer, the chance to spend one last evening with Jerry Lewis was not to be missed.

Giants once walked the earth. This one is still with us, for now, if seated in a director’s chair.

* * *

Check out this wonderful review of the expanded novel version of Road to Perdition from the always interesting Bookgasm.

Here’s the Hollywood Reporter on Quarry.

And here’s a review of the novel The Last Quarry.

Here’s a nice review of Dan John Miller’s reading of Better Dead, the latest Nate Heller novel.

Finally, HBO is readying Quarry for blu-ray release (probably DVD as well).

M.A.C.

Quarry’s Daddy on the TV Series

So what’s my opinion of the QUARRY TV series?

It’s a first-rate show. The finale (like the opening episode) is a feature-length crime story worthy of release as an indie film. The Vietnamese war sequence – one long take – is as remarkable a piece of filmmaking as I’ve seen in some time, capturing the feel and pressure and insanity of battle. The cast has been stellar, as well, and the cinematography, art direction, location work, music selection, those elements and more, have been damn near flawless. Greg Yaitanes directed all eight episodes, meaning he pulled off a sustained nine-hour movie, an amazing feat.

Yet I get e-mails and comments from some readers bemoaning that the show isn’t like the books, and in some cases I have been criticized for essentially selling out, letting a bunch of Hollywood punks run roughshod over my creation. Well, first of all, if somebody wants to give me money to make a movie or TV show out of my stuff, and the price is right, they can star a sock monkey and set the show on Venus for all I care. As James M. Cain said (slightly paraphrasing here), “Hollywood hasn’t done anything to my books – they’re right here on the shelf.”

The books are the books. They have existed and will exist, strictly on my terms. Certain aspects of the novels just do not translate to film (this includes the Quarry-derived film THE LAST LULLABY, which I co-wrote). The QUARRY novels are almost entirely dependent on the first-person voice of Quarry himself – his sense of humor, his personal philosophy, the very sound of the things he says, the irony, the black humor. That’s lost in any QUARRY adaptation, unless you use voiceover, which is just not the same (and usually clumsy).

Additionally, the books are short, compact narratives depicting the jobs that Quarry goes on – none of them individually would sustain a season of television. Once the decision was made to do long-form narrative like MAD MEN or BREAKING BAD, the near novella form of the novels had to be dropped. The approach of the novels is what TV folks call “procedural.” Cinemax wanted a cast of recurring characters with their own evolving storylines – the novels are lone-wolf affairs, with few if any recurring characters.

Nonetheless, I have been impressed from the beginning that writers Michael Fuller and Graham Gordy have been able to draw upon the novels in resourceful, respectful ways that guarantee that my DNA stays in the mix. The eight-episode season that just concluded draws heavily upon the first novel, QUARRY (1976), which presents Quarry five years into doing hits for the Broker. The backstory of that novel – Quarry coming home to find his wife having an affair, followed by Quarry killing the guy – is depicted in the first episode right down to how the cheater dies. As director Yaitanes has made clear, the TV series is an origin story, a prequel to the novel series. And Mike and Graham understood, from the start, that Quarry was a PTSD vet (though the term wasn’t around when I wrote the early novels) and that the Vietnam War was very much an underlying theme. I was very pleased when they agreed with me that the show be set in early ‘70s period.

The Broker remains very much my character, and the way he insinuates himself into Quarry’s life on the show is clever and satisfying. In the 1976 novel, Quarry discovers the Broker is involved in heroin trafficking and this initiates the deterioration of their relationship – that aspect is present in the series in a major way. Also, Quarry in that first novel is working with a gay partner who is losing his focus – also a major aspect of the series. Quarry’s self-hating annoyance at the Broker’s various proteges comes from the 1976 novel as well.

Don’t be confused by my Executive Producer credit – that’s doesn’t mean I have control of anything. The TV series is the vision of Fuller and Gordy (as executed by Yaitanes), and when I write an episode, I am following their lead. It’s their baby. And of course when I’m writing a QUARRY novel, it’s all mine. Nobody gets near that crib but me.

What is important is that the original novels get some nice attention drawn to them, because of the quality TV series the books have spawned. It means more sales. More readers. More money. Much as I love my work, this is not a hobby – I’m trying to make a living here. When something like the QUARRY TV series happens that I can be proud of, so much the better.

Haven’t watched Wild Dog on ARROW yet, by the way. Is he played by a sock monkey? Just wondering.

* * *

The extended battle sequence I mention above is discussed by director Yaitanes here.

Here’s a short, sweet review of the new expanded version of the ROAD TO PERDITION prose novel. It was picked up by AP and has had wide coverage on the Net.

Finally, here are “15 Things You Didn’t Know About Wild Dog.”

M.A.C.

Every Breath I Take

Anybody who has been following my weekly updates this year, even casually, knows I’ve had “health issues.” For a guy who’s been healthy as a horse his entire life, that’s taken some getting used to.

I started to write a recap of my heart surgery and all the procedures leading up to it, but my eyes started to glaze. Let’s cut to (unfortunate phrase) something that turned up in the run-up to the previous surgery – an “infiltrate” in my lower right lung lobe. What follows is a sequel to my three-part “Heart & Soul” write-up about my heart-surgery hospitalization. There will only be one part, this time, and remember what Patty McCormack said in MOMMY’S DAY: “Don’t you know the sequel is never better than the original?”

