That’s me in this week’s pic fondling my Audie award, taken in my basement book room. Very proud of this one (for THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MIKE HAMMER: THE LITTLE DEATH). The crystal award is actually a very beautiful object. Thanks to producer Carl Amari (TWILIGHT ZONE radio series) for the great opportunity.
This will be a short update, but I will be posting on a daily basis from the San Diego Comic-con – expect the first missive to appear Thursday morning July 21 and every day thereafter through July 25. Look for pictures of celebrities who are, I hope, bigger deals than the one depicted with this posting.
Not long ago I went in to Chicago to meet with sports radio legend Mike North – a great guy, as smart as he is funny (which is pretty damn smart) – to continue exploring a movie project on his life, which is sort of Horatio Alger Chicago-style, from hot dog vendor to radio superstar. Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker covered it in his column, but you’ll have to scroll down past the GLEE stuff.
One of the fun things about the Internet is the occasional quirky, personal review of a book that turns up, very much not in the vein of traditional criticism. Check out this fun look at STRIP FOR MURDER from a reviewer who objects to my anti-anti-Communism – he prefers Joe McCarthy to Ed Murrow! Lots of discussion of Al Capp and Ham Fisher here.
We’ll close out with threemorereviews of the Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD of KISS ME DEADLY, all of which mention my documentary MIKE HAMMER’S MICKEY SPILLANE.
Barb and I will be doing at least three more ANTIQUES “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mysteries for Kensington after the end of our current contract. This is three books beyond the recently completed ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF (which will be out about a year from now), taking us all the way into 2014. I give the lion’s share of credit to Barb, whose unique vision and sense of humor makes these books so special.
THE BIG BANG, which I did not expect to see on sale until mid-May, is available now from Amazon, and I’ve seen it at a Border’s, as well, so I am assuming you can find it whether you buy your books, whether in cyber space, a chain outlet or an indie bookshop. Strong sales on this one are key for me to be able to turn the remaining trio of Spillane/Hammer manuscripts into finished novels. (KISS HER GOODBYE has been delivered and will be out next year.)
Also on the Spillane/Hammer front, this weekend I did final revisions on the next NEW ADVENTURES OF MIKE HAMMER radio “novel,” ENCORE FOR MURDER. The basis is a one-page outline of an unwritten novel by Mickey Spillane. The notes from producer Carl Amari and star Stacy Keach were minimal, and the script is put to bed. We record it in Chicago next month.
I also read the galleys for QUARRY’S EX, doing final tweaks and corrections. This will be published in October by Hard Case Crime. Whether there will be any further Quarry books remains to be seen.
There were several nice mentions of my work on the internet this past week.
There are been several nice mentions on the net about my history-of-hardboiled-short-fiction intro to BLOOD, GUTS & WHISKEY, the Thuglit anthology. This one’s that terrific writer, Tom Piccirilli.
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.
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.
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.
Now I am headed back to work on my draft of ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF by Barbara Allan.
This is probably my record year for number of books published (and for me that’s saying something, I know). But I’m really proud of what Barb and I have accomplished of late, and want to make sure you’re aware of what’s out there already, and what’s coming.
In September from Kensington, “Barbara Allan” (Barb and me) will have the reprint of ANTIQUES MAUL (ISBN 978-0-7582-1194-1) out and the new “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mystery, too: ANTIQUES FLEE MARKET (ISBN 978-0-7582-1195-8), with a Christmas theme. It’s been getting the best reviews of the series yet. These are funny cozies with an edge, and fans of my tougher stuff may be surprised by how much they’ll enjoy these…and we’ve just signed to do two more!
Very soon Harcourt will publish the first new Mike Hammer novel in over a decade — THE GOLIATH BONE (ISBN 978-0-15-101454-5), which I completed from Mickey Spillane’s nearly finished manuscript. This is the first of at least three Hammers I will complete from manuscripts Mickey entrusted to me. To say this is an honor and a thrill is an extreme understatement. It’s also getting great advance notices. Do not miss this one!
