Act of Fear

Dan Fortune #1

by Michael Collins, Dennis Lynds

Back in the day, the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City wasn't hip, chic, expensive, and yuppified, with a Starbucks on every block. In fact, it was such a lousy place to live, you could hardly give the real estate away. Populated by gangsters, muggers, grandmothers with baseball bats, and parents working long hours on the wrong side of the law to pay for tenement apartments with no view, the place was also colorful, with memorable characters straight out of a Damon Runyon novel. It was in this live-by-your-wits atmosphere that Dan Fortune grew up. One of his best boyhood friends was Andy Pappas. They broke into the holds of ships together, stealing cargo, watching one another's back. But things happen. Dan lost his arm in a failed robbery attempt, and decided it was time to figure out another way to make a living. With the people and geography of Chelsea his only areas of expertise, he put out his shingle: Dan Fortune, Private Detective. But Andy liked his life of crime, and power was addictive. Andy stayed the course, killing his way up until he took over the docks. He was boss of bosses, a vicious racketeer. Still, he'd let Dan be familiar, call him by his first name, even give him crap - until now. Now Dan is trying to track down a teenager named Jo-Jo Olsen. It looks like a routine missing-persons case, until Jo-Jo's friends start dying violently, one by one, just before Dan can question them. Then Andy Pappas warns Dan that unless he cools it on Jo-Jo, he'll end up on the rapidly growing pile of corpses. It doesn't make sense. Why does Andy Pappas care about Jo-Jo, and what does Dan need to do to stay alive long enough to find out and save the kid? Act of Fear is the winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel "Collins has the ability to set in motion a sequence of events that moves with the inevitability of a huge boulder rolling down a mountainside." - New York Times "A master of crime fiction." - Ellery Queen "Act of Fear is the most interesting private detective novel I have read in a long time. It is a highly original piece of work in a field not noted for much originality. Mr. Collins is a writer to watch and, above all, to read." - Ross Macdonald

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Detective, Fiction, Mystery Thriller

198 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Michael Collins was a Pseudonym of Dennis Lynds (1924–2005), a renowned author of mystery fiction. Raised in New York City, he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart during World War II, before returning to New York to become a magazine editor. He published his first book, a war novel called Combat Soldier, in 1962, before moving to California to write for television.

Two years later Collins published the Edgar Award–winning Act of Fear (1967), which introduced his best-known character: the one-armed private detective Dan Fortune. The Fortune series would last for more than a dozen novels, spanning three decades, and is credited with marking a more politically aware era in private-eye fiction. Besides the Fortune novels, the incredibly prolific Collins wrote science fiction, literary fiction, and several other mystery series. He died in Santa Barbara in 2005.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

***Edgar Award Winner for best first novel in 1968.***

”Not that I investigate much that is big or dangerous. Some industrial work and some divorces. Armed-guard jobs, and subpoenas for bread and butter. But mostly the personal problems of small people who want to apply a little pressure on someone but don’t want the police. It’s not work I especially like, but a man must eat, and it’s work I know how to do. (Most men work at what they happened to learn how to do, not at what they wish they had learned to do.) I’m my own boss, and I don’t have to wear a white shirt or get up early. The work has one big drawback as far as Chelsea is concerned-- it makes me a cop. In Chelsea that means something.”

A young man asks Dan Fortune to help find his friend. He thinks Jo-Jo is in real trouble and hopes that Fortune can find him before certain unsavory elements of the city catch up with him. Jo-Jo knows something, but the question is, What does Jo-Jo know?

Fortune takes the case reluctantly; he doesn’t like to squander people’s money and this feels like a waste of money. Jo-Jo is probably just holed up with some young lass for a few days and probably doesn’t know anything worth knowing.

One of the boys Fortune grew up with, Andy Pappas, is now the top gangster in Chelsea. Pappas’s mistress has just turned up dead, and the police aren’t interested in investigating what happened to her. As Fortune pokes around, he starts to realize that his investigation and the death of the girl might be related. When he gets a visit from Pappas, who tells him to lay off, he knows he has been pulling the right strings.

”’Besides, we’re old friends, right Danny?’

‘You don’t have a friend, Andy,’ I said. ‘You’re the enemy of everybody.’”

So who killed Pappas’s girlfriend? What does Jo-Jo know, and why is even his family telling Fortune to quit looking for their son? There is a lot more going on here than just a missing young man. ”Every lead turns into a new crime.” He realizes the only way to the answers is to keep looking for Jo-Jo, despite all the discouragement from his gangster buddy, the family, and the police.

