Posts Tagged ‘Shoot The Moon’

John Sand at Wolfpack, Heller at Hard Case Crime

Tuesday, March 9th, 2021
Live Fast, Spy Hard cover

The second John Sand novel by Matt Clemens and me – Live Fast, Spy Hard – is out this month. The Kindle version is available for pre-order right now (for $3.99).

The Kindle pub date is March 17. The trade paperback edition should follow quickly, but I don’t have a date for that yet.

The cover is, in the opinion of the authors, a dandy. Wolfpack is coming up with some great covers for both new books of mine and for backlist titles. I remain astonished by how fast they move – this is a book Matt and I delivered this year. Traditional publishing takes a minimum of nine months from delivery to publication.

You can read this one without having read the first book in the series, Come Spy With Me, which of course is already available here.

Matt and I have already plotted the third book, To Live and Spy in Berlin, and Matt is working on the rough draft right now. I will be starting my draft next month. Whether we’ve written a trilogy or the first three books in a longer series depends on the response of readers, i.e., sales. But we are having an enormously good time writing these slightly tongue-in-cheek yarns about the “real-life” spy that just might be who Ian Fleming based his James Bond character on.

Wolfpack’s edition of Reincarnal has been corrected as to its messed-up table of contents, and the collection has been getting some lovely notices. Shoot the Moon has been well-received, too. Again, Wolfpack has done beautiful covers for the books, the former a new title, the latter a restructuring of the collection Early Crimes with the title novel of the new version brought forward to emphasize that it’s a novel with a couple of bonus short stories, and not a short story collection.

The Shoot the Moon book giveaway found the ten copies going lightning fast. Again, if you’ve received books in any of these giveaways, please remember the point of the exercise is to get some reviews on Amazon and elsewhere.

* * *

More good news, at least for me and for Nate Heller fans. For some time, I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing Heller novels at Hard Case Crime. With Quarry, Nolan and a few other titles of mine at HCC, I’m their most published author, and I’ve built a nice readership there, some of which (I suspect) has not tried Heller, intimidated by the historical nature (and sometimes length) of the books. These readers don’t realize that Heller is very much in the mold of Quarry, Nolan, Mike Hammer and other characters of mine. I consider Heller my signature character, and he has been my most enduring creation with those novels bringing me the most critical acclaim.

Additionally, Road to Perdition – the graphic novel that remains my major claim to fame – is a spin-off of sorts of the Heller saga. It came about when an editor at DC asked for a graphic novel in the Heller vein, but with new characters.

I’ve long felt that the retro publishing style of HCC would be a perfect way to widen the Heller readership, and editor Charles Ardai agreees. The titles of the new Hellers – The Big Bundle and Too Many Bullets – will give them a decided HCC feel. Recently, when the Heller run at Forge ended after five books (Do No Harm the most recent), the opportunity to move to Hard Case became a reality. Parent company Titan has offered a two-book Heller contract at HCC, and I am very grateful to publisher Nick Landau and his crew (including my Mike Hammer editor, Andrew Sumner) for their belief in me and my work.

A two-book contract will allow me to complete the five-book Kennedy saga (and the two-book Robert Kennedy cycle), which may bring the series to an end. Heller began in 1983, and – having celebrated (or is that survived) my 73rd birthday last week – I am not sure the rigorous research required for a Heller is something I’ll be up to after this two-book contract is delivered (one book early next year, the other early the following year).

If I do feel up to going on with Heller after the Kennedy saga is complete (the other books are Bye Bye Baby, Target Lancer and Ask Not), that will depend upon the response, chiefly sales. Subjects I’m contemplating are the killing of Martin Luther King, the murder of George Reeves, and Watergate.

Do No Harm continues to get strong notices, including Jon Breen’s current write-up (complete with the cover on display) in Mystery Scene. If you haven’t read this one, a reminder: no mass market or trade paperback is scheduled, so you’ll have to spring for hardcover (or Kindle).