The success of THE LAST QUARRY (which has been made into the film THE LAST LULLABY, on the festival circuit now) has led to the new prequel, THE FIRST QUARRY (ISBN 0-8439-5965-7), which Hard Case will publish in paperback in the fall. This is also getting wonderful advance reviews. This one is definitely not cozy, and could be the nastiest noir novel I’ve ever written….
I’m pleased to report that in December VCI Home Entertainment is bringing out my documentary, CAVEMAN: V.T. HAMLIN & ALLEY OOP on DVD! It’s a great package, with an extended Will Eisner interview and a panel discussion at a Des Moines Historical Museum screen of the film that features me, producer Mark Lambert and the current OOP writer and artist team, Jack and Carole Bender. CAVEMAN has been seen several times on Iowa PBS as part of the celebration of the OOP strip’s 75th Anniversary. (This means all of my indie films will now be available on DVD.)
For the past several months, Barb and I have been out in the midwest, appearing at bookstores and libraries and other events, talking about various books (including those just mentioned) and other projects. Here’s what we’ve been talking about:
STRIP FOR MURDER from Berkley Prime Crime — a snazzy trade paperback, a Rex Stout-style mystery that combines graphic novel elements (my longtime MS. TREE cohort Terry Beatty did the comic art), and is a lot of fun. The story is loosely based on the notorious Al Capp (Li’l Abner)/Ham Fisher (Joe Palooka) feud.
RED SKY IN MORNING (ISBN 978-0-06-089255-5) is by “Patrick Culhane” — the byline I began with the Wyatt Earp/Al Capone novel, BLACK HATS (in mass-market paperback now, ISBN 978-0-06-089254-8). This one is special to me, a book I’ve planned for decades based on my father’s experiences in the Navy in WW 2 as a young officer in charge of black sailors handling explosives in the Pacific. It’s my CAINE MUTINY, hinging on the infamous Port Chicago disaster, but there is a mystery. You may have this on the way — please don’t miss RED SKY. EQMM’s Jon Breen says it’s one of my best.
Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz at Forbidden Planet
In non-literary news, I’m thrilled to report that my ’60s garage band, the Daybreakers, has been inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Over the Labor Day weekend, we appeared with seven other inductee bands in concert at Arnold’s Park on Lake Okoboji, to a packed house of over 1000 rock fans. What made this truly special was that the original line-up of the band — guitarist Mike Bridges, bassist Chuck Bunn, guitarist Dennis Maxwell and drummer Buddy Busch (and me) — were able to assemble from around the country and reunite both to be honored and to perform for the first time together since 1968. We did half an hour and, frankly, we killed — a magical set in which we took a major risk, doing mostly original material at an oldies show!
Of course, our major claim to fame nationally (make that our only claim to fame nationally) was our infamous single “Psychedelic Siren”/”Afterthoughts.” “Siren” is one of the most anthologized garage-band songs of the ’60s, currently available on a Sundazed CD called GARAGE BAND ‘66: Speak of the Devil. We managed to reproduce the siren sound on stage and the crowd went nuts. We also played live, for the first time, “I Need Somebody,” an original written by our late great bandmate, Bruce Peters.
A limited edition of 100 CDs called “THE DAYBREAKERS aka Crusin’ — The Hall of Fame Collection” was pressed for the show. This is essentially the long-out-of-print “Thirty Year Plan,” and is filled with Daybreakers/Crusin’ recordings, studio, demo, live, from 1967’s “Psychedelic Siren” to the ’90s songs from the “Mommy” movies. We have about forty of these left.
For $15 postpaid (plus $7.50 for shipping outside the U.S.), you can get a copy of “The Hall of Fame Collection.” For $25 (plus $7.50 for shipping outside the U.S.), you can get a copy signed by the entire band (there are only 15 of these).
Pay with PayPal:
Or send a check to:
MAC Productions
301 Fairview Ave.
Muscatine, IA 52761
We have uploaded footage of “Psychedelic Siren” from our Hall of Fame performance. Check back soon for more clips!
And Crusin’ has added Daybreaker bassist Chuck Bunn to the mix, and will be performing more in the midwest than in recent years. Stay tuned!