Last Monday (Oct. 24, as I write this), Barb and I arrived at Trinity Medical Center in Rock Island at ten a.m. for my noon surgery. Barb was deposited in a waiting room where there were plenty of chairs but nonetheless she discovered that people coughing thought sitting close to her was a good idea. I was shuffled off to a space that was larger than a cubicle but smaller than a hospital room where I was required to climb into one of those your-ass-is-hanging-out robes, questioned, given an EKG and drained of some blood (Halloween coming) and subjected to the procedure I was dreading more than surgery: an IV.

The nurse supervising all this, doing much of it herself, was great. All of the nurses I would encounter on this trip were really good, several absolutely top-notch. Barb was allowed to join me at this point. My surgeon, Dr. K, came in with his easy-going bedside manner and made us feel fine, or as fine as possible. The surgery would last an hour, unless he found something he wanted to deal with on the spot, and that could take a couple of hours.

I was feeling pretty cocky. I was convinced this was nothing much, since heart-surgery patients have been through too much to be easily intimidated, and rejected the ride down the hall on my back or in a wheelchair and instead jauntily strolled down the corridor with a nurse, nodding and smiling to all we encountered, my ass hanging out, of course. It’s not my worst feature.

In the operating room, I cracked wise, putting everybody at ease, and soon I was under. When I awoke, seemingly moments later, I was in intense pain. My back felt like I was having the most intense muscular cramp I’d ever experienced. Though it’s a blur, I learned fairly soon that Dr. K had removed half of my lower right lung lobe, and that a chest tube was in, which was causing a lot of my discomfort.

That discomfort was shocking – worse than the heart surgery aftermath had been. I had not been expecting this – it was like waking to find out a truck had hit the operating room.

Before very long Barb was right there with me. She knew, when the operation went deep into a second hour, this was not what we’d expected.

Let’s get this out of the way – she is one amazing woman. She was with me all the way, right there, with support, love and sweet humor. The nurses all commented on what a great wife I have (I do not recall her being told she has a great husband…an oversight, I’m sure). She looked beautiful throughout, and several nurses who discovered we’d been married 48 years were stunned that she might be, well, as old as me.

As afternoon eased (ha!) into evening, Barb and I came to grips with the reality: what was advertised as a probable overnight stay would be at least three or four days, maybe longer (this Dr. K soon confirmed). I didn’t eat anything that first day, but the pain medication (one of those press-it-for-more buttons) did well enough. We watched MSNBC (my conservative friends will now lose all sympathy for me) because I’m a political junkie, especially election years. I had books along, but didn’t have the focus to read. I had my portable blu-ray player along, too, but just wasn’t in the mood.

Barb stayed till about nine p.m. I was coming in and out of it – I’d sleep an hour, watch TV an hour, sleep an hour. And of course medical stuff was doing on, lots of checking my vitals and tending to monitors. Here I encountered the first great nurse, Trish, who chatted with me like an old friend whenever she found me awake. She was a reader, it seemed. She wound up with a signed TARGET LANCER (she’s a Chicago girl).

The stay in the ICU was pleasant, considering, and I expressed a desire not to be moved to another floor, as is the custom on the second day. I was told there wasn’t much chance of moving me, since there were “a lot of beds ahead of me,” so I would probably be able to stay with Trish and the other nurses I’d gotten to know. Like Antonio and Maria, student nurses from Blackhawk College, whose smiles made terrific medicine.

And of course that evening I was moved to the sixth floor. Barb was unhappy. The room was small (though, incredibly, had once been a double). The TV was high, at an angle helpful to no one. One of two dim wall lights was burnt out (not on my side of the room). There was an area for a sink, but no sink. Barb described it as “Strictly Motel 8.”

Wayne, an older nurse with a Willie Nelson beard and the soothing Southern accent to with it, came along to make our stay more pleasant. He moved the bed near the working light, bitching about the lack of sink (putting us on the same team), and creating a generally welcoming atmosphere.

Along the way I came to terms with hospital food. On my previous trip, Barb had smuggled in a restaurant meal every day to off-set the horror, but I was determined not to put her through that again. I studied that menu like a professor working on a fragment of Sanskrit parchment, and learned what could be abided here – an omelette (made to order) for breakfast, with orange juice and either English muffin or bagel and cream cheese; lunch: meatloaf with gravy, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, slice of bread (for God’s sake not “dinner roll!”), vanilla pudding; supper: penne pasta and meat sauce, corn, bread again, pudding again. More than that I cannot help you.

By the third day I was getting worried, but the pain (though controlled by the magic button) was not letting up. I couldn’t reach for anything outside of my immediate grasp without excruciating pain kicking in. I was envisioning weeks of brutal, blubbering recovery. Nonetheless, I resumed my cocky manner and when the physical therapist, a nice young woman, came around, I disdainfully accepted the walker she offered and went up and down the hall, as well as half a flight of steps, without any other help (though the P.T. gal hovered).

Deposited back in my bed, I gave the therapist a jaunty wave and, once she left, lay in a whimpering pile.

That afternoon, however, Dr. K came around and gave Barb a detailed version of stuff he’d told me the day before, when she wasn’t around. (I’d tried to report it back to her, but it was a jumble.) His opinion was that the thing he’d removed from me wasn’t malignant, and it certainly wasn’t lung cancer. But it was possible it could be some lesser cancer, and was being shipped around the country like lost luggage. Experts would let us know in a week or two.

Then he asked Barb to leave the room and he put me on my left side and removed the chest tube. Now I’d had two chest tubes removed in the heart-surgery adventure, not fun, so I was pretty scared, and my body was no help, going into immediate spasms. But the tube came out easily, and instantly – instantly! – the pain was reduced by at least half.

