Posts Tagged ‘Nate Heller’

Rule #1: Never Respond to a Reviewer

Tuesday, June 6th, 2023

Before we get started, I want to share this link for a nice if unexpected endorsement of the first Nathan Heller novel, True Detective, by Paul Davis of the Washington Times.

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I am going to share a review with you from the Borg site, a mixed one by C.J. Bunce, who has generally liked my work and to some degree likes it here. It’s almost never a good idea to respond to critics, but one aspect of the Borg review touches on a topic I feel requires at least some response. So I am going to take this opportunity – one writers generally do not get or at least have sense not to avail themselves of – to respond to that objection, and a few other negative aspects of the review. Let me say that as the author, my view is skewed and biased to say the least, and Bunce – a solid reviewer – has every right to his opinion.

Mad Money cover
Retro fix–Max Allan Collins’ giant Nolan novel “Spree” returns in 2-for-1 volume “Mad Money”

BORG: If you were going to stage a heist at a shopping mall, how would you do it? Would you steal from all the stores in the mall in the same heist? Back in 1987, when malls were still in their prime, Max Allan Collins made an attempt in the pages of Spree, his longest novel in the Nolan series. His anti-hero Nolan is the Michael Corleone of grime fiction – they keep trying to pull the retired thief back in just as he’s ready to settle down (Collins pulls him back in each of his 9 novels). Collins knows how to reflect the ugliest people in the ugliest of underworlds, and he does it by creating criminals in Missouri that would make New York mobsters look like wimps.

COLLINS: Is “grime fiction” a knowing pun or a typo? Is it a term that’s previously been used by Bunce and others? Just asking. If it’s purposeful, I might use it myself sometime.

BORG: Spree sees a reprint this year thanks to Hard Case Crime in a 2-for-1 edition called Mad Money. It’s bundled with Mourn the Living, another Nolan novel, and the last of a series of reprints that provide some of the best value around for pulp crime readers and fans of Collins’ unique voice. I thought the hillbilly Comfort family of Missouri was vile in the last Nolan novel I reviewed here at borg: Hard Cash, the fifth Nolan novel. I had no idea.

As you see in the cover of Mad Money and the other novels in the series with art by Mark Eastbrook, Nolan is Collins’ Lee Van Cleef lookalike, a bad guy who thinks he’s a good guy in a world of creeps and criminals even worse. With Spree, Collins again pushed the boundaries of pulp crime. It’s full of the writer’s brand of rough sex, racist characters, and violence we’ve seen in his Quarry series and earlier Nolan stories, but this time that includes threats of incest and underage sex, the kind of cringey content that paints the darkness into the story’s villains. It’s also the kind of shock and awe that would later make Quentin Tarantino win movie awards. It all goes full circle, because Nolan was inspired by Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels, which inspired every other pulp crime writer, including Tarantino. Spree takes Collins into horror territory, something that may give readers a Silence of the Lambs vibe.

I’m still reading and enjoying Nolan novels, with five more to look forward to, but I think Collins’ effort to stretch out the word count of this book is reflected in page after page of padding. Collins is a master of brevity in his books, and he spent more time in this book with descriptions that neither enhance the mood and setting nor further its plot. At a few points his leads Nolan and frequent sidekick Jon even make mistakes that the characters I thought I knew from Bait Money, Hard Cash, and Skim Deep were too smart to do. Maybe I was wrong about them?

COLLINS: I don’t ever knowingly pad. I understand it might come off that way, and I do get accused of it from time to time; but it’s not something I do to plump up page count or whatever. Nor am I in particular a “master of brevity.” If anything I am criticized for writing too much description of setting and wardrobe, which has irritated some readers and reviewers. I don’t care. My object is to use setting and wardrobe for purposes of characterization.

The book is a longer one than the other Nolans and was, like Stark’s Butcher’s Moon, designed to be more in depth than the somewhat brief paperback originals preceding it, and in a way to sum up the series (also like Butcher’s Moon). If by padding, Bunce means more characters than usual, I am guilty. The narrative technique in the Nolan books is to immerse the reader in point-of-view chapters of various characters, some rather minor. I learned this – borrowed (stole) this – from Westlake’s “Richard Stark” persona. This technique is an effort to make the world seem bigger.

BORG: Here’s the set-up for Spree: Nolan’s nemesis, hick Comfort family patriarch Cole discovers where Nolan has landed: owning a restaurant/nightclub named Nolan’s attached to a typical 1980s mall in Davenport, Iowa. Nolan previously killed some Comfort family members in a past exploit, and Comfort decides it’s time for payback. He stakes out Nolan and his mall and, along with his son and daughter, kidnaps Nolan’s girlfriend Sherry. Cole tells Nolan he must help him rob all the mall stores or he’ll kill her.