* * *

The decision by the Dr. Seuss estate to pull half a dozen titles because of racist imagery is a smart move on their part, but a sad day for authors and, for that matter, readers.

Still, racism in a children’s book, however unintentional, makes those books, published long ago, problematic today. I get that. But I feel the best way to deal with this – in this current judgmental climate, at least – is to publish a disclaimer that, in a kids’ book, encourages parental guidance and discussion. That a gentle soul like Ted Geisel – who preached racial tolerance by way of parable through wonderful cartoons and fun absurd rhymes – faces this kind of thing is distressing if understandable.

TCM is going to great lengths to have discussions of classic films that have committed the sin of not being “woke” forty, fifty, sixty years ago. This is nothing new at TCM, who did the same for Charlie Chan movies quite a while back. Whether they are being socially responsible or playing a CYA game is in the mind of the beholder.

Disney and Warner’s, on their classic cartoon collections, have long had disclaimers, and my pal Leonard Maltin has delivered some of those (so has Whoopee Goldberg). Again, with kids I get this. But grown-ups actually shouldn’t need the disclaimers (although CYA does seem to require it), because anyone not standing on their IQ ought to have an awareness of when a film was made and at least a vague idea of the cultural context.

A stunted sense of humor and particularly lack of a sense of irony seems at play here. My generation, through underground comix and comedy of the SNL and SCTV variety, mocked racial and sexual stereotypes; humor, satire, is an excellent way to make such points, though trying to do so now would be perilous.

As usual, nuance has gone out the window. This may come as a shock to some, but the Mickey Rooney Asian bit in Breakfast at Tiffany’s was always offensive, and was found so at the time and ever since. But it reflected director Blake Edwards’s slapstick instincts and, again, is a spoofing of racism; it doesn’t work in Breakfast because it’s so over the top and unfunny, and is jarringly out of step with the otherwise sophisticated tone of the movie.

But I am sure we will see a move to ban the same director’s Pink Panther movies with the Inspector Clouseau/Cato relationship. Is there some way to explain that “my little yellow friend” was funny because it was so wrong, and we knew at the time that it was?

The danger of such self-righteous attitudes is that the work of ethnic artists – great actors like Burt Kwouk (Cato), Tim Moore (the Kingfish), and Mantan Moreland (Charlie Chan’s chauffeur) – may be lost to time, censored out of existence. I shudder to think that the Great American Novel (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) will be banned from even more bookshelves. Is John Ford’s film The Searchers any less a condemnation of racist hatred because a white actor in “redface” plays Scar, the antagonist chief? The answer might be yes, but I would suggest a more logical, fair answer would be, “It was made in 1956.”

This notion that intention is irrelevant is especially troubling. Of course intention isn’t an excuse or a free pass; but neither is it beside the point. Good intentions may pave the road to hell (aka perdition), but they are a sign of a teachable situation where, say, a KKK rally isn’t.

* * *

Here’s a terrific review of Skim Deep.

Here’s a reprint of a Kill Your Darlings review by the knowledgeable Art Scott. It’s a Mallory novel.

And here’s an extensive look at my work (an expansion of a previous piece) at Atomic Junkshop.

M.A.C.

Shoot the Moon & A Shot in the Arm

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021
Shoot the Moon Cover
E-Book: Amazon Purchase Link
Trade Paperback: Indiebound Purchase Link Bookshop Purchase Link Amazon Purchase Link Books-A-Million Purchase Link Barnes & Noble Purchase Link

Yes, it’s one of our ever-popular book giveaways. I have ten copies to give to the first ten readers who request it and agree to do an Amazon (and/or other) review. Those of you who have won books in the past and have not posted a review yet, for shame. Those of you who have won books and hated the book and haven’t posted a review, thank you.