That afternoon I realized I was out of the woods. I could reach for things! I felt more or less human. And Barb and I became determined that I would be home tomorrow, on the fourth day of this episode.

Through this, Barb continued to spend the days and early evenings with me, and I watched more political stuff with and without her. My sleep in the hospital always is uneven, in part because there are interruptions for taking your vitals and making you do breathing exercises; but also because it just is. Worst of all was a 4 a.m. blood draw – while there’s lots of blood in my books, I prefer it absent from my life. Anyway, I would sleep for an hour or two, read or watch something for an hour or two, rinse, repeat.

I watched two movies, neither very good, but not terrible. One was a noir called PLUNDER ROAD (1957) where a bunch of unsympathetic characters pull off a robbery and flee and, 71 minutes later, wind up dead. Okay by me. The other was YOUNG SAVAGES (1961), a juvie courtroom melodrama with Burt Lancaster as a D.A. who comes to the conclusion that maybe he shouldn’t fry three kids for a murder. It’s based on the novel A MATTER OF CONVICTION by Evan Hunter, apparently an attempt to make BLACKBOARD JUNGLE lightning strike twice (it didn’t) and not a patch on any of his Ed McBain 87th Precinct novels.

Now back when we were anticipating this hospital visit, Barb had scolded me about my choice of movies. Why didn’t I watch something good? Something great? Why subject myself to such schlock? Her opinion was that watching good movies would make me suffer less. Regular readers here may recall that I reviewed the fourteen such flicks I saw on my heart-surgery romp, and that they were only moderately less painful than the surgery.

And now I know why I do this to myself – it suddenly came to me! Why watch something really good when you’re miserable and can’t truly enjoy it? Instead, watch some mediocrity that has an element of interest to you (actor, screenwriter, director, cheesy genre) and just kill the time. Do you really want to make VERTIGO or KISS ME DEADLY a hospital memory?

Anyway, the next day I felt even better, and was cocky again, showing off for the physical therapist, rejecting the walker, walking twice as far, going up and down the stairs, a real Olympic work-out. We encountered, on our journey, a P.T. gal from the fifth floor and we had a warm reunion at the nurses’ station. Everybody was proud of me. Aware my ass was hanging out, I reminded these women where my eyes were.

Back in my room, Tessa – my main physical therapist from the fifth floor back in February – came looking for me. That meant a lot. She’s beautifully pregnant now, and I made both Barb and Tessa laugh when I denied paternity. These are the kind of inappropriate remarks you can make at my age in the hospital.

All that was left was to convince Dr. K that I was ready to be discharged. When he entered the room, I stood up so fast from the poorly designed hospital-room recliner that I almost blew it by falling down. But he only smiled, asked a few questions, and sent us on our way. In hospital terms, “being sent on your way” means you sit for three hours waiting for the paperwork to come through.

So I’m back home with the beautiful Barbara. Oddly I don’t feel as well as I did that last day in the hospital. It’s context. You feel great for the hospital. At home, you wondering, Maybe I should still be in the hospital…

I’m writing this on Sunday October 30. On Friday I did some work with Matt Clemens regarding the cover for EXECUTIVE ORDER. Yesterday I did some editorial work on the third Caleb York novel. Baby steps. Tomorrow I will see how much I can get done on a Caleb chapter.

Yes, we are waiting for a shoe to drop where the thing they cut out of me is concerned. Positivity and prayers are welcome, but we feel good. Not cocky, but good.

One week after surgery. (M.A.C., not the pumpkin.)

* * *

The final episode of the first season of QUARRY has aired. I’ll share thoughts about it next time.

Here’s an interesting review of that episode.

Here’s a remarkable overview of my work, with an emphasis on QUARRY and lots of fun pics.

Check out this terrific interview with Mike Fuller and Graham Gordy, QUARRY’s TV stepfathers.

And this one with director Greg Yaitanes.

Here’s a look at the show itself.

QUARRY is number seven on this list of the best 11 TV series of the season.

And finally check out this great take on the QUARRY series from the Washington Post.

M.A.C.

A Brash Preview

Brash Books, who have brought the complete version of my ROAD TO PERDITION prose novel into print for the first time, has put together a terrific trailer for You Tube.

Brash will also be doing ROAD TO PURGATORY and ROAD TO PARADISE, and the two Patrick Culhane-bylined titles of mine now under my own name: BLACK HATS and USS POWDERKEG (previously RED SKY IN MORNING).

Two more movies we walked out of:

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN – we barely made it fifteen minutes into this travesty. Everything that made the original work, from the one-ups-manship chemistry between Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen to the theme of the West leaving the gunfighter behind is sadly M.I.A. The opening is stupidly melodramatic with the villain a wimp (the woefully miscast Peter Sarsgaard) and the action over-blown. The introduction of Denzel Washington’s character is silly (people scurry like roaches in fear of him) and Chris Pratt’s character is so poorly drawn, he’s actually given three introductory scenes (none of which work). The art direction, in its would-be Italian Western-ness, is as precious as a Hummel. We went home and watched the original.

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES is the kind of unfunny movie that makes you question your previously high opinion of the topline cast members. Zach Galifianakis has nothing to do in the role of a normal suburban spouse/father, and John Hamm looks like Don Draper, half-in-the-bag, wandering onto the wrong set. It’s the wheeze about normal folks wondering what their sophisticated new neighbors are doing in this dull neighborhood (of course that neighborhood exists only in the imagination of Hollywood, as we have a combination of hick types living in very expensive houses supported by jobs they could never hold). Isla Fisher, for example, who channels Debbie Reynolds in her 1960s mode, is some kind of interior designer currently working on a urinal for her “funny” neighbor. How does this shit get made?