Collins provides the minimal details to show how the heist might be possible, but not quite enough to make it believable. The players are numerous: a few guys who worked jobs with Nolan before, plus a set of shoot-first triplets who can fence the loot later. Sherry, the great, tough, equal to Nolan, is relegated here to the victim role, and the 1980s shine through with Sherry as the only woman lead of the story. The only other woman is Cole’s “slutty-looking” daughter, who Cole hits on because she looks like her mom. Yikes. In no doubt Jon’s worst moment of the series, he has sex with the teen (who worships Jon from his days as small-time rock band member), which is bad choice #1, then instead of holding her to swap for Sherry he just lets her go (bad choice #2). Nolan has his worst moment by not grinding the story to a halt and holding the girl for a swap, maybe slapping Jon a few times. The story also just stops, and we don’t get to see the aftermath, which is a disappointment after all the build.

COLLINS: Sherry is held captive and (SPOILER ALERT) frees herself by way of a combination of her courage and ingenuity. Hardly a “victim” role. The structure becomes a back-and-forth report on the heist Nolan and Jon are forced into mounting for Cole Comfort and Sherry’s captivity and her efforts to free herself. At the time, I considered this effective and well-handled…and I still do.

The punchline of the massive robbery is (SPOILER ALERT) when Nolan makes his accomplices put everything back. The last dozen pages are devoted to the “aftermath.”

Of course, Bunce has every right not to like how I handled this, and for it not to work on him. Fine. A novel is a collaboration between writer and reader, and sometimes that collaboration goes better than other times.

Now, however, we arrive at the reason I have chosen to respond to this review. Bunce appears to be object to (or be offended by?) Cindy Lou, Cole Comfort’s seventeen-year-old daughter, being described as “slutty-looking.” But that description comes not from an omniscient author, rather a character in the novel, in that character’s point of view. The reviewer considers Jon’s “worst moment of the series” as having sex with this teenage girl. It’s a “bad choice.”

As we say in the funnies, “sigh.” I run into this with modern reviewers all the time. They object to sexism but not to homicide. Jon is a traveling rock musician in his early twenties; Cindy Lou is seventeen (the age of consent in Iowa is sixteen – making their consensual tryst “cringey” perhaps, but not “underage”). Still, that may indeed be a bad choice. You know what else is a bad choice? Being an armed robber. This is similar to the reviewers who criticize Quarry for sizing up women based on their attractiveness. I guess you’d expect better behavior from a murderer.

Nolan’s “bad choice,” Borg informs us, is that the retired thief does not kidnap Cindy Lou and try to swap her for Sherry. So we’re in favor of kidnapping now. In fact, the second section of the book concludes with a discussion, almost an argument, between Jon and Nolan about whether to kidnap Cindy Lou for this purpose, and how that might play out (not well)…or instead to manipulate this unhappy, abused girl (yes, manipulate – shame on them!), into helping get Sherry back. One of the darkly comic aspects of the novel, and that specific scene, is that Nolan and Jon are not as bad as Cole Comfort. Still, that doesn’t make them “good.” And the story does not “stop” here – it’s a cliff-hanger at the end of a section.

Also, and this is key, certain aspects of how the heist will go down are not revealed until (wait for it) the heist goes down.

BORG: Nolan, Jon, Sherry, and the reader know there is no way Sherry is going to get out of this alive. That’s the story Collins tells, but not quite where it lands – Collins doesn’t stick the landing as satisfying as in his other works (whether in his Nolan, Quarry, Heller, or Mike Hammer novels). Nitpicking aside, appropriate bad guys get theirs, just not directly proportionate to their level of vileness, and that’s a shame. But the bookending Collins incorporates is clever and almost delivers some satisfaction.

COLLINS: This grudging praise is for an aspect of the novel that I am rather proud of – the resolution of both Sherry’s escape from captivity and what Nolan does about the mall robbery he’s been forced into engineering. The fates of Cole and Lyle Comfort are very satisfying to the author and I believe probably are to most readers.

BORG: Jon returns as a slightly older young version of Nolan – who also has all those interests of a young Max Allan Collins – a guy who wants to create comic books for a living. He’s lost his apartment, which drives him back to Nolan for help, where he meets Sherry. He’s at a down point in his life with Nolan, but that doesn’t explain his extra dose of bad judgment this round.

COLLINS: Again…it just may be possible that Jon’s bad judgment was when he decided to be a fucking armed robber. Here, when he (like Nolan) has moved away from that into a more acceptable mode of living – the ironic theme of the series is that all Nolan wants is to realize the American Dream – Jon is still paying for the genuinely bad choice he made in this series, i.e., robbing a bank with Nolan in the first novel (Bait Money).