[All copies for the giveaway have been claimed. Thank you for your support! –Nate]

Anyway, this is for Shoot the Moon, which is a repackaging (with revised intro) of Early Crimes. I’ve done this because Shoot the Moon is a novel and Early Crimes was rather inaccurately described as a collection. What we have is a novel, written about six books into my career, that was my attempt to do a Donald E. Westlake-style comedy of crime. By now you can see that Westlake was a major influence on my work, and was in fact a mentor to me when I was working on Bait Money, the first published Nolan novel, which of course was written as a pastiche/homage to Westlake’s Richard Stark-bylined Parker novels.

So perhaps it was natural that I try to follow in his other footsteps, and Shoot the Moon is that novel. It’s a short novel (but not a novella) and the two early short stories, “Public Servant” and “The Love Rack,” follow the novel as the equivalent of DVD/Blu-ray bonus features.

Back to the book giveaway. Write me at [link removed], and (this is important) include your snail mail address, even if you’ve won before. This is for USA only. That’s not patriotism, it’s cheapness (foreign postage is particularly high in the Covid era).

Speaking of which….

Barb and I have received our first vaccine doses (the Pfizer variety) and we are greatly relieved. How we got it is reflective of the difficulties even those of us who are seniors with underlying conditions are having getting vaccinated for Covid-19. Here’s our story.

For about a month I have been haunting the site of the Hy-Vee supermarket’s pharmacy (Hy-Vee being the major grocery chain in Iowa). It’s where Barb and I step outside of sheltering in place to take in “geezer” hour and do our weekly grocery shopping. The benefits are fewer people and ‘60s-era oldies playing instead of country western.

About four trips to Hy-Vee ago, I stopped at the pharmacy window to ask how I went about getting an appointment for vaccination. I was told by the pleasant young woman to sign up on-line and I would receive updates. (To date, I have received none. I also enrolled at Walgreens and also got zip updates.) On my next trip to the Hy-Vee pharmacy I inquired about when a vaccine shipment might be coming in and learned that one had in fact come in two days ago – 200 doses – and were gone in an hour.

That was when I asked (Barb said, “Don’t be angry!”) why I hadn’t received an update, and was told what I needed to do was keep refreshing the Hy-Vee pharmacy page on Facebook. I went home and began doing that, probably a dozen times a day – not a hardship, as I work at my computer. Two shipments would be coming in the following week, I was assured.

A week later I was told (credibly) the shipments hadn’t made it because of the cold in Texas that Ted Cruz was avoiding. I went home and began refreshing and refreshing.

The next week – this past week – I asked when the next shipment was coming in and was told by the pleasant young woman that it already had and was gone. (Two shipments had become one shipment.) I asked why the updates had never come and why all my refreshing hadn’t indicated any shipment ever had. The answer was not direct. I was advised to go to another web site and sign up there for…updates.

I trudged off and caught up with Barb, who was shopping to the tune of “Swinging School” by Bobby Rydell. I followed, considerably less happy than I usually am hearing Bobby Rydell, who is a favorite. Suddenly I said, “I’m going back there.”

“Why?”

“It’s unclear exactly what page I’m supposed to be refreshing.”

“Be nice.”

This conversation was conducted through masks, of course.

I said, “What do you mean?”

She said, “You’re a hothead.”

Never had I ever been so insulted! That she had a point was…beside the point…or something. I trudged back.

The pleasant young woman behind the counter said, “I was just going to page you.”

“Why?”

“Get your wife. We’ve had two cancellations and we start vaccinating in fifteen minutes.”

I ran – let’s call it power-walked – to Barb, pushing her cart with the patience of Sisyphus pushing his big rock, and at about the same speed.

“Come with me,” I said.

“Why?” She was understandably suspicious.

“They’ve had two cancellations.”

Suddenly my wife loved me again. Suddenly my stubborn hotheadedness had been transformed into blessed persistence.

I don’t blame anybody for this, and I do thank Hy-Vee for stepping up in the war against Covid and for the pleasant young woman having the presence of mind – and, frankly, compassion – to take advantage of those two cancellations…and the opportunity to get rid of me.