* * *

Here’s an okay but patronizing QUARRY IN THE BLACK review. It’s tough to take criticism from somebody who calls The Broker “The Booker.”

For my taste, more on target, here is this great write-up from Ron Fortier, first-rate scribe his own self.

Here’s another fine review of QUARRY IN THE BLACK, although somehow the reviewer mistakes St. Louis for New York City. A Brit, maybe?

The QUARRY TV show gets more love.

And Wild Dog is getting back into the comic books (I wasn’t invited).

More Wild Dog here.

Finally, here’s info on the excellent QUARRY IN THE BLACK audio read by the great Stefan Rudnicki.

M.A.C.

A Phone Call from Ed

Ed and Carol Gorman

Around forty years ago, I got a phone call. I was in my basement office in the middle of something, but I answered it. There was no caller ID then, though I wasn’t getting all that many phone calls, anyway.

This very distinctive, friendly but strangely shy voice identified himself as Ed Gorman. He lived in Cedar Rapids (about sixty miles from my home, Muscatine) and was a writer himself, although he told me this in a modest, dismissive, almost embarrassed way.

Any call from a would-be writer sent up a warning signal. I had already been at it long enough that I was getting calls from local and area writers (and sometimes farther afield than that) wanting help that usually consisted of reading their book and/or giving them advice on getting published.

But this call didn’t seem to be like that. Ed Gorman was calling specifically to tell me how much he loved my QUARRY novels. At that time there were only four of them, published in 1976 and ‘77, and while the stirring of a cult reputation for the books was out there, this was different.

This obviously very literate, self-effacing, intelligent man knew all about the books and really, really liked them. He had been compelled, he said, to give me a call about them – which was something he’d been thinking about doing for a long time.

We talked for about an hour, and hit it off, both having rather dark senses of humor, but then he rather abruptly said he had to sign off. He had something he had to do. I asked him what, and he said, “I’m getting married in half an hour.”

In a way that’s all you need to know about Ed Gorman. He was a writer who wanted to tell other writers that he admired them, and why. He was funny and quirky and uniquely Ed – that he had chosen to call me out of the blue about QUARRY right before he was off to get married to the beautiful, wonderful Carol, seems so very wrong and so perfectly right.

We began talking on the phone regularly – so regularly, and for such long conversations, that I used to get in trouble with my beautiful, wonderful wife about the phone bill. I learned that Ed had been primarily a literary writer, with short stories appearing in various publications of that sort (it was much later that he revealed he’d also written short stories for low-end men’s magazines). He said he wanted to branch out into novels.

As he came to know, and as I have said before in public, one of my proudest accomplishments as a writer was helping turn Ed Gorman into a novelist. He particularly took to one piece of advice. I said, “Think of every chapter as a short story. That won’t intimidate you – after all, you’re already a short story writer. And, anyway, with a chapter, you need the same coherent beginning, middle and end as a short story.” Very soon he sent me a novel.

It was good. There was a problem with the ending that I told him about, and he took it well, and gratefully. Then I learned he had thrown the book away and started over. I felt terrible about it, and for the only time in our friendship, I balled him out. I am someone who never throws any piece of writing away, a chronic recycler, and what he’d done appalled me. But he was impulsive and eccentric and his own harshest critic, so his action was as in character as it was rash.

Ed and Carol visited Barb and me in Muscatine, and we did the same with them in Cedar Rapids. Carol and Barb are writers too, very good ones, so the conversations over the years were four-way, not the boys over here and the girls over there.

It took me a while to learn that Ed rarely traveled, and that he was in fact something of a hermit. Because we both lived in Iowa, and had writing styles that were not dissimilar, I for a time had the honor of being accused of using “Ed Gorman” as a pseudonym. What a writer that would make me.

“Is it true,” people would ask me, “that you’ve actually met Ed Gorman?” I actually had.

The thing is, being around people made Ed nervous. This still strikes me as strange because he made his pre-writing-career living as an ad man, PR guy and also writer of political speeches (politics being a lifelong interest, even obsession).

Stranger still is how charming and effortlessly social he was on the telephone. Scores of writers are bound to now come forward and say how well they knew him, but admit that they never met him.

I saw him quite a bit, at least comparatively speaking. With Carol and Barb, we met at restaurants; he and Carol came to book signings of mine (he very rarely did his own); we did a number of appearances together (doing Q and A as well as signing, at the late lamented Mystery Cat in C.R. and elsewhere). For a number of years Barb and I, and writers Bob Randisi and Marthayn Peligrimas, would meet Ed and Carol for quarterly get-togethers at the Ox Yoke Inn in the Amana Colonies. These were lively, frequently hilarious bitch sessions about the writing life. Bob was a great friend of Ed’s (they started Mystery Scene together), and is a great friend of mine. Writers know a lot of other writers, but mostly it’s friendly acquaintances. Bob, Ed and I were real friends.

At Terry Beatty’s wedding some years ago, Ed – who loved Terry and his work – made an unprecedented move by attending the reception. I might be slightly overstating, but Ed was damn near the life of the party. Laughing, chatting, circulating. I was astonished.

Later I asked him, “What happened to Ed Gorman, the guy who can’t stand being in even the smallest crowd?” He told me he’d been a nervous wreck at the reception, a total screaming mess inside. I had witnessed an amazing performance.

