Posts Tagged ‘An Untouchable Life’

Scarface and the Untouchable – At Large! Chicago Signings

Tuesday, August 14th, 2018

Yes, at long last Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago by A. Brad Schwartz and myself is hitting the bookstores the very day this update first appears.

Brad and I (and Barb) will be appearing at two major Chicago bookstores and another at the bookstore in Dick Tracy’s hometown – Woodstock, Illinois, starting with the latter.

Saturday August 18:
Read Between the Lynes (Website)
From 4PM till…?
111 E. Van Buren St
Woodstock, IL 60098 (Map)

Sunday August 19:
Centuries & Sleuths (Website)
2:00PM till…?
19 Madison St
Forest Park, IL 60130 (Map)

Monday August 20:
Anderson’s Bookshop (Website)
7 PM till…?
123 W Jefferson Ave
Naperville, IL 60540 (Map)

This mini-tour will be the only joint event by Brad and me in support of the book during its opening weeks. Brad heads back to Princeton in his unending crusade to diminish me by making me call him “Dr. Schwartz” (who, let’s face it, sounds like a dermatologist). We’ll be doing some solo events thereafter, and if the media wises up and books us on a national TV show, we’ll likely do that together.

We are also set to appear on the WGN Morning News on Monday morning, but exactly when I can’t say (we arrive at 8:30 AM).

We’ll also be doing a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) on r/books this Thursday at 1PM EST. Keep an eye on my facebook page for a link.

The Centuries and Sleuths signing will include Barb, as “Barbara Allan”-bylined novels (Antiques Wanted in particular) will be available. This is the first joint signing Barb and I have done in some time.

Centuries and Sleuths is where Brad and I first met, when he came to a signing after seeing “Untouchable Life” live in Des Moines. By the way, work progresses on the Blu-ray of the film version. You can order it here.

In the meantime, come and see us (Mike Doran – I’m talking to you) (but no questions requiring a photographic memory of the entire run of TV Guide to answer).


Hardcover:
E-Book: Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes
Digital Audiobook: Amazon Google Play Kobo

The reviews thus far have been stellar, including the Chicago Tribune, where Rick Koganwhere Rick Kogan – a well-known writer and TV personality in Chicago – loved the book but hated my introduction. Why? Because I (with Brad’s help) singled out the authors (and one screenwriter) whose offenses had much to do with us feeling another book about Capone and Ness needed writing. We were very specific about what we were correcting, but Mr. Kogan found my intro “unseemly.”

Here’s what he wrote, along with links to other favorable reviews (the Kogan link is mid-page).

Now, just for fun, read what I wrote that offended Mr. Kogan, available thanks to the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine blog.

Others reviewing the book in the days just ahead of publication include USA Today, which makes us one of the top books of the week that they recommend. (Omarosa’s Trump memoir gets the top spot, though.)

Here’s a really nice review courtesy of Mystery People.

This one isn’t a review, but uses our book as a sort of tour guide to track Capone’s real-life hangouts.

* * *

Now in non-Scarface and the Untouchable news, here’s another San Diego Comic Con interview with me, on the new Mike Hammer serialized graphic novel from Hard Case Crime. It’s one of the better interviews, I think.

Finally, Gaping Blackbird continues to review the early Quarry novels, and very intelligently.

M.A.C.

An Amazon “Nathan Heller” Sale & An Interview

Tuesday, July 10th, 2018

Amazon is offering many Nathan Heller titles for 99 cents in their Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals from now till the end of the month (July). Titles include True Crime, Stolen Away, Neon Mirage, Blood and Thunder, The Million-Dollar Wound, Majic Man, Carnal Hours and Angel in Black.

This week’s update is mostly a link to a lengthy interview with me by Mr. Media – Bob Andelman. It focuses rather in depth on my Mike Hammer collaborations with posthumous co-author, Mickey Spillane. Late in the interview I talk about the upcoming Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness and the Battle for Chicago, talking a bit about my co-author A. Brad Schwartz. I also talk (toward the end of the interview) about my talented son Nathan and his career as a writer/translator (of Japanese novels, manga and video games).