The vaccines will start flowing better, I am sure. Some of my readers support Trump, and that’s fine. I like anchovies. But nobody can say Joe Biden isn’t taking this pandemic seriously, and things are going to get better and soon. But right now it felt like the luckiest of lucky breaks to blunder in making a weekly nuisance of myself with stupid questions and a generally incompetent approach to getting vaccinated and be able to fill two cancellations and feel like our lives had been saved.

The bottom line, of course, is: it’s better to be lucky than smart.

M.A.C. waiting to get a COVID vaccine.

M.A.C. receiving the COVID vaccine.

* * *

Our sheltering in place has gone on for just about a year, Barb and I. We take it very seriously. Her health is fine, but she’s only a few months younger than me, so she needs protection and I’m not talking condoms. And I have enough underlying conditions to just check “all of the above” on a physician’s questionnaire.

So tomorrow (if you are reading this on the Tuesday it was posted) I will turn 73. It seems unreal to me, but I will tell you this – as long as I have my marbles, and can find venues that will have me, I will keep working. I will keep writing. Skim Deep is the new Nolan novel and the first one appeared in 1973, and was written around 1970. So do the math. It’s almost beyond belief that I recently wrote an entry in a series I created fifty-one years ago.

And I just completed Quarry’s Blood, in a series that began with a book I started in 1971. Fifty years ago.

Mickey Spillane used to talk to me about this – how writing was the only business you could stay at as long as you had decent health, no matter what age you might be. And that you can keep improving all along the way.

I’m not sure if that’s correct. I know there are many things I do better now, but I also know that the rigors of a work like Stolen Away might be beyond me. Nonetheless, I intend to do another Heller later this year, if the contract comes through.

Oh, as for my birthday. I am not fishing for birthday wishes, here or on Facebook or even in my snail-mail mailbox. If you want to send a gift, though, checks are best. Sorry – no PayPal account.

And if you really are, seriously, looking for a way to say Happy Birthday to me, buy one of the recent books: Come Spy With Me, Skim Deep, Masquerade for Murder, Antiques Fire Sale, Reincarnal, Shoot the Moon, Ms. Tree Vol. 2: Skeleton in the Closet, Murderlized, or maybe one of the great audiobooks that Skyboat Media is putting out (they’re doing all of the Nolans!). And the Wolfpack trade paperbacks are very handsome books indeed.

Here’s an idea: post a positive review for Max for his birthday.

* * *

I have seen some interesting things of late. I am particularly taken by a new sub-genre that Groundhog Day has spawned – specifically, movies that openly, unabashedly borrow its premise. Happy Death Day is a crafty horror-movie take on the Time Loop premise, and its sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, is more of the same but also good. Edge of Tomorrow is a strong s-f variation.

Two excellent rom-com takes are streaming right now – Palm Springs starring Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg, and The Map of Tiny Perfect Things starring Kathryn Newton and Kyle Allen. What’s fascinating about these two is that, despite both depicting a couple caught in a Time Loop with a romance developing, each is different and makes its own point. And, while both films name-check Groundhog Day on screen, they demonstrate that the Time Loop concept has plenty more places to go.

As I say, a new sub-genre.

Now to a controversial topic. Barb and I gave up on Hamilton after about 45 minutes. I’ve made it clear that I am a musical comedy fan – that I love Rodgers and Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim and Frank Loesser. The upcoming Blu-ray release of Damn Yankees has me giddy. And Hamilton certainly is a spectacle with a stage brimming with energy and talent.

What’s wrong with it – for me – is the rap/hip hop aspect. And that’s my problem. But I can’t get past it. I hate rap almost as much as I hate country western – maybe more. To my ancient ears, it’s just a bunch of rhyming and fast-talk gymnastics, and has little to do with music, although the percussive aspect is catchy in the way melodies used to be.

