Archive for July, 2020

A Typical Day in the Neighborhood

Tuesday, July 28th, 2020

In previous updates, I’ve mentioned that I am currently working with two publishers who are primarily e-book-oriented. One is Wolfpack, where I’ve just sent in my first original novel (co-written with my longtime collaborator Matt Clemens). I am not ready to reveal the title or the genre as yet, but I will say we’ve committed to at least three entries in this new series, and that I’m very pleased and excited with/by this first entry.

Wolfpack ad for Eliot Ness Omnibus

Wolfpack continues to be incredibly supportive. Take a gander at this ad that ran in Publisher’s Weekly for their first publication of my work – The Eliot Ness Mystery Omnibus, which collects the four Ness-in-Cleveland novels. For those of you with Kindles, you can get this omnibus – all four novels – for $2.99 (free for Prime Unlimited members).

Those of who you have already read these and own them in some other form are encouraged to write reviews of the omnibus, which as of now has only a single, lonely review. And Do No Harm, Girl Can’t Help It, Masquerade for Murder, Antiques Fire Sale and Hot Lead, Cold Justice have all kind of stalled out on the review front, so if you haven’t got around to posting yours, doing so would be appreciated.

The other e-book project I’m working on is for a new company that got a splashy welcome fromThe Hollywood Reporter (among others).

I am not ready to reveal what the Neotext project is, other than to say it’s a new detective series with a female lead and that I’m doing three novellas (30,000 words each) about the character. Okay, here’s a few more tidbits – it’s set during World War II, and it will be illustrated by a terrific Hard Case Crime artist, providing not just a cover but one painting per each chapter (ten per novella).

Initially these novellas will be published as e-books, one at a time, with an eye on later collecting them in physical book form. But so far Neotext itself is strictly an e-book publisher.

I am starting work this week on the second novella for Neotext. And Matt and I are meeting, via Zoom, to plot the second novel for Wolfpack. Both publishers have me creating new series, although Wolfpack is also publishing back list (including short story collections) and are up for me continuing existing series…in fact, have signed me to continue both Krista Larson and Reeder & Rogers.

This brings me to the non-promotional (at least not overtly so) portion of this update.

A question I am frequently asked is what my work schedule is – “What’s your typical day?”

In a way, I don’t have a typical day. Each morning does begin about the same, with the usual rising groggily, throwing down a handful of pills, scarfing down a mini-donut or two, guzzling some sparkling juice, and spending half an hour or so in my recliner watching Morning Joe (I’m a liberal – get over it).

Barb, in her neighboring recliner, always says, “Tell me about your day in the greatest of detail.” And I share my best-laid plans before the day proceeds to do whatever the hell it feels like.

When I am bunkered in writing a novel, which is most of the time, I attempt to write in the morning with lunch arriving no earlier than 11 a.m. and no later than noon. We used to go out for it, but now we rustle up our own (yes, I help in the kitchen, though my efforts are somewhat pathetic). When lunch happens depends on how my writing is going and, of course, how Barb’s writing is going. Barb has to get her writing done in the morning, as she is providing Day Care for our two grandkids a few houses up the street from one p.m. till shortly after five. I write all afternoon.

But fulltime freelance writing is a small business and both of us have to deal with business stuff as well as feed our muses – Barb in particular handles the financial side of things. But I have editors and agents and collaborators to deal with, and when galley proofs arrive I generally have to set my work schedule aside and deal with that aspect of things.

Between novels I do my best to attend to smaller projects, like short stories and the intros to the IDW Dick Tracy collections. I also always clean my office, which deteriorates to disaster-level proportions as a novel progresses – scattered research volumes, wadded-up paper on the floor, discarded drafts of pages and even chapters, and so on.

Also intruding on the actual writing are the requests for interviews, which I mostly try to handle via e-mail, but which sometimes require the phone or Skype or Zoom. These updates are written either Sunday evening, late, or first thing Monday. The longer ones sometime drain my energy to the point that no other significant writing gets done that day.

My pattern has changed radically over the years. As some of you may recall, for much of my professional life I was a night person who did most of his writing starting around midnight, going to bed at eight or nine a.m. and sleeping till noon. I had enormous energy as a younger person, needing little sleep; most nights I wrote a finished chapter, including long ones like those in a Nate Heller novel. But when we did the Mommy movies, and I had to rise at six a.m. or so – the director has to be first on the set and last to leave – my inner clock got changed. Ever since, I’ve rarely risen any later than eight a.m. or so. Now, as an old man (goddamnit!), I sometimes wake as early as six a.m.

And I hate it.

On such mornings, I start writing early, even before Barb gets up. So there are factors that come in, as you may have already noticed, that mean there is no really typical day.

On the other hand, sheltering in place for the corona virus has made one day seem much like another. Oddly, for Barb and me, time is passing more quickly, which seems like the opposite of what you’d expect.

* * *

The Quarry series was selected by Crime Reads as one of ten most binge-worthy series of the 1970s, which is a nice honor. In the comments, I corrected the assumption that the Memphis setting of the TV series is the same as the books.