Once, responding to my efforts to get him to a Bouchercon, Ed told me didn’t like driving long distances because he’d once been in a car crash. I asked him why he didn’t fly there. He said he’d also been in a plane crash. I asked him why he didn’t take a train. He said he’d been in a train crash. Asking him why he always took the stairs in tall buildings, he said he’d once been in an elevator when it fell. There’s also a story about an escalator, but you get the drift.

Was he kidding me? I’m not sure. Really I don’t think so. He was a self-described bundle of neuroses, yet as grounded a writer as I’ve ever known. He worked hard and well and fast, and never compromised his craft and art. Now and then he would rail on about some writer whose work he disliked, but never in public, and no one had more generous, enthusiastic things to say about other writers and their work than Ed. Mystery Scene was in part about getting writers who were otherwise being ignored their due by way of articles and reviews. He worked with Black Lizard and founded Five Star to get books and writers back into print.

I think it’s fair for me to say that no other writer in our genre ever did more for his brother and sister writers.

In 1992, around Thanksgiving, I got a double career whammy when my DICK TRACY contract was not picked up, and my Nathan Heller novel contract was unexpectedly cancelled. I shared my woes with Ed. Suddenly I had short story assignment after short story assignment from Ed and his great friend, Marty Greenberg. Ed and Marty keep me afloat for six months while I regrouped. They were also responsible for turning my wife Barb into a writer, largely with assignments for stories in the CAT CRIMES anthologies.

Ed, of course, had a dark side. This came across as black comedy for the most part, and I heard for many decades his prediction that we were nearing the end of mystery-fiction publishing. It was over! Sometimes his gloom got to me, and Barb would say, “Were you talking business with Ed again?” I started making a habit of making him laugh when I could see that he was letting bleakness get to him. Of course, we’d always laughed together, each an easy mark for the other.

He was always complimentary about my work and gave me glowing reviews, and he was the first to really recognize any value in QUARRY, and he kept that up over the years. Surprisingly often, he would call and say that the day before he’d re-read one of the books, and make my day with effusive praise. I’ve never had a phone call like that from anybody else.

If for some reason you’ve never read Ed Gorman (which I doubt, if you’re coming to this blog), I have always been partial to the Jack Dwyer series, in part because I got to read the first one, Rough Cut, in manuscript. His horror novels, as Daniel Ransom, are first-rate. He was a terrific western writer, as well – Guild is a favorite of mine. The Poker Club became a good little film, though not as good as the source. And he was the best short story writer of my generation – seek out his collections.

In the last twenty years or so, I talked less with Ed on the phone – though still fairly frequently – as e-mails and blogs kicked in. His voice always had something apologetic in it, like he was afraid he was interrupting. He never was.

Those phone calls – and a phone call was where it all began – are precious to me now in my memory. How we laughed and laughed. What I’d give for another call from Ed right now. Me and a hundred other writers. But I’m the only one he called on his way to his wedding.

* * *

Here’s a nice write-up of the sixth episode of QUARRY.

And another on the same subject.

Jon Breen, writing one of his rare EQMM columns, has nice things to say about ROAD TO PERDITION and its sequels as well as the QUARRY novels. Like Ed Gorman, Jon was an early booster of the series and my work.

All about the composer behind the music on QUARRY.

Two music tracks from QUARRY can be heard here.

QUARRY is one of the best new shows of the season, it says here.

More QUARRY praise.

ROAD TO PERDITION is on the list of highest-grossing R-rated comic book adaptations.

Finally, here’s an article about the young director of photography of QUARRY.

M.A.C.

3 Movies We Made it Through

Now that Barb and I are feeling a little better after our bout with pertussis – and are not contagious – we’ve started going out to movies again. As regular readers of these updates should recall, she and I have walked out of an inordinate number of movies this year – on one occasion, two in one day.

So I am pleased – make that relieved – that the last three movies we’ve seen found us making it through the entire presentation, even when the pop, popcorn, and Milk Duds had run out. Here’s a brief rundown:

MASTERMINDS is an odd one that has left some reviewers cold, but both of us liked this one quite a bit. It’s a true-crime film that is also an over-the-top comedy. Here’s the cast: Zach Galifianakis; Kristen Wiig; Kate McKinnon; Jason Sudeikis; Owen Wilson; Leslie Jones; and Ken Marino. With four of the principals veterans of Saturday Night Live (Wiig, McKinnon, Sudeikis, Jones), and another from The State (Marino), and with SNL’s Lorne Michaels one of the producers, you should have some sense of how this differs from, say, IN COLD BLOOD.

The odd thing of it for us is that as we watched, we began to slowly realize the true incident being loosely depicted was one Barb and I had considered turning into a novel ourselves, a few years ago (the clipped newspaper articles remain in our story files); we just couldn’t figure out how to handle this unlikely, goofy story of a crew of trailer-park “masterminds” who pulled off a $17 million Loomis Fargo robbery. The slapstick nature of the real crime makes great fodder for the improv style of the cast, though (as I say) some found this marriage of true-crime and comedy off-putting. We howled.

HELL OR HIGH WATER – I almost passed on this one, since the screenplay was by Taylor Sheridan, whose SICARIO I despised. But the high Rotten Tomatoes rating got us there, and both Barb and I loved this throwback to the character-driven crime films of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, with its strong nod toward BONNIE AND CLYDE. Sheridan and director David Mackenzie follow two sympathetic pairs – Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham, Texas Rangers, and Chris Pine and Ben Foster, bank robbers – on a course of inevitable, tragic confrontation. Criminal Pine comes across as an antihero of sorts, and Foster pulls off the very tricky role of Pine’s somewhat unhinged, borderline sociopathic brother, bringing to it unlikely charm. Bridges is the almost crotchety Texas Ranger just days from retirement who needles his Native American partner unmercifully in politically incorrect ways that create nervous laughter. The points of view of both sides of these teams are understandable, and it’s increasingly uncomfortable knowing collision is coming. When it does, no punches are pulled. The cinematography is striking in its depiction of a barren, even ravaged modernday Texas, and echoes of the Wild West past of outlaws and lawmen lurk on the fringes of this melancholy but always entertaining film. Best of the year so far.