All-black musicals are nothing new – this one does have a few white faces dropped in – as The Wiz and Ain’t Misbehavin’ and many others demonstrate. All-black revivals of the likes of Guys and Dolls and Hello Dolly! have done very well, both critically and at the box office. But Porgy and Bess and Carmen Jones were originals, and the faithful films of both are both problematic today, I’m afraid, despite the wealth of talent on display.

Hamilton feels like a fad to me, not a Broadway classic unfolding before our eyes. But I am probably wrong.

As I said earlier, I will be 73 this week. This musical isn’t for me. As someone who has loved popular culture my entire life – loved my generation’s pop culture, but also my parents’ and my grandparents’ and much of my son’s – I am disappointed that Hamilton doesn’t touch me the way Sweeney Todd or Carousel or How To Succeed in Business do.

My fault. My loss.

* * *

Here’s a peek at the Spillane/Collins “Mike Hammer” short story, “Killer’s Alley,” in this month’s Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Just a taste….

From the great Ron Fortier comes this splendid review of Reincarnal.

Finally, here’s an article on the best Batman stories drawn by Norm Breyfogle, one of which is mine.

M.A.C.

Short Takes – Books and Movies

Tuesday, December 29th, 2020
Book cover of Shoot the Moon by Max Allan Collins
E-Book: Amazon Purchase Link
Trade Paperback: Amazon Purchase Link Barnes & Noble Purchase Link

Wolfpack has announced the January 6 publication of Shoot the Moon in a reorganization of the collection Early Crimes. This new version is the novel Shoot the Moon with a “bonus feature” of short stories at the back of the book. Shoot the Moon was my attempt to do a Westlake-like humorous suspense novel. It can be ordered as either an e-book or a physical book.

Also announced by Wolfpack is Reincarnal & Other Dark Tales (with a January 27 pub date). Right now it can only be ordered as an e-book, but a physical book is coming. This collects virtually all of my horror stories to date.

Blue Christmas & Other Holiday Homicides is already available from Wolfpack in both e-book and physical book form. It’s a collection of holiday-themed stories by me, including the title tale, which is my favorite among my short fiction.

* * *

Barb and I revisited two of the Christmas movies I recommended last time.

It Happened One Christmas is the re-imagining of It’s a Wonderful Life with a female protagonist (Marlo Thomas). I love this little movie almost as much as the original, but the truth is that It’s a Wonderful Life is a film masterpiece and It Happened One Christmas is a TV movie. A very good one with a remarkable cast, but a TV movie.

When it first appeared, It Happened One Christmas benefitted from It’s a Wonderful Life having dropped out of sight. But not long after the remake aired, the public domain showings of It’s a Wonderful Life began on PBS stations and revitalized interest in the original film. Despite the gender role reversal, the films are much the same, right down to the dialogue. This will be problematic for many meeting the remake for the first time.

It’s too bad, and I’m glad I saw the remake first, because it didn’t hurt my appreciation of the original at all. But the Marlo Thomas version is, in my opinion, still worthwhile with its strong cast including Wayne Rogers, Orson Welles, Christopher Guest, Cloris Leachman, Archie Hahn, Doris Martin, Richard Dysart, and Barney Martin. And for me a special resonance is the cinematography by Conrad Hall, who won an Academy Award for Road to Perdition.

Twelve Days of Christmas Eve held up very well on what must be my fourth or fifth visit. While it’s rather shamelessly a Ground Hog’s Day variant, it does so in a clever manner and star Steven Weber is excellent, as is Molly Shannon. If you ever try this, stick with it for a while, because it seems at first like just another TV movie, but becomes something very special as it goes along.

* * *

Barb and I were excited about being able to see at home the new Wonder Woman movie (apparently called WW 84 – and I haven’t even seen WW 83 yet!), springing for the new HBO Max streaming service to do so. And guess what? WW 84 is one of the worst superhero movies I’ve ever seen. What did Barb think? She walked out – and we live here!