Here is the opening sentence of a patronizing review of the Johnny Dynamite collection: “The opening introduction by writer Max Allan Collins is more a biographical essay about writer Frank Morrison Spillane (alias Micky Spillane) and writer/artist Pete Morisi. Not to mention it is excessively long. (Then again the title of this collection is also excessively long.) Though Collins’s introduction should please those wanting more knowledge about the subjects’ lives and/or the early comic book industry. While the introduction by artist Terry Beatty is of reasonable length it has one or two sentences that are a little clunky.”

I have a few thoughts to share. First, what other kind of introduction is there but an “opening” one? Second, if you’re going to be dismissive about Mickey Spillane’s role in this collection, at least spell his name right (not “Micky”). If you’re going to accuse my co-editor of writing a “clunky” sentence, perhaps you should learn to write in complete sentences yourself. Do you wonder why reviews like this irritate me?

On the other hand, here is Ed Catto’s terrific (and well-written) review of that same book, interspersed with quotes from an interview I gave Ed.

Here’s a brief, positive review of Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher – the non-fiction follow-up to Scarface and the Untouchable by A. Brad Schwartz and myself that will be published…next week!

Finally, the “lost gem” that is my single Batman comic strip continuity (with the late great Marshal Rogers) is discussed here.

M.A.C.

Two Jakes and the Fifth Mason

Tuesday, July 21st, 2020

Barb and I send our deepest condolences to our friend and partner, Jane Spillane, whose grandson Justin died over the weekend. He was a victim of the Coronavirus and only 33.

If you wish to send your positive thoughts to Jane, I suggest you do so here, in the comments section, where she will see them. Fans of Mickey and Mike Hammer owe everything to Jane for her dedication in seeing her late husband’s work celebrated and completed.

* * *
The Two Jakes Blu-Ray Cover

In these dark days, being pleasantly surprised is a rarity. But my eyes – and my day – lit up when I learned that the Chinatown sequel, The Two Jakes, would soon be released on Blu-ray disc on September 15. And it’s only $9.99…right here.

That only leaves the 1953 3-D I, the Jury to find a home on Blu-ray to mean all my video white whales have been harpooned.

So this week, rather than remind you how important it is for you to review my novels at Amazon, I am selflessly hawking someone else’s product. Because I am at heart a fan. No. A shameless fan. I particularly like loving movies I’m not supposed to. I love Shock Treatment, for example, the sequel to Rocky Horror Picture Show. I think Start the Revolution Without Me is the funniest film ever made, and most of you haven’t even heard of it. I think both I, the Jury films are terrific, and I don’t even care that Mickey Spillane himself didn’t agree with me. And I hate E.T., Grease and Saturday Night Fever, so sue me.

So I am here today to try to talk sense into you and convince you that – after you pre-order Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher – you also pre-order the Blu-ray of The Two Jakes.

These are my 2012 thoughts on The Two Jakes:

Whether you disliked The Two Jakes or avoided seeing it out of misguided respect to Chinatown, you need to give it a serious look. It works extremely well when your mind is fresh with the first Gittes film, as it’s a coda of sorts that is intertwined with Chinatown both on the plot and thematic level. On its own terms, it’s an intelligent private eye film, directed by Nicholson with restraint and sense of style and mood. As a ten years later continuation of Chinatown, the second film has resonance and substance.

Of course, The Two Jakes is not on the level of Chinatown. Nicholson studiously avoided any melodrama and even left some plot elements (including a killing and a great post-courtroom comeuppance for a Noah Cross-style villain) on the cutting room floor, after his initial cut was deemed too lengthy. Apparently Towne was unhappy with those cuts, but that doesn’t keep The Two Jakes from being a worthy, rewarding coda to the greatest private eye film of all time (yes, even better than Kiss Me Deadly).

For a film to be great, the gods must smile – everything must fall into place, all creative talents must be perfect for their roles (whether actor or otherwise) and at the top of their game. Luck and magic must happen. Chinatown originally had what is said to be a lousy score, and Jerry Goldsmith was brought in at the last minute to write (in a little over a week) what is now considered one of most memorable film scores of all time. The Two Jakes suffers from what is at best a serviceable score (by Van Dyke Parks), and at worst an intrusive one.

(2020 note: Phillip Lambro’s original Chinatown score – under the title Los Angeles, 1937is available on CD at Amazon and perhaps a few other venues. It’s interesting but not a patch on Goldsmith. A combo of both the Chinatown and The Two Jakes scores is available on Amazon as well, pricey; but listening to it has warmed me somewhat to the Parks score.)

Nonetheless, The Two Jakes deserves its own Blu-ray. On my sound system, the unmemorable music swamps the dialogue; perhaps the Blu-ray format, with its excellent sound, would remedy that. But it took Paramount this long to release Chinatown, so….