GIRL ON THE TRAIN – We didn’t walk out of it, but this one barely eked out our attention. For a more compelling melodrama, try watching a snail crawl across a patio. All of the characters are unsympathetic, and – possibly explaining the sleep-inducing pace – there’s about a short story’s worth of plot here, stretched out and arranged in two hours of pointless flashbacks that don’t announce when they’re over (including some flashbacks within flashbacks, depictions of false memories, and flashbacks remembered by people who weren’t there). The screenwriter is female and so is the author of the novel, and if a man wrote a novel hating women as much as this film hates men, he would be dismissed as a sexist boor. Worst movie we didn’t walk out of in recent memory. Slight compensation: the performances of Emily Blunt (though she’s mostly playing drunk) and Allison Janney as a cop (who ought to be more on top of things).

* * *

Stacy Keach is a nominee for best narrator of a crime & thriller audiobook for MURDER NEVER KNOCKS by Spillane & Collins. Stacy does a fantastic job on his readings of the novels, and if you’re a Mike Hammer fan, you shouldn’t miss any of them.

Another top narrator, Stefan Rudnicki, has done QUARRY IN THE BLACK on audio. I’ve not heard this yet, but Stefan always does a good job. He has a deep voice that suggests the older Quarry (of, say, THE LAST QUARRY) ruminating about the adventures of his younger days.

Speaking of QUARRY IN THE BLACK, the positive reviews keep coming, like this one from Criminal Element.

And this one from the San Francisco Book Review.

From Australia comes this great review of the QUARRY TV show, with lots of references to the original books.

Here’s a review of the early novel in the series, QUARRY’S DEAL.

And finally, in German (but you may have a Google translator or something), is a career piece on me the likes of which nobody in the USA has ever done. It comes from the very knowledgeable Martin Compart, who was my editor at several publishing houses in Germany. Martin, the epitome of cool, was an early advocate of both Quarry and Nate Heller. Scroll down the article and you’ll see a great picture of him, next to some young punk.

M.A.C.

Wild Dog on CW & Quarry in the Black

I haven’t said much about the inclusion on CW’s ARROW TV series of my character Wild Dog (co-created with my longtime pal and collaborator, Terry Beatty, currently tearing it up drawing the Sunday PHANTOM and the weekly REX MORGAN for King Features). The reason is that we are being paid little or nothing, and as yet no one from DC or Warner Bros has even approached us, telling us about this great (if non-remunerative) honor. I do understand that Terry and I are in contention this year for the “Siegel and Shuster Screwed-in-The-Ass Award.”

Still, it’s fun to see screen captures of Terry’s great costume design on an actual human being. Check these out.

You can catch glimpses of Wild Dog on ARROW in this trailer, courtesy of AV Club.

The free looks at the first three episodes of QUARRY on You Tube have been taken down. I will pass the baton to my son Nate, who has information on where you can watch the show elsewhere.

Nate here. This all applies to the US; I’m not sure about how it works in other countries. If you have cable, the best option is probably adding Cinemax to your current package. The only way I’ve found to watch QUARRY without a cable subscription is through PlayStation Vue, which is Sony’s streaming platform, accessible through a PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Amazon Fire, Roku, as well as iPhone and Android devices. You can subscribe to Cinemax, as a standalone channel without any other package, for $15/month. There is a seven day trial if you want to try it out. For details, click here.

Thank you, son. As for QUARRY in the world of novels, QUARRY IN THE BLACK comes out…today! Oct. 4! In celebration, take a look at this fantastic review from Bookgasm, excerpted at length below:

QUARRY IN THE BLACK

reviewed by Alan Cranis

Max Allan Collins continues to chronicle the career of Quarry, the assassin-for-hire star of Collins’s long-running series (and recently a TV series on Cinemax). The latest title, Hard Case Crime’s QUARRY IN THE BLACK, focuses on the early stage of Quarry’s hit man vocation in the early 1970s. But thanks to the overriding theme Collins make it as applicable as this morning’s headlines.

The year is 1972, and Quarry gets a visit from his boss, known only as The Broker, at his A-frame house on Paradise Lake. Quarry has only been working for The Broker for two years, so the Broker wants Quarry to know that he is free to turn down this latest assignment, due to its unusual and highly political nature.

(M.A.C.: I am omitting here a lengthy plot synopsis that wanders close into spoiler territory.)

Collins again demonstrates his prodigious research skills by effectively – but unobtrusively – establishing the time frame of the story. Popular TV and movie titles of the period, along with references to fashion styles and current events help solidify the credibility of the period.

Yet in a masterstroke of irony, the theme of racial violence that permeates the plot, along with the inclusion of Ferguson – the location of a recent incident of a potential racially motivated shooting by police – transcends the period of the story and lends the novel an immediate relevance.

This is highly unexpected for a Quarry story, but fortunately – and, again, owing to Collins’s skills as a storyteller – never detracts from the suspense that keeps us moving from chapter to chapter. If anything it adds richness to the reading experience while underscoring the enduring nature of the theme.