By the way, the supposed aspects of my life and interests as expressed in the Jon character are exaggerated by Bunce and others. I use my knowledge of comics and being a rock musician to provide some verisimilitude. But nothing else in Jon’s background or frankly character is drawn from me. On the other hand, the Mallory character (in No Cure For Death and other early novels of mine) is me, which is why I don’t write about him anymore – too boring.

BORG: Is there a worse pulp crime family than Collins’ Comforts? I don’t think so. Spree is not a typical Collins quick read, and that epic mall heist only gets to what you could imagine as the montage sequence in the movie adaptation. If the film rights were exercised today, the cast would need to be better developed and the execution a bigger part of the story. Here the idea is so good, but the delivery not so much.

COLLINS: I guess faint praise is better than no praise at all. In the context of my career, Spree was the first Nolan novel I wrote after the early Nathan Heller books (none of which is a “typical Collins quick read”). In fact, the success of those early Hellers got me the contract to do Spree (and Primary Target). Spree was a hardcover (not a paperback original, like the previous entries) and was a story designed to have some heft (not padding).

BORG: It may not be Collins’ best, but it’s still fun, and it will keep you engaged. Order Mad Money, including Spree and Mourn the Living, here at Amazon, and check out the other double-trouble sets, Two for the Money, Tough Tender, and Double Down, and the final novel in the series, Skim Deep (reviewed here). I reviewed Hard Cash here and Bait Money here. Keep coming back to borg where we’ll double back to the second novels in these 2-for-1 editions from Hard Case Crime later.

COLLINS: I am grateful for the attention Borg/Bunce brings to this series, and mean zero offense by this response. But I consider Spree the best Nolan novel, and feel it resolves the larger issues of the series, and the specific ones of the narrative at hand, rather well. So much so that I considered the series finished till editor Charles Ardai talked me into doing a coda by way of Skim Deep.

I also know that Spree is the Nolan novel most often cited as the favorite (or best) in the series by readers. Considering Bunce’s speculation that a modern screen version of Spree would probably improve it, I’ll mention two related facts: my own screenplay of Spree was optioned several times (twice by Bill Lustig), and right now Lionsgate is developing a Nolan film…based on Spree.

I want to make it clear that C.J. Bunce is an able reviewer and the Borg a worthwhile review site. Visit them here.

The issues I touch on above are nothing I usually would have bothered discussing – they are strictly a matter of opinion, and no one is more biased than the author. What made break Rule #1 (never respond to a reviewer in print) (or otherwise) is what I’ll call (for want of a better term) the Political Correctness Issue.

The first time I encountered this was with the publication of Bait Money in 1973, when I was criticized for Nolan thinking of young women as “girls.” A forty-eight-year-old-man in 1971 (when I wrote the book at age 21) would hardly think of a young woman in any other terms. But I began being careful about that.

Nate Heller was another matter, and he continues to be. Reviewers would occasionally complain about his sexism and racism, among other isms. Heller is a man in this twenties in the early 1930s and we are with him until he’s in his fifties in the mid-1960s. I try to be true to who the character would logically be, and what is appropriate to the year at hand. I tend to use “colored” and “Negro” most often, but have occasionally been beaten up for that. Heller indeed sizes women up by their looks, and has certain sexist tendencies (he hangs out at Hefner’s Chicago pad and dates Playmates, Bunnies, strippers, models and showgirls). A early lost love followed by an unhappy marriage made him a shallow swimmer in the male/female relationship pool. But he also treats women as equals and I am proud of the depiction of the major female characters in the novels, from Sally Rand to Amelia Earhart to Marilyn Monroe.

None of these offended critics has ever commented on the fact that Heller frequently murders the bad guy, Mike Hammer-style. Not once. As Tarzan might say, “Sex bad. Violence good.”

Quarry, similarly, is mostly a ‘70s and ‘80s character with views and modes of expression appropriate to those times. (Quarry’s Blood is modern-day and an exception; but Quarry remains a guy born around 1950) (a murderer, by the way).

Is a guy in a rock band in the mid-1980s, in his early twenties, making a bad choice having casual, consensual, legal sex with a teenage groupie? I’ll leave that up to you. But reviewers cheerfully accepting murder from Jon, Nolan, Quarry, Hammer and Heller, without comment, is an interesting commentary on what we consider acceptable in a fictional narrative.

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A nice mini-write-up about the Antiques series is here (scroll down).

Finally, here’s an analysis of the graphic novel Road to Perdition.

M.A.C.

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The Awesome ‘80s Prom & Memorial Day Thoughts

Tuesday, May 30th, 2023

This past Saturday evening (May 27) Barb and I attended the Awesome ‘80s Prom put on by my buddy Chad Bishop, who is the producer of the Blue Christmas project. Chad is a fun, funny, gifted guy and the evening he put together was a blast. There were Arcade games (a whole room of ‘em), New Wave music, food and (spiked) punch, and potential prom kings and queens trolling for votes. It’s one of those almost-a-plays that have structured elements but also have a large cast circulating as characters (prom attendees) and make it an interactive event.