When Fortune interviews people he tries to let them do most of the talking. He definitely believes that the time you spend talking is time you aren’t learning anything. ”I listened. Whenever we talk about someone else we are really also talking about ourselves. If you listen closely enough to what a person says about someone else, you can get a pretty good picture of what that person thinks of himself.” We put everything through our own lens, so any judgments or observations we make about someone else are colored by our own perceptions of ourselves. Try it, the next time you are out with some friends. Listen to how they talk about other people. You’ll see that Fortune is right.

I also really like the way Fortune feels about his dancer girlfriend, Marty. ”She’s not really beautiful. She’s pretty enough, and she has the body to make any man stare for at least a few minutes. But the real thing is that she is exciting. Pretty is a dime a carload, but exciting comes scarce.” I like this description as well. ”I watched her turn the corner and disappear. I felt a sudden sense of loss. I always do. That is what love means; that you feel a loss every time you see her vanish from your sight.”

Dan Fortune lost an arm during his rambunctious and turbulent youth. It hasn’t held him back, and for most of the book, I even forgot he was missing an arm. He was doing more than what most fully abled-bodied men do. He despises money, but like most people who do...he needs some. He’s got a tiger by the tail with this case and only one arm to hang on with. This city, his city, doesn’t feel like his city as long as a killer is on the loose. The only way he’ll be able to sleep at night or be content to just be with Marty is if he finds out the truth before the truth gets him killed.

Michael Collins’s real name was Dennis Lynds. Lynds worked under many pseudonyms because he had too many ideas for just one writer. He needed to get stories out of his head before it became too crowded in there to think. He published over 80 novels and 200 short stories. The Dan Fortune series is one of the longest running detective series (19 volumes) and is considered the first modern detective series, beginning a decade before Lawrence Block’s celebrated Matthew Scudder series. There is no doubt this series had some influence on the shaping of Matthew Scudder. Even though Lynds was hailed as “'the best since Hammett,' 'the new Chandler,' and 'the heir to Ross Macdonald,’” he represents something more than that, an evolution in the private investigative concepts. He was the bridge to Lawrence Block, Robert B. Parker, and Elmore Leonard. Despite his importance to the genre, he has not been as celebrated as his proteges. I hope I’ve encouraged a few other readers to choose to blow the dust off his books and spend some time with the one-armed detective from Chelsea, New York.

I will definitely be reading the next book in the series…The Brass Rainbow.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my great reading pleasures is to discover, in the prose of an older writer new to me, the evidence of his influence on a writer I greatly admire. Michael Collins’ Act of Fear gave me that pleasure, for before completing twenty pages I became convinced that, without this book and the other Dan Fortune adventures which follow, Lawrence Block would have been a much different writer, and Matt Scudder—one of my favorite detectives—might not have existed at all.

The two detectives have much in common. Each is a native New Yorker, living and operating in or near Chelsea, the Village, and Hell’s Kitchen, each suffers from a disability (Fortune has one arm, Scudder is an alcoholic), and each has a artistic lady friend who works in the sex industry (Fortune’s Marty is an actress/ topless dancer, Scudder’s Elaine an art collector/ hooker.) But it is the detectives talk and think that yokes them indisputably together.

Both Fortune and Scudder engage in continual monologue: about themselves, about their city and its people, about their witnesses and suspects too. Much in these monologues seem beside the point—and some of it is—but the overall effect is to create a three-dimensional picture of what it means to be a person enmeshed in a big city, limited and defined by its concatenation of personal obligations and social taboos. Unlike in Hammett, Chandler, or Ross Macdonald, where the action often proceeds—respectively—from greed, romantic gestures, or psychological wounds, the crimes and consequences in Collins and Block stem from the position of the human being in the city, and his relations with others of his kind.

This tone and attitude is evident in every line of the first Matt Scudder novel, Sins of the Father (1976). But Dennis Lynds (writing as “Michael Collins”) used the same tone and attitude consistently in his Act of Fear (1967).

Act of Fear won the Edgar in 1967, and it deserved it. It is an absorbing mystery, in which Detective Dan Fortune is hired by a kid from Chelsea, Pete Vitanza, to find his friend Jo-Jo Olsen, who hasn’t shown up to work at the bike shop for four days. Jo-jo isn’t important—just a kid in love with motorbikes—but as soon as Fortune starts snooping around, it becomes clear that somebody very important doesn’t want Jo-Jo found.