Along the way Collins includes a cast of completely believable characters who accompany Quarry in his mission, several scenes of intense violence and action, and unexpected plot twists that few will see coming.

In his author’s note following the conclusion, Collins observes, “An odd and oddly satisfying aspect of writing new Quarry novels for Hard Case Crime has been continuing a series that began as contemporary but is now a period piece.” While not considering these historical novels, with their ’70s and ’80s settings, Collins sees them more as a retelling of his autobiography in installments. Perhaps this is reason for the unexpected but highly enriching relevance of the theme.

Reasons aside, QUARRY IN THE BLACK is highly recommended to both devoted followers of the series and those just discovering it. It is a noteworthy addition to the expanding series, and another triumph for one of crime fiction’s most prolific and creative practitioners.

(M.A.C. again: You can read the entire review here, plot synopsis and all.)

Another great review of QUARRY IN THE BLACK from that top-notch mystery and western writer, Bill Crider, can be read here.

Here’s an interview with TV’s Quarry himself, Logan Marshall-Green.

And, finally, here’s an interview with TV’s Buddy on QUARRY (“Boyd” in the novels).

M.A.C.

Fifty Years and Counting

Cinemax has posted the third episode of QUARRY on You Tube. Enjoy!

QUARRY Episode 3: “A Mouthful of Splinters”

This weekend was Muscatine High’s 50th Class Reunion. Barb and I both were dealing with the pertussis that had dragged us both down of late, but I am out in front of her a week and a half and was in shape to participate in all of the activities on Friday and Saturday night. This included a boat ride on the Mississippi and then a big get-together at the same Legion Hall where I once ate pancakes prepared by Presidential candidate Howard Dean.

In part because I had attended three grade schools locally, I made lots of friendships that extended beyond the tight little group of us who played poker and palled around and got in Leave-it-to-Beaver type “trouble.” So I had the chance to touch bases with many, many friends, and it was pretty great. Several of my best friends were there – Ron Parker and Mike Bloom in particular, names that mean nothing to you but the world to me – and so many others. For instance, Joyce Courtois was the alto in my high school quartet, fantastic singer and wonderful, warm person – together we set a record: three “number one” ratings that put us in the All-State Chorus three years running…only quartet in the state that ever accomplished that. Impressed? I didn’t think so. It certainly didn’t get me laid.

Crusin’ at Geneva Country Club, Muscatine, MHS 50th Reunion; left to right, M.A.C., Jim Van Winkle, Steve Kundel, Joe McClean, Brian Van Winkle (in back)

Unfortunately, Barb was still having a rough ride with the pertussis, and almost didn’t go at all…but finally she pulled herself together to go to the Saturday night event, which was the big blow-out, including Crusin’ playing for the dance. She looked beautiful despite being sicker than a dog (neither of us is contagious, if you’re wondering) and people were very pleased to see her.

I was supposed to be presenting a reunion of the original Daybreakers for the dance, but health issues worse than mine among the band members made that fall apart. So Crusin’ played, with our good friend Joe McClean of the XL’S as special guest on a dozen songs. The XL’S and the Daybreakers are the only area bands to make it into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Joe is an unparalleled showman and he was warmly received – the XL’S had played our senior prom two years running. (In 1966, the Daybreakers made their debut at an after-prom party.)

I had a rough evening because my cough-ravaged throat was in bad shape, but I got by. We played two one-hour sets that were supposed to be separated by a fifteen-minute break. But I was afraid people of my advanced age would head for home and their jammies if we didn’t keep the party going. So we played a solid two hours – for those of you who are wondering if I’m recovering well from my heart surgery last February.

In honor of the Daybreakers, we played “Psychedelic Siren,” with Joe on bass and our regular bassist, Brian Van Winkle, on siren – an instrument Brian mastered immediately, idiot savant that he is. Discussions about how much is idiot and how much savant are ongoing.

It was a lovely night, all in all. Never skip your high school reunion (and we’re available to play there, by the way).

* * *

I am thrilled and somewhat astonished that PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY has reviewed my expanded ROAD TO PERDITION prose novel and given it a rave – and a rare starred review!

The Mike Hammer collection, A LONG TIME DEAD, continues to get terrific reviews, like this one.

Here’s a lovely LEGEND OF CALEB YORK write-up.

And CALEB is inspiring this discussion group.

Here’s a welcome if not exactly timely SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT review.

Check out this excellent interview with QUARRY TV writer, Graham Gordy, although oddly somebody seems to think the Memphis setting came from the books.

This will link you to a local interview I did on Vintage Sound 93.1, Muscatine’s first-rate classic rock station – with the great Tony Tone.

Finally, if you haven’t read BLOOD AND THUNDER, the Nate Heller “Huey Long” novel (and if so, what’s wrong with you?), you can get it on Kindle for 99 cents, as this nice write-up (scroll down) indicates.

M.A.C.

My Trip to New Orleans

I know a lot of you want to see the QUARRY TV show but don’t have Cinemax. Well, Cinemax has (for how long I don’t know) provided You Tube with the first two episodes. Enjoy!

Here they are:

QUARRY Episode 1: “You Don’t Miss Your Water”

QUARRY Episode 2: “Figure Four”

Most fans of the books seemed to like the series, but I’ve had just a few complaints about how the show differs from the novels. Here’s what James M. Cain had to say on the subject:

“People tell me, don’t you care what they’ve done to your book? I tell them, they haven’t done anything to my book. It’s right there on the shelf.”