We were accompanied by Barb’s sister Judy and our brother-in-law Gary, who admittedly looked a little more like he was attending the Manson Family Reunion than the Awesome ‘80s Prom.

Max and Barb at the Awesome '80s Prom
’80s Prom Goers!
Manson Family Reunion?
Manson Family Reunion?
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J. Kingston Pierce, who for my money is the best friend the mystery/crime genre has here in the 21st Century, has posted info about the Blue Christmas crowd-funding effort – now in its final few days – that is better and more complete than I ever could:

Efforts by Iowa novelist Max Allan Collins to raise the money necessary to turn his A Christmas Carol-like detective short story, “Blue Christmas” (published in a 2001 collection), into a movie seem to be going well. With less than two days still to raise $5,000 through the crowdfunding site Indiegogo, he’s already brought in … $5,750!

Contributions are still being accepted here. As an incentive, if you pony up $25 to $500, Collins says you can write him at macphilms@hotmail.com to request copies of his older books to add to your collection. Click here to learn more about that offer.

Meanwhile, the author is hoping to score matching funds for this endeavor from the Produce Iowa-State Office of Film and Media’s Greenlight Grants program, which is designed to “support entrepreneurial projects that can accelerate business and careers in film.” Collins acknowledges, however, that there’s no guarantee he will succeed in this second venture, given the caliber of rival proposals. If Produce Iowa turns him down, he says he’ll mount a live production of Blue Christmas, which will be recorded.

More news on this matter to come.

Here is a link for the Rap Sheet post that includes this write-up.

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Girl Most Likely will be promoted via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals at Amazon, starting 6/1/2023 and running through 6/30/2023. The novel will be offered at 2.49 USD during the promotion period. If you haven’t tried one of the two Krista Larson novels, now is the time!

Fate of the Union (the second Reeder and Rogers thriller) is being offered during this same period at $3, and Flying Blind – one of my favorite Nate Heller novels – will be available at $1.99. The first of the three Reeder and Rogers novels, Supreme Justice, will be available at $2.99 for one day – June 3rd.

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The great Paperback Warrior has posted a terrific review of Double Down, focusing on one of the two Nolan novels therein: Fly Paper.

Nolan #03 – Fly Paper

Max Allan Collins’ Nolan series is his pastiche of Richard Stark’s Parker series. The third novel in the chronology was Fly Paper written in 1973 but not published until 1981. The book has recently been repackaged by Hard Case Crime in a twofer marketed as Double Down.

For the uninitiated, Nolan is a hard-nosed thief who makes a living pulling heists that inevitably run into problems. Much of this book’s focus is on Jon, Nolan’s comic book collecting sidekick. The action kicks off with a colleague named Breen, who has a good thing going with a parking meter rip-off scam. Breen was working the coin theft organized by the redneck Comfort family before those hillbillies shot and double-crossed Breen landing him squarely in Nolan and Jon’s orbit.

This leads to a plan to rip off the Comfort family in a heist-the-heisters kinda deal. The action moves from Iowa to Detroit in the shadow of a large comic book convention. The heist itself is really a side-dish in the paperback with the main course being the commercial airline getaway that is interrupted by a skyjacking.

Between 1961 and 1972, there were 159 skyjackings in American airspace with the majority between 1968 and 1972. It was a vexing criminal social contagion without a clear solution – similar to the problem America currently faces with mass shootings. Collins draws upon this phenomenon as the backdrop of Fly Paper when a married guy plans a D.B. Cooper style airplane heist with a parachute getaway.

When Nolan and Jon are coincidentally on the plane as the dude takes control of the jet, the plotting and action soar. These are the best scenes in a book I’ve read in ages. The creativity at work with the dilemma facing Nolan and Jon sets Fly Paper apart from other heist novels of the paperback original era.

Fly Paper is also unquestionably the best of the first three Nolan novels. The inclusion of Jon as a sidekick gives the book its own identity rather than just being a cover song from a Richard Stark Tribute Band. The skyjacking storyline was brilliant, and everything about his slim paperback leaves the reader wanting more. Highest recommendation.

I would take slight issue with this review only in that it describes the Nolan series as a “pastiche” of Westlake’s Parker series. I usually describe it as an homage, but Westlake himself said that the series was distinct from its inspiration by the inclusion of the surrogate father-and-son relationship of Nolan and Jon, which humanizes Nolan in a way Parker never approached (nor wanted to).

The review got me to thinking, though. The first Nolan and Jon novel, Bait Money, was designed as a one-shot and really was me trying out everything I had learned from the Parker novels – not just the heist artist aspect, but the strict Point of View approach. As some of you already know, my original version of Bait Money had Nolan dying at the end. My then-agent Knox Burger, who had always disliked that ending, encouraged me to do a different ending in which Jon came back and rescued Nolan. After the original version got six or seven rejections, the new version sold first time out.