This is a good mystery, worth reading. And if your are a Lawrence Block fan, like I am, this is an essential book as well.

[Lisa Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book many,many moons ago, and picked it up again with the vague feeling I had read it many moons ago. Finally I got to one unimportant, casual descriptive sentence that I had never forgotten in thirty years, and could be sure. I imagine there are very few authors who can write a sentence that a reader remembers, verbatim, for thirty years.

[Joe Nicholl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Act of Fear (1967) by Michael Collins is the first of the Dan Fortune series. Fortune being the the one-armed detective...This book was the Winner of the 1968 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. You'll find a lot of praise of this book in a number of reviews...and...I agree with all the praise I read. That being the excellent lead character of Dan Fortune...the setting of Chelsea in NYC during the mid-sixties...the story line of the missing motorcycle mechanic with the related muggings & murders...and on...I agree with all that praise...Only one problem. I didn't like the book...I thought it was too long and I had hard time pushing though it. I just never got into it...but I did finish it...Ya can't win 'em all....time to move on...2 outta 5.0...

[Otto Penzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Act of Fear" by Michael Collins introduced Dan Fortune, a one armed detective and the first in the popular series by the Edgar-winning author. Known as a writer's writer, Michael Collins received numerous awards from the Private Eye Writers of America and was a long-time fan favorite. Before the protagonist in this series lost his arm, he was a well known crook operating out of the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. Dan "Pirate" Fortune goes looking for the missing Jo-Jo Olsen as part of a routine case, which quickly devolves into murder.

Michael Collins, who sometimes writes under his real name Dennis Lynds and several other pseudonyms , was one of the most important private detective writers in America. If you're looking to delve into a terrific new hard-boiled detective series, "Act of Fear" is a great place to start.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Fortune's friend Andy Pappas stayed in the life of crime which Dan left. Now a PI, he is tracking Jo-Jo Olsen but gets a warning from Andy.

[Ron Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Answers trickle out in "Act of Fear" by Dennis Lynds. This is the first in a series featuring one-armed private detective, Dan Fortune, and proudly includes a good measure of beatings, murders, warnings and threats, mostly of the variety that is carried out. In addition, we are treated to philospophy of human nature, character, and the human condition.

On life's journey, the reader is told, "There is a sobering sense of mortality in thinking about places you have been, strangers you have lived among. All things pass, and you will pass with them. There is a sadness in it, and without sadness there is no sense of life. Life is limited, and there is all the good and most of the bad. Life is arrival, departure and change, and those who never move do not live."

On youth, "We worship the young in this country, and a lot of the world has begun to follow us. But what we worship isn't really the young, or even being young. It's youth—the hope and innocence and immortality of youth. We want to be young not because it is physically good to be young and virile, but because to be young is to not yet know that the world is transient, incomplete, and not often what we want it to be. You cease to be young that first instant when you know that nothing is complete and that nothing can last forever—not even your own dreams and desires. To be young is to see the world through eyes that think that all is possible."

Police procedure: "Have you ever had a thought that you suddenly just know is true? Nothing else, you just know. That is sometimes all that detective work is—a flash of a hunch that must be true. Sometimes, did I say? Most of the time. Ask any cop. All else aside, most of the crimes of the kind the police get—small, violent, messy crimes—are solved by informers or a hunch. Not clues, not a neat trail, but the experienced hunch."

The story takes place in late 1960s Florida and the author gives great attention to detail, builds wonderfully interesting characters, and offers detailed descriptions of people and places. Amid violence and sex, we are treated to a strong and complicated story. Hold on and pay attention.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ask any compulsive reader what one of their great thrills is and I would hazard to guess many would say “discovering a new author” lands before “discovering a good book.” For when you discover a new author, you discover the possibility of many good books.

I picked this one up on a recommendation from Ross Macdonald. Macdonald’s Lew Archer series is my all-time favorite mystery series. He called this one of the most unique crime novels he’s ever read. Hearing such laudatory words from the master himself, I had to try. And it is really good!

This is a Private Eye mystery but what makes it unique, and the reason why I’m guessing Macdonald probably liked it as I did, is the empathy in the book. Like a Lew Archer book, our protagonist is not an out-and-out cynic or hater. Dan Fortune toils around a pre-gentrified 60s Chelsea, knowing the people and the scores and that most folks are just trying to get by. He doesn’t really want to take the case he’s offered but money talks and so he does.