The Cinemax series is a long-form narrative in the manner of BREAKING BAD or MAD MEN. It’s not an episodic, procedural type of approach. Nonetheless, it clearly flows from my work, and I think honors it. I’d rather have a really good show that takes liberties than a flat-footed one that is rigidly faithful. In any event, it certainly attracts people to my stuff. That, and the checks they send me, is good enough for me.

* * *

What I should be writing about this week is my great trip to New Orleans for Bouchercon. And I did get to New Orleans, as you will see.

First, I have to warn you that this is one of those health updates that nobody really wants to read, including me, and yet I’m going to write it anyway. And this is not a veiled request for sympathy and get-well-wish postings. Really.

Here’s what is going on. For better than a month and a half, Barb and I have been battling what we thought was a bad chest cold with cough. I got it first, and Barb got it about a week later. Initially I thought I might have congestive heart failure again, which is what started all the fun and games last year; but my cardiologist said I was okay on that front.

So we settled in to ride it out.

Then I started having these fits or seizures or some damn thing where I would start gasping for breath and couldn’t breathe. It was like drowning without water. The first time I thought I was dying. When I survived, I realized it was just part of the dance.

One night a week and a half ago or so, I woke up with a gasping fit and stumbled downstairs, where Barb was sleeping on the couch, fending off her own “chest cold.” She helped me through it and then had the same kind of fit herself, even worse than mine. I called 911, but then Barb got her breathing going again, so instead of requesting an ambulance, I drove us to the emergency room, where we were given some medication and sent home. But I was swabbed for a test that, the next day, turned out to indicate a bacterial thing and not a virus. Both Barb and I were put on a very strong antibiotic.

I started feeling better. I still had the cough, but not as frequent. I should say during this period that I managed to do two band jobs that were the worst I ever experienced. I do most of the singing and it was brutal. I probably sounded like Tom Waits gargling razor blades. But I got through ‘em.

Meanwhile, Bouchercon was looming. Barb, still having the gasping fits two or three times a day, decided early on to stay home. We packed a bag for me and decided we’d wait to the last minute to decide whether I’d go. I was feeling pretty good, and then Barb went a full day without a fit. So last Thursday morning, she drove me up to the Moline airport, we had a nice breakfast, and she saw me off with a kiss, a smile and a wave.

So I flew first to Chicago, then to New Orleans. I arrived around four p.m. Something odd – kind of booga-booga odd – happened when I got there. At baggage claim, the bell sounded and the light flashed, and one lone bag came gliding down its long path. All by its little self. My bag. In all my life, I’ve never had my suitcase be the first off a plane. And everybody was staring at me, wondering why the hell I rated.

Must be a good omen, I thought, and hauled the bag off.

Right then my cell phone rang – or rather, played “Harlem Nocturne,” my ring tone. I answered and my nextdoor neighbor told me that Barb had stumbled over in the midst of what I later learned was five of those fits in a row. 911 had been called, and she had been taken by ambulance to the emergency room. The neighbor was there with her now.

I got all the info I could from the neighbor, which wasn’t much, and immediately found my way to the American Airlines ticket counter, where a very nice woman waded through my hysteria and got me on another flight back home. It was touch and go, because I had less than an hour to make the flight.

But I made it.

The flight from New Orleans to Dallas was awful. I was so frightened for Barb that I could barely keep from freaking out. When I landed, I called the neighbor’s cell and Barb was still at the hospital, getting X-rays and being well tended to. On the flight back to Moline, I was a little less tense.

Barb was home when I got there (the neighbors picked me up at the airport) and she was glad and relieved I’d come back, but beat herself up for putting me through such a long awful day of flying. I’d hear none of that, and over the weekend I nursed her through a number more of those terrible gasping episodes. She did better, having some really strong codeine cough syrup to help her out, but it was obvious I needed to be at her side.

Coming up this week we have our 50th class reunion and we are hoping she will be in good enough shape to attend. I am playing with Crusin’ for the event and hope my coughing will not still be a problem. Coughing remains a major issue for Barb and talking aggravates it. So that’s a factor. She has really been through a shit storm, but is tough and brave, and though my New Orleans trip lasted only an hour, I’m glad I made it back home that same night.

So that’s why you didn’t get your book signed at Bouchercon.

Getting back to my class reunion…I was supposed to mount a reunion of the original Daybreakers, with Joe McClean of the XL’s subbing for the late Chuck Bunn. It would have been the band’s 50th anniversary in tandem with my class of ‘66 reunion. But then the Daybreakers Curse decided to make the scene (its first appearance was my inability to participate in a Daybreakers reunion last year because of my heart trouble). Our drummer’s wife was diagnosed with lung cancer, sending the two of them into a medical whirlwind. Our lead guitarist then promptly broke his foot. Our other guitarist bailed, in part because he’s recovering from prostate cancer. And of course I had the comparatively minor problem mentioned above.

So my current band, Crusin’, will fill in, with Joe as a special guest on about ten numbers. We’re rehearsing this week, to pick up more mid-‘60s tunes and to work Joe in on his stuff. We will, assuming a plane doesn’t drop on my house, appear Saturday evening at Geneva Country Club in Muscatine.

I hope Barb will be there, too.

* * *

Here’s a mini-interview I did in support of the Mike Hammer collection, A LONG TIME DEAD.

QUARRY seen as one of the most interesting fall shows.

Jeff Pierce at Kirkus likes the complete version of the ROAD TO PERDITION prose novel.

The top ten most anticipated fall shows include QUARRY.

Director Greg Yaitanes talks QUARRY.

Finally, an interesting write-up on QUARRY here, though I disagree with the critic’s take on Logan Marshall-Green.

M.A.C.