Be warned that early on in the interview I got out of focus – not in terms of what I’m saying (in my opinion), but literally out of focus. Last time Mr. Media interviewed me, the angle of my little Skype camera made it look like my ceiling fan was a gigantic beanie-with-propeller cap. This time the little cam blurred me into soft focus, which at my age isn’t all bad.

But I promise you and Mr. Media that I will upgrade my camera before the next interview.

* * *

Here’s a great Mike Hammer #1 (the serialized graphic novel) review from Nerdly.

Here’s another, although head-scratchingly we only get three out of a possible five stars.

Here’s a link to my buddy Bud Plant’s great web site where he’s being good enough to carry Quarry’s War.

Finally, here’s a nice write-up on the upcoming Eliot Ness Fest at Coudersport, PA, where Scarface and the Untouchable will be represented by my co-author/cohort A. Brad Schwartz. The debut of the new HD version of Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life will be presented by Brad as part of the festivities.

M.A.C.

Untouchable in Blu

Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

This weekend I watched the “check disc” for the forthcoming Blu-ray of Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life. I was very pleased. We had gone to some trouble and expense to shoot in HD (at the time something rather new, particularly for low-budget productions), and having the feature appear as intended, looking rather beautiful, is gratifying. It’s made bittersweet by seeing the amazing performance of Michael Cornelison, who passed away in 2011. The loss of this key collaborator on my film and TV work remains painful.

Mike and my great friend and collaborator Phil Dingeldein are featured on the commentary, which listening to is also bittersweet…and I wish I hadn’t dominated it so. But I tend to do that in such situations.

The Blu-ray has everything on it that the DVD did, and “An Inconvenient Matter” – the short film that was the last collaboration between Collins, Cornelison and Dingeldein – is also in High-Def for the first time. It’s an overtly film noir piece written by Chuck Hughes, my fellow Iowan and the screenwriter of Ed and His Dead Mother, a cult fave. This is the only time to date I’ve directed a script I didn’t write, and it was fun and interesting. There’s a Collins/Cornelison/Dingeldein commentary on that, as well.

Obviously, the advance buzz about the “magnum opus” (as the publisher describes it), Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness and the Battle for Chicago by A. Brad Schwartz and me, inspired this release. The book is out in August, but the Blu-ray will bring up the rear in October.

You can pre-order the disc at Amazon (and I wish you would).

Phil and I are exploring a new film project around the second Mike Hammer play, The Little Death, that is scheduled for January 17 – 27, though if it sells out like the previous one did, an extra week may be added on. This will again star the wonderful Gary Sandy, and I am negotiating with legendary producer Zev Buffman to direct it myself. All concerned are hopeful that I will be able to direct a film version, somewhat in the style of the Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life feature.

More as that develops.

Speaking of Mike Hammer, the first issue of the serialized graphic novel, The Night I Died (developed from some of the same unpublished Spillane material that inspired The Little Death play) will be in comic book shops this week. A number of sites feature an advance look at the comic book, and this link will take you to one.

* * *

Crusin’s summer/early fall season (we mostly lay off in the later fall and winter) continued on Sunday with an appearance at the Muscatine Art Center’s annual Ice Cream Social. It was a fun, informal event, and the crowd liked us just fine, though I would be surprised if the ice cream and pie didn’t get even better reviews.

Our next appearance is in Muscatine at the Missipi Brew in their beer garden on the Fourth of July, which is on July 4 this year, interestingly. This can be a grueling event for us, particularly if we draw a hot day/evening. It’s also one of the longer shows we do, at least three hours. Lately we’ve been limiting ourselves to one- and two-hour gigs.

This does get more physically taxing, the loading in, setting up, tearing down and loading out in particular. How much longer I will be able to indulge myself in my rock ‘n’ roll fixation remains unclear.

* * *

Here is a very nice Quarry in the Black review. The cover of that one – I believe the great Glen Orbik’s last, completed by the very talented Laurel Blechman – is popping up all over the Net. It’s much admired, and I’m pleased to have acquired the original for my office (in my home with its sophisticated security system).

Here’s a little write-up about my long-ago Digest Dolls card set.

Finally, here is a really nice review of Scarface and the Untouchable in Publisher’s Weekly.

M.A.C.

Net Not A Drag

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

You will note above that a Crusin’ live show is in Muscatine is coming up on St. Patrick’s Day. If you are in Eastern Iowa, check it out. We have a Riverside Casino gig coming up in April – stay tuned.