The mystery itself is your standard issue PI fare. The plot’s fine, the dialogue’s fine. It’s the way Collins dresses it that makes it enjoyable. Chelsea feels like a lived in neighborhood. The characters all seem like real people with real stories. The tension crackles because there are stakes that the reader can understand and appreciate.

It has missteps: violence against women, a few too many characters, some cliches. But it’s still a good first entry into a 17-book (!) series. How have I loved PI mysteries for so long and not read more Dan Fortune tales?

[Penpitcha Thaweepong · Rating 5 out of 5]

โห ดีมากจริง ไม่คิดว่าจะชอบเลย ตอนได้มาก็เป็นเล่มแถมด้วยซ้ำ ปรากฏว่าบทแรกก็ตีหัวเข้าบ้านเลย

การสืบสวนในเรื่องนี้ ไม่ได้เน้นทริกพิสดารอะไร แต่อยู่ที่ความสามารถในการเข้าใจและเข้าถึงจิตใจคนของนักสืบ และเขาอาศัยการคาดคะเนสภาพจิตใจของตัวละครแต่ละคนมาค่อย ๆ ค้นหาความจริง และมันยังสะท้อนสังคมในแบบที่ผู้เขียนต้องการจะให้เป็นได้อย่างแยบคายเลยทีเดียว ชอบที่น้ำเสียงการเล่าเรื่องมันไม่ตัดสิน มันเปิดให้เราได้คิด และเห็นมุมมองอื่นด้วย

เพียงแต่อ่านไปสักพักก็เกิดความรู้สึกว่าชื่อเรื่อง "กฎแห่งความกลัว" นี่คือยังไงนะ เนื้อเรื่องมันเกี่ยวกันยังไง ... แต่อ่านไปเถอะ อ่านไปให้ถึงที่สุดแล้วจะรู้เลยว่า "แรงขับ" ของฆาตกร ไม่สิ ตัวละครหลัก ๆ ที่ทำให้เรื่องมันเป็นเรื่องนี่มันมาจากสิ่งนี้แหละ -- ความกลัว

งานแปลอ่านได้ไหลลื่น ให้ไวบ์ของนิวยอร์กย่านแหล่งเสื่อมโทรมช่วงทศวรรษ 60 ได้ดี ยังมีการใช้สัญลักษณ์เก่าในการฆ่าเสียงแทนทัณฑฆาต และการถอดเสียงที่เน้นถอดแบบเป๊ะกับเสียงที่ออกเลย แปลกตาดี แต่ก็ชินแล้วสำหรับสำนักพิมพ์นี้ ไม่ได้ผิดอะไร

โดยรวมแล้วเป็นอีกเล่มที่สนุกมากสำหรับเราในปีนี้ อยากอ่านเล่มอื่นในชุดเลย แต่ดันไม่มีแปลไทยซะแล้ว

[Keith Raffel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Climb in a time machine and go back to the 60s before Manhattan’s Chelsea was the swanky setting for designer boutiques, million-dollar condos, and 3-star restaurants. In Dennis Lynds’s Act of Fear, a one-armed PI, ironically named Dan Fortune, tries to do right by his clients and his wannabe actress girlfriend. And what does he get for his efforts? A broken nose, a cracked rib, gangsters lying in wait, and 50 bucks. Fortune’s philosophizing reminds me of Travis McGee but wittier and more profound and his beat reminds me of Philip Marlowe’s but grittier and darker. Thank you to Gayle Lynds for re-publishing this Edgar Award winning novel and giving me the chance to enjoy the expertly crafted yarns her husband wrote.

[dennis barron · Rating 5 out of 5]

RresAct of Fear. Dennis Lynds

Can you predict how someone will act when in fear? If your raised in a rough neighborhood in the ghetto of New York, you probably can. A kid named JO JO Olsen is on the run. Bad people are after him. His friend Pete hires Dan Fortune to find him. Problem is Pete , Dan learns is reacting from fear in a typical fashion. Jo Jo is not. He has a sense of honor, courage, he won't fold like everyone else in the neighborhood. This is a fast paced, gutsy read! I enjoyed immensely!

[Syd Maroon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great private eye novel. New York, late 60s -gangs, bosses, slums, people in difficult dilemmas. "Act of Fear" against this backdrop is a suspenseful whodunnit (or, more precisely: what happened), a ganster novel and a local portrait. We are looking at this through the eyes of Dan Fortune, a PI with only one arm left, who was born into this neighbourhood but who, thanks to many years of travelling, can look at it with some distance. He is not romantisizing anything and depicts the organised crime as what it is. This novel in not many pages somehow has it all.

