Perhaps to celebrate my birthday day next week (March 3rd), Amazon is putting on sale almost all of my novels under their Thomas & Mercer imprint…for 99 cents each! It’s part of their Mystery, Thriller and Suspense Fiction book deals and runs throughout March, starting this Friday.

This includes all but the most recent Nathan Heller novels (the historical P.I. series that I consider my best work); here’s the list:

Chicago Confidential (2002)
Angel in Black (2001)
Majic Man (1999)
Flying Blind (1998)
Damned in Paradise (1996)
Blood and Thunder (1995)
Carnal Hours (1994)
Stolen Away (1991)
Neon Mirage (1988)
The Million-Dollar Wound (1986)
True Crime (1984)
True Detective (1983)

Also included in the Magical Max Allan Collins Birthday Sale is the entire run of Mallory novels:

Nice Weekend for a Murder (1986)
A Shroud for Aquarius (1985)
Kill Your Darlings (1984)
No Cure for Death (1983)
The Baby Blue Rip-Off (1982)

Also the “disaster” series:

The War of the Worlds Murder (2005)
The London Blitz Murders (2004)
The Lusitania Murders (2002)
The Pearl Harbor Murders (2001)
The Hindenburg Murders (2000)
The Titanic Murders (1999)

Plus these:

Executive Order (2017)
What Doesn’t Kill Her (2013)
Midnight Haul (1986)

So if you were wondering what you should get me for my 71st birthday, I am far too selfless to want anything at all. Instead, why don’t you treat yourself to some under-a-buck books by me? It’s possible I will give any royalties to charity.

I mean, it’s possible.

Here’s a gallery of photos from the Mob Museum in Las Vegas on Feb. 16 when my Scarface and the Untouchable co-author, A. Brad Schwartz, interviewed me before a nice audience about Road to Perdition and Nate Heller, specifically the Vegas-centric Neon Mirage.

The announcement of Titan bringing out volumes collecting the complete Ms. Tree got a lot of play on the Internet and even in the print world, via The Hollywood Reporter (their story here).

It’s gratifying that – especially in the comics world – Ms. Tree artist/co-creator Terry Beatty and I received so much cyber-ink on this announcement. I stopped counting at a dozen write-ups! As John Huston as Noah Cross says in Chinatown, “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

There does seem to be some confusion about what exactly this first volume is – is it a re-launch with new material? Is it a “best of”?

No, it’s the complete run, although (at my request) we are starting at the end, with the ten graphic novellas we did for DC Comics in the early ‘90s. Five of them are collected in this first book to make up a graphic novel called One Mean Mother. (My preferred title – Drop Dead, Handsome – was overruled.)

Scroll down to see a brief but nice review of Killing Town from Steve Steinbock in The Jury Box in EQMM.

Here’s another brief bit from a reader who indicates we’ll be hearing more from her about Quarry and me.

This is a review of Girl Most Likely from a blogger, and it’s essentially good review, but I hate it. The reviewer quotes from an advance copy, which clearly advises against quoting since it’s not the final text, and blames me for the insertion (by an editor) of a “#” (hashtag) in a “MeToo” mention in dialogue. I had already asked the hashtag to be removed. (And I wrote the reviewer complaining about this breach and he did not post my comment.) His general tone is patronizing, and he has no understanding of the use of clothing description for characterization purposes. He complains that a plot avenue isn’t resolved when it is. He says the killer’s identity comes out of left field when another reviewer accused me of making it too overly obvious (as we say in the comics, “Sigh”).

A much better review is scheduled to appear in the next issue of Booklist, which I’ll share next week.

Finally, guess what film based on a graphic novel is on a “best gangster movies of all time” list?

M.A.C.

Tags: Appearances, Deals, Disaster Series, Girl Most Likely, Killing Town, Mallory, Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer, Ms. Tree, Nathan Heller, Quarry, Quarry's Deal, Reviews, Scarface and the Untouchable, Spillane, The Dealer