Where to start? The opening on Amazon Island (or whatever it’s called) is fine. But once we get to 1984, one problem after another presents itself. Let’s get this out of the way: nothing wrong with Gal Gadot, whose super-power seems to be emerging from this crock unscathed. If you are a man, this is not a movie you want to be in, unless you are Chris Pine or a homeless black guy, as every other adult male is a lout at best and a potential rapist at worst.

Chris Pine doesn’t fare that well himself, actually. He comes back from the Great War dead to be wide-eyed and astonished by such marvels as escalators (introduced around 1900) and a subway (introduced around 1890). He tries on a lot of groovy ‘80s clothes, which (as any 1910s guy would do) he finds really cool, particularly the man purse. By the way, in this movie where men are reprehensible, Diana Prince (SPOILER ALERT: Wonder Woman) allows an unknowing male to become the receptacle for her dead boy friend’s persona and almost immediately has sex with him.

What can you say about a film whose super-villain is a blithering jackass? Really, just another weak man who happens to be an a-hole? Or about a script whose theme is wishes coming true but at a cost…a cost that never defines its boundaries (i.e., some people immediately lose whatever they gave up to get their wish, but – so that she can participate in fight scenes – Wonder Woman only very gradually loses her powers).

Then there’s Kristen Wiig, who plays her role as a supposed nebbish girl like an SNL character, then unbelievably becomes a mostly CGI bad girl (the Cheetah, a recurring Wonder Woman villain, but never named in the film). What Kristen gave up for her wish was her…niceness.

This is a super-hero movie that made me want to reconsider Green Lantern. How could the first Wonder Woman film be so good, and this one so wretched? Same director. Different result.

Still from Wonder Woman 1984, captioned: That's just a trash can.
* * *

While I haven’t dug into it yet, the Taschen coffee table tome, The History of EC Comics, was my “big gift” from Barb this year. I love these books but they are difficult to deal with. A hernia is no way to start the New Year. But what a thing of beauty this baby is.

My son Nate gave me two books in Marc Cushman’s These Are the Voyages series of big, long, in-depth tomes about Star Trek. I have mentioned here that Barb and I were trek fans before the dreaded term trekkie was even coined. We attended one of the first Star Trek conventions, and watched the episodes in syndication over and over. I bought the comic books and James Blish paperbacks. We went to dinner theater plays in Chicago starring (separately) William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. I got to know Walter Koenig, at first by mail (we traded Big Little Books) and then in person. (Later I would cast Majel Barrett Roddenberry in Mommy.) We went to Gene Roddenberry’s embarrassing film Pretty Maids All in a Row in the theater, and we stood in the cold for hours to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture (which remains one of my favorite films, for which I have no apology).

These books chronicle everything. The first three are about each original season, but now I’m reading book four, which is about the years leading up to the animated series. Cushman’s tomes are well-written and ridiculously thorough – how ridiculously thorough? How about reviews quoted at length from those dinner theater appearances I mentioned earlier? Or tons of the bad reviews Pretty Girls All in a Row got? Or what TV shows the secondary cast members appeared in between the series and the movies?

So you have to be something of a lunatic where Star Trek is concerned – the real Star Trek, that is – to want anything to do with these three-inch-thick books. And I qualify.

Thank you, son.

* * *

As a sidebar to the WW 84 review above, let me say that after recently adding movie channels to our cable and streaming channels to our Roku, I am underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time. “Over” because there is so much of it. “Under” because so little of it appeals to me.

Much of the new product seems so politically correct and painfully diverse to make me consider voting Republican (we all have our weak moments). “Free” content on most of the streaming services is commercial-ridden. But now and then I stumble onto something good.

In 2015, Colin Hanks (whose father, I understand, appeared in a very good gangster film) directed a documentary about Tower Records called All Things Must Pass. It’s an extremely well-made film in which Russ Solomon, the creator of the record-store chain, is interviewed at length; so are many of the original employees, who rose to high levels within the company, and such music luminaries as Elton John and Bruce Springsteen.