The second Nolan novel, Blood Money, was a direct sequel to Bait Money, really the second half of the first story. The two novels have been reprinted in the single volume, Two for the Money, by Hard Case Crime.

So in a very real way, Fly Paper was my first shot at doing a Nolan novel in a series format. I would always leave dangling aspects to be picked up in later novels; but this was nonetheless a self-contained series entry. More would follow.

Don Westlake and I made several appearances together, notably at Mohunk Lodge mystery weekends (see Nice Weekend for a Murder), where in my speech to the assembled fans/mystery gamers I shared the fact that Don referred to me as the Jayne Mansfield to his Marilyn Monroe, and I corrected him, saying I was the Mamie Van Doren. I remember seeing him laughing his generous laugh in the audience upon hearing that.

Don is a friend who is gone, however vividly he lives in my memory. Mickey Spillane is gone, too, of course, though he is with me every day. So many writers I’ve known and read and liked, who I’ve gotten to know personally, are gone now – one of the aspects of being 75 that never occurred to me till I got here.

On Memorial Day I reflect on my Dad, who served in the Navy as described in USS Powderkeg, and my Uncle Mahlon and Barb’s dad Bill Mull, who both endured horrific combat and came home with memories that must have been a burden.

It’s risky for me to do this, but as I write this Update on Memorial Day, friends who have passed seem to be looking over my shoulder. I will cite some, but not all of them. A good number were in either of my two bands, the Daybreakers and Crusin’ (or both), starting back around ‘65.

Paul Thomas was my chief musical collaborator for decades in both the Daybreakers and Crusin’. He came in as a tech wizard who ran sound, developed into a fine bass player and later was our lead guitarist. He was funny as hell and it’s a rare day when I don’t think of him.

Others of my bandmates have passed and yet remain vivid in my mind. Bruce Peters, the troubled genius who was the best showman, the finest guitar player, the most incredible songwriter, and the single funniest human being I ever knew. I quote him regularly.

Terry Beckey was a great singer and bass player and also very, very funny – murdered, goddamnit, on the road. Like Paul Thomas, he came into the Daybreakers as the sound man and worked his way up to front man.

Chuck Bunn was our first real bass player, a guy who didn’t hold grudges, he cherished them. But no one was ever a better band member, putting together lighting systems and other gizmos for us in his spare time – he lived for the band. He died shortly after this appearance at Bouchercon.

Brian Van Winkle came in as the brother of our then guitar player Jim after Chuck passed. He developed into a fine bassist and performer, and was incredibly fun to be around. Like so many of my bandmates, he had a wonderful if unprintable sense of humor. He also was the gentlest and sweetest member either band ever had. He appeared with us at the Indication Concert at the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Most of my best friends – maybe all of them – have been creative collaborators. People like Phil Dingeldein, who is alive and well. But some of our film collaborators are already gone, like Steve Henke, the skinny, cranky pro who kept us honest. Steve was my chief collaborator on Caveman: V.T. Hamlin and Alley Oop.

Probably the loss among my Film Family felt most deeply is Mike Cornelison, the actor who guided me through all of my indie projects. Mike appeared in Mommy, Mommy’s Day, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, and of course Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life. He also took the leads in four short films of mine and was the narrator of both Caveman and Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane. He played Pat Chambers in both of Stacy Keach’s audio productions of my scripts, The Little Death and Encore for Murder.

Mike had spent almost a decade in Los Angeles appearing on top TV shows and movies as well as starring in a trio of pilot films. He was knowledgeable in ways that turned me from a rank amateur into, well, an amateur who knows a little about what he’s doing.

On the Mommy movies, when Mike wasn’t working as an actor, he was my right-hand man, whispering in my ear when I got something wrong or needed to be doing something. He was also a pop culture expert and our conversations in that area were more fun than should be legal.

These are the friendly ghosts who walk with me through the remainder of my Act Three.

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The Dave Thomas/Max Allan Collins episode of Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast got rerun recently, and has generated some nice buzz for our novel The Many Lives of Jimmy Leighton (have you read it yet?). And let’s raise a glass to Gilbert, as well, gone way too soon.

M.A.C.

About Losing the Edgar

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023

Before I discuss losing the Edgar, I want to mention a winning promotion from Thomas and Mercer on certain of my titles on e-book.
True Detective () and True Crime () (the first two Nathan Heller novels) will be offered at $1.99 via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US marketplace, starting 5/1/2023 and running through 5/31/2023. Also on sale at Amazon during that period are three titles by me and my buddy Matt Clemens – What Doesn’t Kill Her () ($1.99), Fate of the Union () ($.99) and Executive Order () ($3).