More nice stuff turning up on the net about M.A.C. projects new and old….

Janet Rudolph of Mystery Readers International kindly asked me to do a guest blog last week about the collaborative process (now all three of us have written such pieces – Barb, Matt and me). In case you missed it, now’s your chance.

Mel Odom, a gifted scribe his own self, has posted a nice YOU CAN’T STOP ME review. This appeared lots of places, but we’re linking you to Mel’s entertaining Bookhound site.

Out of the blue, a really nice review of my DVD, ELIOT NESS: AN UNTOUCHABLE LIFE (), has turned up form Cold Fusion Video Reviews. Lots of pics and apt praise for the great Michael Cornelison.

There is a Ten Classic Private Eyes thread at Tony Isabella’s message board. Tony, by the way, is another great guy. Nate Heller and Ms. Tree come up several times, and I even responded a couple of times. Worth looking at.

My pal Chris Mills has posted a lovely tribute to Mickey Spillane.

One of the pleasures of being a writer in the internet age is receiving e-mails from (as Mickey would put it) “satisfied customers.” Here’s a recent one:

Hi Max:

Just a few moments ago I finished THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER and, smile still on my face, I thought I’d drop you a note of appreciation. As with everything of yours that I’ve read I enjoyed it tremendously. The craftsmanship required to produce such little gems as your “disaster” novels shows through on every page. I also must say that as much as I enjoy the novels themselves I find your Acknowledgements a special added pleasure. You write so vividly and set the literary stage so lavishly that I invariably find myself hunting up further information on the times and characters about which you write and I often find myself checking out your source material.

I, like you am a bit of a history and media buff and have been an admirer of both Welles and Gibson for some time. So during my reading of War of the World Murder my interest in them was reawakened and I poked around some of my books and some internet sites about them and was again impressed with the depth of your research. In so doing I found a (very tenuous) connection between myself and Gibson. I read that he spent the last years of his life in a very small upstate NY community of Eddyville. When I was a child I spent every summer in Rosendale, NY, the town right next door to Eddyville. My parents live there today. From the descriptions that I read it sounds like Gibson’s house was a bit like Forry Akerman’s Akermansion, only writ small. I was unable to find any pics of the house on the internet but last week I went to see my parents and made sure to travel Creek Locks Road in Eddyville looking for a house that matched the description I’d read. Eddyville is quite small and I was able to narrow it down to only two possibilities. Even here in my fully adult years I was able to get a bit of a thrill knowing that the man who created (for all intents and purposes) The Shadow lived in one of those two houses, so close to where I’d spent so much of my childhood. It isn’t a big thing, but it is a nice thing and I owe that small satisfaction to you for having made Gibson and his his fictionalized involvement with the War of The Worlds broadcast so real for me.

Please keep doing what you do.

Thanks.

Yours,

Ed Smith

Here’s my response:

Hi Ed —

thanks for your lovely e-mail.

I’m very proud of my historical stuff, and it pleases me that readers are seeking the books out years later. A book you may not know about that is in a way the capstone to the disaster series is RED SKY IN MORNING by Patrick Culhane. That’s actually me. It’s based on my father’s very interesting experiences in the Navy during WW 2.

You should probably seek out, if you haven’t already, the two books I did recently about the history of comics: A KILLING IN COMICS and STRIP FOR MURDER. They did not do well, so there probably won’t be any more of ’em, but you will like them, I think.

I have gone on many adventures like the one you describe. There’s something about connecting to childhood enthusiasms as an adult that’s very special. These are the things that resonated through our lives and, for better or worse, made us who we are.

Best,

Max

I have essentially shut down my Facebook “Friends” page, which I was completely incompetent in handling, and – at Nate’s insistence and with his help – have set up a Fan page. If you are reading this, and are on Facebook, please sign up. I comment on many of the posts and post there fairly frequently. I just (with bandmate Chuck Bunn’s help) put up a whole series of pics about the history of the Daybreakers and Crusin’ – even if you’ve never heard my band, you may get a kick out of these.

Crusin'

Now I am headed back to work on my draft of ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF by Barbara Allan.

M.A.C.