I loved Tower Records. Any time I was in a big city, I tracked Tower Records down. Each store was the same but different, reflecting the individual management and its employees. Those red letters on yellow thrill me to this day. I bought CD’s there. And books. And magazines. And laser discs. And DVDs.

In Chicago. In Los Angeles on Sunset. In New York in the Village. In Honolulu. In London. In Las Vegas. These stores were a pop culture paradise, and they still exist only in Japan, and in my memory.

I hate streaming. I hate e-books (except for the income they generate for me, of course). I am Old School. Physical Media. Physical Media. Physical Media.

Nice job, Mr. Hanks. Cool work on Fargo, too.

* * *

Among the oddball, quirky Blu-ray labels I support is Vinegar Syndrome. You should check them out. On their Black Friday sale, I bought Forgotten Gialli Volume 2 and a box set of The Beastmaster. The packaging is incredible and the bonus content mindboggling. They do intersperse “classic” porn titles between the horror and giallo and s-f titles, so take care. Some of their media gets pretty physical.

* * *

I will see you next year. By then, I will be working on Quarry’s Blood. Skim Deep was a coda to the Nolan series, and this one will be a coda to the Quarry series.

Shall we endeavor for 2021 not to suck quite so thoroughly as 2020? On the other hand, the thing I’m looking forward to about next year is getting a vaccine shot or two.

* * *

Here’s a nice recommendation for Skim Deep.

M.A.C.

Trimming the Weeds & a Reprehensible Ranger

Tuesday, July 9th, 2013

I have completed KING OF THE WEEDS, the final novel created from the six substantial Mike Hammer manuscripts in Mickey Spillane’s files.

This does not mean my collaborations with Mickey are at an end – I hope to fashion three more novels from shorter but still significant manuscripts. There are also short Hammer fragments (five or six pages) that I will continue to flesh out into short stories with an eventual collection the goal. In addition, considerably more non-Hammer material awaits in Mickey’s files, including three unproduced screenplays that I hope to turn into novels. Plus, there are short but significant non-Hammer fragments ranging from a chapter to two or three chapters, sometimes with notes, that could possibly be converted into Hammers. In addition, several outlines for Hammer novels remain (like the one I used as the basis for the audio play ENCORE FOR MURDER).

Mickey wrote and published thirteen Mike Hammer novels. I think it would be very cool if I could add another six novels (to the six I’ve completed) plus a short story collection and double that list. On the other hand, I have reached my first and most important goal – to complete the manuscripts on which Mickey had done considerable work. In several cases – like COMPLEX 90 and the Morgan the Raider novel THE CONSUMMATA – the books had even been announced in the publishing trades. I think Mickey truly intended to go back and finish most of these.

As I’ve mentioned, I will be talking with the folks at Titan at San Diego Con about continuing Hammer. I will report when I get back.

Now, while I say I have “completed” KING OF THE WEEDS, I still have work left to do. I have finished the book in the sense that I have reached the end of it. I revise as I go, a minimum of three passes per chapter and often more, with Barb editing along the way – she seeks out inconsistencies, word repetition, missing words, and makes suggestions. I always enter her corrections and deal with any revisions growing out of her edit before I move on.

Today I start the process of reading and revising. I work with red pen on a hard copy, and Barb enters the corrections and revisions as we go. How long this process takes varies book to book – a Quarry novel may take a day or two, whereas a Heller could take a whole week. This Hammer novel, which has a very complicated plot, will take two days minimum. If I hit something that strikes me as problematic, all bets are off – I will go back to the machine and start re-writing any troubled section. This happens seldom, though.