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Quarry's Blood Cover
Trade Paperback: Bookshop Purchase Link Amazon Purchase Link Books-A-Million Purchase Link Barnes & Noble Purchase Link Target Purchase Link
E-Book: Google Play Kobo
Digital Audiobook: Audible Purchase Link

I, of course, did not win the Edgar for Best Paperback, but I assure you I was convinced I wouldn’t. I didn’t go to New York for the ceremony, which – if I thought I had a hootin’ chance in hell – I would have.

Quarry’s Blood is the 16th entry in a series that began in 1976 (actually 1971), and novels in long-running series almost never get nominated by the Edgars. Furthermore, the Quarry novels are perceived by more delicate readers as nasty, and they aren’t necessarily wrong. In any event, I am grateful to those of you who have made Quarry and me a cult success.

This experience – sitting at home, not even remembering that the Edgars were going on in New York while Barb and I watched a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode – was a very good one. Why? Because I have always taken awards too seriously. I have always wanted to win them, being naturally competitive, which has largely been a positive thing in my career, a driving force if you will.

But at this ripe old age I now realize how meaningless awards are. Well, relatively meaningless. If Jim Traylor and I do not get an Edgar nomination for Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction, I guarantee you it will disappoint me. But if we don’t get an Edgar nomination, what is the difference, ultimately? Our Spillane bio is no less definitive and ground-breaking if it does not receive a nomination.

On the most basic level, I have looked at awards as the kind of validation that can keep me in business – much the same way good reviews can benefit a writer’s reputation. A wise soul once said, “If you believe the good reviews, you have to believe the bad reviews, too.” So I have never allowed myself to believe that an award, or a good review, is anything but an opinion, and a potentially useful sales tool. Awards don’t make me a good writer, nor do good reviews. Readers liking my work make me a good writer; editors liking my work make me a good writer; sufficient sales make me a good writer. Or anyway keep me in business.

My father was a respected, even beloved member of our small community (Muscatine, Iowa, has a population of around 25,000 residents). In the early ‘50s, he was the first high school music teacher to mount productions of Oklahoma and Carousel, attracting national attention (they were excellent productions, too). When he left teaching to go into industry as a personnel man, he hired hundreds of people in this community who loved him for it. At the same time he directed a male chorus (the Muscatine Elks Chanters) – for fifty years! – that won so many national championships that the competition was shut down and the Chanters were made the permanent champs. That chorus is gone now because my father is gone – he was their engine and a genius who could make any group of random men sound like a professional chorus.

When he passed, Barb and I stood looking at a wall of award plaques and a tabletop of awards representing all his triumphs and achievements. All but a handful went into the trash. We did not do this cavalierly, but realistically – where would we display them? Where would we store them? We selected the most important ones and the rest of these once precious items, we tossed.

I have – what is the polite term? – a shitload of awards on display in my office and the really important ones are in the living room. Of these, I think my family is likely to hold onto the ones I prize most highly – my Grand Master Edgar from the Mystery Writers of American and my three Shamus awards. Maybe my lifetime achievement from the PWA. Otherwise, it’s probably into the landfill with awards that at the time (and for some time thereafter) meant a lot to me.

Artists – and I am one – are always looking for validation, because the two inescapable facts about all artists (every damn one of them) is their insane confidence in the value of their work and their inner fear that they are frauds. Too much confidence, and no confidence at all. That is the cocktail from which every artist drinks.

If they say otherwise, they are lying, or about as reflective as a broken mirror.

You bet I would like to have won an Edgar for Quarry’s Blood. But I was lucky, incredibly lucky, for that kind of recognition for my fifty year-old series, which happens to be littered with sex scenes and carnage and sometimes black humor (in questionable taste). There were over 250 submissions for Best Paperback, and I made the cut.

Charles Ardai, my great editor at the great Hard Case Crime, insisted I write an acceptance speech, “just in case” (he, too, accurately felt the odds were very much against me).

Anyway, this would have been my acceptance speech (delivered by Charles):

“Quarry was created at the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop in 1971. Looks like we both have finally graduated. My thanks to editor Charles Ardai (who did not insist I say this) for giving me the opportunity to revive this cult character. And also, for inspiration, to my late mentor Donald E. Westlake, who reminded me that a cult author is seven readers short of making a living.”

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Paul Davis, who writes about crime fiction at the Washington Times, wrote an astonishing three pieces about Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction. This incredible attention was followed by a favorable reaction to the new Nate Heller novel (from Hard Case Crime), The Big Bundle. He interviewed me about it, and here it is:

A Private Eye Witness To History: My Washington Times On Crime Column On Max Allan Collins ‘The Big Bundle’

This interesting and insightful crime novel is about a fictional private eye traversing through a begone era and a true and once famous child kidnapping.