[Tom Pepper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well constructed mystery--everything is tightly fit together. But the real interest is in the picture of lower-class New York in the 60s. Collins is the most left-leaning of any writer in the genre, probalby even more than Hammett, and Dan Fortune's sympathetic account of the desperation of the poor is apparent right from his first appearance. A well-deserved Edgar for first detective novel, and still a great read.

[DP Lyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

ACT OF FEAR is the first in the Edgar-winning Dan Fortune series by the iconic Dennis Lynds, one of the progenitors of noir crime fiction. If you aren’t familiar with the series, or with the great Dennis Lynds, this is the place to start. An exceptionally well-written and convoluted tale that will keep you up late.


DP Lyle, award-winning author of the Jake Longly, Samantha Cody, and Dub Walker thriller series

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

One armed Dan Fortune does small detective jobs around the neighborhood earning just enough to get by. He takes on a very unspectacular missing person that he feels will lead nowhere but as he sets out asking around, people suddenly start dying violently just before he gets to them. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s actually fairly solid. It’s just that I didn’t see anything that took it above the very ordinary, which means it came and went without making much impact.

[S. Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vivid and unforgettable characters. Engrossing plot. A darkly inverted Damon Runyonesque world from the 1960s where the gangsters are neither amusing nor good hearted. A great book for curling up in front of the wood stove and losing track of time and place. I look forward to Dan Fortune's adventures in subsequent books.

[MaggieDay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A private investigator from Chelsea hired by a 19-year old to look for his friend, Jo-Jo Olsen. Add in the local crime boss, and Dan Fortune has his work cut out for him. I found the mystery to be pretty generic. The writing was unnecessarily wordy and repetitive. I most likely will not continue with this series.

[Reverly Kerner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Act of Fear

I had to remember how long ago this was written Reminded me of the old Dragnet series... It had a good plot that made one think of a good who done it I read this thru the Amazon lending library.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well written detective story, recalls the sam spade character.
this is the first in a series with the character Dan Fortune,a very hard boiled detective.

very dark and dangerous setting.

[Mark Everton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good. Ross Macdonald rated this book. He was right.

[John Culuris]

Review to Come

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Dan Fortune, PI
SETTING: New York City
SERIES: #1 of 18
RATING: 3.0
WHY: Fortune is hired by a young man to find his missing friend, Jo-Jo Olsen. Olsen is a guy who only cares about racing and seems to be a straight arrow type. His family, especially his father, is less than cooperative. There are several murders and an incident involving the mugging of a policeman. Fortune has a lot of theories about what's going on, but there's very little forward progress in finding out what is going on which slows things down. In addition, Fortune is prone to do some rather verbose philosophizing which had me doing some major skimming. This is the first book featuring one-armed detective Dan Fortune. Although not entirely satisfactory, it had enough potential to interest me in trying more in the series.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

#1 in the Dan Fortune series. This novel won the 1968 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Dan Fortune series - The novel introduces series character Dan Fortune, a one-armed detective who is hired by a young client for a $50 fee to find a missing friend. Fortune is a committed crusader who persists in searching for the missing young man, even after threats, beatings, and more murders. Good puzzle but preachy, repetitive and dated.

[Andre_foofoo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is so goddamn boring I couldn't finish it.
Dan Fortune looks for an informer named Jo-Jo. The word Jo-Jo is written about 500 times, I wanted to Poo-Poo. Michael Collins' writing got a lot better after 1966. The Slasher (Dan Fortune #10) has a faster pace and more sick characters. But please don't read this, it stinks.

[James F. · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book won the 1968 Edgar award for best first novel. why I don't know it must have been a very slow year for writers. it is a typical gum shoe detective with one arm who is hired to find a young man named jo jo. I know it is 1968 but the character development was zero and the storyline was boring. I would not recommend this book.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, great book. First in a series about Dan Fortune, the one-armed private detective in New York City. This one has been in my TBR pile for years and I'm finally clearing up that backlog of books in that pile. As a result I've read four great mysteries in a row.

[Delores Alger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dan Fortune

[Sean Brennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than average debut in the Lew Archer mold, Dan Fortune a one armed P.I which to my way of thinking would create certain difficulties as far as blending into a crowd is concerned! OK

[Fran Prisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, kind of a gum shoe type book.

[C3wach · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a few paragraphs at random through the book and decided not to read it. Nothing but the hero getting beat up.