This was a tough one. I think it turned out well, and my fears have lessened that the older Mike Hammer might not please new readers who know only the wild and woolly private eye of THE BIG BANG, KISS HER GOODBYE, LADY, GO DIE! and COMPLEX 90. But the final chapters are as wild a ride as you’ll find in any of those. And I think the older Mike Hammer, with his career winding down — KING OF THE WEEDS was conceived by Mickey as the last Mike Hammer novel, after all – is very interesting.

Next week, we will be going to the San Diego Comic Con. By “we” I mean Nate, Abby, Barb and me. We will post our schedule (including two panels Nate is on) here next week. Then we will probably post brief daily updates from the con.

* * *

The Fourth of July weekend was a lot of fun with very beautiful weather. The Crusin’ gig at the Brew in Muscatine went extremely well, and lots of locals who hadn’t seen us in a while got to see the current strong line-up – earning us many great comments.

We also spent a good deal of time with my old high school buddy Ron Parker and his very cool wife Vickie, visiting from Florida where they retired after careers in the military. Ron is very smart and funny, but don’t tell him I said so. He is one of the last surviving members of our group of poker-playing pals who went through school together. How far back does this go? Well, we began playing poker together when MAVERICK was airing first-run episodes. Ron and I reminisced about Jon McRae, the basis for the John character in NO CURE FOR DEATH, and our late friend Jan McRoberts, whose mysterious death I fictionally explored in A SHROUD FOR AQUARIUS. Jim Hoffmann, who produced the MOMMY movies, was also part of that group, is also gone. Alive and well of the poker players are Mike Bloom, Nee Leau, John Leuck and David Gilfoyle – the latter the funniest of a very witty bunch of guys. Dave was nicknamed “Wheaty,” and you will meet him in my previously unpublished 1974 novel SHOOT THE MOON, if you buy the Perfect Crime collection EARLY CRIMES coming out late this summer.

The Lone Ranger

With Ron and Vickie, Barb and I went to THE LONE RANGER. I don’t like to write negative reviews, but I found the film reprehensible – misguided, misjudged, misbegotten. If we hadn’t have been with friends, we would have walked out. Disney is a company built on family entertainment, and THE LONE RANGER of radio and TV was the most wholesome of western heroes – he used silver bullets so that would not shoot his gun carelessly, and (like Superman) never killed. This LONE RANGER is an unpleasant western filled with stupid violence put together by a gifted director who wanted to pay tribute to ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and not the actual source material. The new film’s Lone Ranger is a clumsy goofus and Tonto a nasty lunatic. The tone is uneven to say the least – forced unfunny humor is interspersed with bloody violence. And it’s as slow and long as you’ve heard. Oddly, much of the 2013 LONE RANGER seems culled from the previous disastrous take on this material, the notorious 1981 flop THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER, which did not make a star out of Klinton Spilsbury. Remember that one? The producer alienated every baby boomer on the planet by suing the ‘50s TV Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore, to keep him from doing personal appearances in his mask. LEGEND is a hard film to see – my widescreen copy is from overseas – but it’s actually better than this new RANGER film (faint praise), which lifts from LEGEND such elements as making John Reid (think Clark Kent) a virtuous attorney, turning Butch Cavendish a madman, setting an action set piece on a moving train, mounting a Gatling gun massacre, and showing the Ranger and Tonto dynamiting a bunch of stuff (a bridge in the new picture, a dam in the other).

The 2013 movie actually ends with the Lone Ranger finally uttering his signature line, “Hiyo Silver, away,” and Tonto telling him never to say that again. The Ranger apologizes, of course. The final line of the movie is a reminder that “tonto” means “stupid” in Spanish. These filmmakers are embarrassed by the material they were hired to re-boot, and should be ashamed of themselves. When would Barb and I have walked out had we not been with Ron and Vickie? How about when Tonto, for a cruel gag, drags a barely conscious, wounded Lone Ranger through horse dung? Or maybe when the grand steed Silver drinks beer and belches. RULE NUMBER ONE IN ADAPTING FAMOUS MATERIAL: Do not have contempt for it.

M.A.C.