In “The Big Bundle,” Max Allan Collins’ 18th novel featuring Nathan Heller, the private detective appears alongside Robert F. Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa, as well as historical crime and law enforcement figures involved in the real-life kidnapping of a millionaire’s son in 1953.

I contacted Mr. Collins and asked him to describe “The Big Bundle.”

“In many respects, it’s a private eye thriller in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane,” Mr. Collins replied. “I was moving to a new publisher, Hard Case Crime, and knew their audience was steeped in hardboiled fiction and might be put off by the famous crimes I usually look at in a Nathan Heller novel. The real-life case in ‘The Big Bundle,’ quite well known in the 1950s but forgotten now, allowed me to put the emphasis on the noir aspect of the Heller novels and not be accused of teaching a “history lesson.”

How would you describe Nathan Heller?

“Heller is a businessman who starts out in a small office where he sleeps on a Murphy bed and winds up with a coast-to-coast detective agency. He is not the typical Phillip Marlowe-style modern-day knight who would never take a bribe or seduce a virgin — Heller has done both and often indulges in situational ethics. Unlike most fictional private eyes, he marries (more than once) and is a father and had a father and mother and even grandparents. He ages with the years. At any age, Heller recoils at injustice in society and serves up rough justice when he feels it necessary. He not only knows where the bodies are buried, he has buried more than his share.”

Why have you written a series of crime novels based on historical events with a fictional character interacting with historical figures?

“Rereading ‘The Maltese Falcon’ for a college class I was teaching in the early 1970s, I noticed the 1929 copyright. I had a light-bulb moment: The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was 1929 — Sam Spade and Al Capone were contemporaries! Instead of Mike Hammer meeting a Capone type, I could have Capone meeting a Mike Hammer type. It was a fresh way into a form that had gone stale,” Mr. Collins (seen in the bottom photo) explained. “What evolved, from the initial novel about Frank Nitti’s Chicago (“True Detective,” 1983), was Heller solving famous unsolved or controversially solved crimes, like the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Black Dahila murder, the assassinations of Huey Long and JFK. Often, I substitute him for a real detective involved in a case. Heller becomes a sort of ‘private eye witness’ to history.”

How did you research the history that you use in “The Big Bundle”?

“Less was available about the Greenlease case than with most mysteries Heller has tackled — both Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, the Roswell incident, required dealing with a staggering number of books and voluminous newspaper and magazine material. Only a handful of books about the Greenlease kidnapping existed to draw upon in “The Big Bundle.” But the political aspect — Bobby Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa’s involvement in the aftermath of the ransom’s disappearance — meant referring to several dozen nonfiction works, as well as the usual newspaper and magazine articles, which the kidnapping itself also generated. The idea is that I prepare to write the definitive nonfiction book on a real crime or mystery. Then I write a private eye novel instead.”

Did you discover anything in your research that surprised you about the kidnapping and other elements you use in your novel?

“Automobiles were everywhere in the narrative, befitting the postwar boom in car buying and interstate travel. Key events took place at a famous no-tell motel, the Coral Court, outside St. Louis. A crooked taxicab company was caught up in the probable theft of half the ransom, and every criminal in the case seemed either to drive a Caddy or want to — purchased inevitably at one of the many Midwestern Cadillac dealerships owned by the kidnap victim’s father.”

Do you plan to continue the Nathan Heller series?

“Too Many Bullets” has been completed, with Heller present in the pantry at the Ambassador Hotel when Robert Kennedy was shot. It’s an open-and-shut case, supposedly, yet the research indicates otherwise. In many respects, the real story is like something out of Raymond Chandler: hit men, crooked cops, a crazy hypnotist, a duplicitous showgirl. That comes out in October, again from Hard Case Crime. There may be one more after that. The degree of difficulty here is high, however, and I just turned 75, so it depends on how well Heller and I hold up.”

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CBR.com has this good article about the comic book roots of Mike Hammer.

Encore for Murder Screening Info. Friday, May 5 at 7pm, in the MCC Big Box Theater, Strahan Hall. Donations accepted.

For those of you close enough to Muscatine, Iowa, to consider attending, here’s the info about the screening of Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder starring Gary Sandy this coming Friday, May 5.

And finally thanks to those of you who have contributed to the Indiegogo campaign for Blue Christmas, and I hope more of you will consider pitching. We’re just under $1700 (of the $5000 goal) with about a month left to go.

M.A.C.

Please, Sir, I Want Some More…Money

Tuesday, April 18th, 2023

We have about a month and a half to raise $5000 for our movie of Blue Christmas (we’re at $550 as I write this). It’s your opportunity to help us make a good little film, and to see your name on screen – being thanked, or even given a claim to fame as an Associate Producer or (if you’re flush and really want to pep up your resumé) Executive Producer.

Physical media-type perks have not been offered, but I’m going to give the nice folks who drop by here an opportunity that isn’t part of the Indiegogo page. If you contribute $25 to $500 range, write me at macphilms@hotmail.com and include a list of books by me that you are lacking in your M.A.C. collection…hard to find, out of print, and/or pricey stuff. I’ll do my best to send you something, signed (personalized if you like) from that list. If I can’t comply, we’ll discuss other options via e-mail. Don’t ask for first editions of True Detective, True Crime, Stolen Away (hardcover), or the original trade edition of Road to Perdition unless you are going in at the Associate Producer level (a few pages of original art from Ms. Tree, Wild Dog and Mike Danger would be available at that level). If you’re interested in being an Executive Producer, we’ll talk.

Associate Producers and of course any Executive Producer will be able to arrange a visit to the set.

Again, this offer is not being mentioned on the Indiegogo page. This is for readers of the F.O.M.A.C. blog.

As I’ve mentioned before, there is a Plan A and Plan B for Blue Christmas. Plan A will require our receiving a grant from Produce Iowa’s Greenlight competition. Chad Bishop has put together a presentation for us that is absolutely outstanding, but the competition is considerable. Reaching the goal in the Indiegogo campaign will help us come up with the necessary matching funds, should we prevail.

If we are not a recipient of funds from Iowa’s Greenlight competition, we will go forward with Plan B: a play version of Blue Christmas, which would be produced live and recorded much as we did Encore for Murder, only with full-on pre-production (Encore’s shooting as very much a last-minute decision, based upon what we felt was emerging as a strong production, thanks to a strong local cast and a wonderful guest performance from Gary Sandy).

For those of you in (or near) Eastern Iowa, we are presenting the premiere of the movie version of Encore for Murder on May 5 (having postponed it due to weather). The info accompanies the photo here.

M.A.C. at the MCC Black Box Theater
Courtesy Muscatine Journal
[Correction: The time is 7pm, not 7am. There will be no breakfast showing of Encore for Murder.]

Speaking of Encore, we have delivered it and the new expanded edition of my documentary Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane to VCI Home Entertainment. With Phil Dingeldein backing me up, I recorded a commentary for the documentary (which now runs 61 minutes) at TAG (the ad agency affiliated with dphilms).

I am not doing a commentary for Encore because it’s being presented (I think appropriately) as a bonus feature with the documentary. The new approximately fifteen minutes of footage that Phil and I shot as a wraparound for the doc brings it up to date, including Mickey’s passing and the efforts to bring his unpublished material to completion and publication. It also includes interview footage with Encore actors (Gary Sandy discusses playing Mike Hammer) which provides me an opportunity in the commentary to explain the circumstances of the production of the Golden Age Radio-style play as a fundraiser for our (Muscatine, Iowa’s) local art museum. Essentially, this sets up the bonus feature.

Please note that, in our Indiegogo effort to raise 5K for Blue Christmas, we are not going after a s**t-load of money. I have designed the screenplay to be shot on a bare bones budget, though I think without compromising the material.

Compare this to the kind of money that Riff Trax (God bless ‘em) raises just to lambast somebody else’s movie (half a million bucks on their current one, and we’re seeking a “mere” five thousand).

Imagine me pleading with giant kitty eyes and see if your heartstrings (and pocket book) aren’t touched.

Blue Christmas is, frankly, an experiment to see if I’m up to directing a film, starting out with this low-budget affair that is designed not to be a challenging shoot in terms of locations, stunts, length of shoot, etc. I had assumed, after my heart and cancer surgeries – and the continuing medications that have followed them – that my movie-making days were over…that my contribution to film would be relegated to providing source material by way of my prose and comics work, and by the occasional screenplay.

But the “instant movie” that was the stage production of Encore for Murder got my filmic juices flowing again. Blue Christmas is designed in part to see what I am capable of at this ripe old age. My health, for someone with so much wrong with me, appears to be pretty damn good.

So we shall see, as they say, what we shall see.

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Remember how I whined a few weeks ago about my lack of support at the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Barnes & Noble? A return visit found one (count ‘em, one) copy of The Big Bundle available, no copies of Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction, but a nice display of some Nolan Hard Case Crime titles.

The Davenport Barnes & Noble, however, is giving me stellar support, as these photographs indicate. No need to whine here.

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Here’s a nice review of Kisses of Death, the Nathan Heller short story collection from some time ago. These stories were rearranged with additional ones in two volumes from Thomas & Mercer, Chicago Lightning and Triple Play, short stories in the former, novellas in the latter.

The first six volumes of the collected Dick Tracy are coming out from Clover Press, making them physically compatible with the subsequent IDW printings. Each has an intro by me.

Here’s a nice little review of Kill Me If You Can, the current Mike Hammer novel.

Finally, this is a nice assessment of the film version of Road to Perdition.

M.A.C.