And I suppose it’s too late to hope that Nicholson and Towne might get together one last time for Gittes Vs. Gittes, the third film in the trilogy, derailed by the lack of commercial success for The Two Jakes (not intended as a coda, but a pastoral fugue of a second act). The trilogy was to be water (Chinatown), fire (The Two Jakes) and air (Gittes Vs. Gittes). The third film would have been set in 1968 and deal with the end of no fault divorce, a reclusive Howard Hughes-type villain, and the LA freeway system. Call that one the greatest private eye film never made.

Meanwhile, back in 2020….

Check out Kevin Burton Smith’s thoughts on The Two Jakes (at his great Thrilling Detective Web Site), which includes defenses from Roger Ebert, Terrill Lankford, and Frederick Zackel.

My opinion of The Two Jakes has, if anything risen over the years. Every time I watch it – and I’ve seen it perhaps eight times – I find deeper resonance. I still wish a longer cut existed, including a more satisfying, complete resolution of the various mysteries, including the Noah Cross-like character. But that unfinished aspect of the narrative only makes it fit more snugly into the Chinatown theme that Gittes, for all his mastery of the muddy waters he swims in, is again in over his head.

I cannot think of a private eye film since Chinatown that is better than The Two Jakes, and I cannot think of a private eye movie better than The Two Jakes that has appeared since.

People often assume that Chinatown had a good deal to do with my creation of Nate Heller in True Detective (the original title of which was meant to be Tower Town). And I suppose that’s true, although I had already created Heller as a proposed comic strip character in a Depression-era setting, and come to the realization that the private eye had been around long enough to exist in an historical context.

What Chinatown inspired me to try to accomplish was to bring an emotional resonance to the private eye story – and to other crime stories with a tough everyman protagonist, whether private eye or not. To accomplish between the covers of a book the power of Chinatown or Vertigo, to be surprising and moving and touch something deep. I like to think that Nate Heller, over the course of what has become a saga, has done (and continues to do) that. Maybe Quarry, too, but at more of a distance.

* * *

I am still watching Perry Mason on HBO. Why do I continue the suffering? It’s a combination of professional curiosity – they are working my side of the street, after all – and I am a longtime Perry Mason/Raymond Burr/Erle Stanley Gardner fan and just can’t help myself.

The fifth episode finally showed some promise, but the series remains its own worst enemy. Beautifully shot, generally well-acted – though its score is a lazy embarrassment (I described it elsewhere as random piano chords and a trumpet player trying to remember the Chinatown theme and failing) – it insists on portraying a dour world with a dour protagonist. Additionally, it stubbornly swamps the good will its famous name brings by wallowing in political correctness – Della Street is a lesbian, of course. God help us if they reboot I Love Lucy.

A major problem remains a jarring insistence on using the “f” word with the casualness of today in a visually accurate rendition of yesterday. Among the anachronisms in the dialogue of episode five are “throwing shade on” and “enablers.” Yeah, sounds just like The Front Page, doesn’t it?

But at least (and if you haven’t seen episode five, consider yourself Spoiler Alerted) they moved Mason himself closer to the Gardner premise, i.e., he is on the threshold of becoming a defense lawyer. They do it cleverly, by having Mason pass the Bar Exam after being schooled privately and secretly (albeit in public) by an assistant D.A. on the make – a guy named Hamilton Burger. Now I guessed this the moment the new actor walked into the diner where the schooling begins, and I smiled. Finally. Something resonant and clever.

And then Burger starts giving Perry one example of the kind of legal problem typical of the exam and we fade out, and suddenly Mason – at last clean-shaven and not in his rumpled leather jacket – is being sworn in as an attorney. But this comes after Burger hasn’t even finished asking Mason that one question!

Yet the same episode spent much more time showing Paul Drake – you remember, Paul, the African-American uniformed cop? – and his pregnant wife and friends lounging on a Santa Monica beach, causing no trouble, only to be rousted off by another (not African-American) cop…cut to Paul crying in bed and his wife comforting him. I’m guessing this obvious, plot-free sequence lasts three or four times as long as the one in which Perry Mason is…trained to become a lawyer!

Maybe, maybe, maybe if they can get the gloom out of their system, and get this guy into a suit and a tie and a courtroom, Matthew Rhys can become Perry Mason – his acting improves when he has more to do than feel sorry for himself, as when he gets tough with a shyster. For now, the good is drowning in the bad, and even the gifted Orphan Black star, Tatiana Maslany, seems lost in her role as an Aimee Semple Mcpherson-style evangelist. Am I phony? she seems to be wondering. Or a real visionary? Or maybe a money-grubbing charlatan always in on the scam? Who knows? Clearly not this talented actress.

M.A.C.

Wolfpack Announces “Mommy” Duo

Tuesday, July 14th, 2020

I have had a very positive response to my announcement of signing a deal with Wolfpack Publishing. The readers who think enough of my work to check in here are happy to know that the door is open for me to revive and continue various series (or write sequels to standalones) that would otherwise be of no interest to my other publishers.

But let me assure all of you that, for now at least, I am still aligned with a number of mainstream publishers. Mike Hammer is still attached to Titan, who have been incredibly supportive of my efforts to complete (not continue) Mickey’s work. Under the Titan umbrella, but very much its own entity, Hard Case Crime – under the able leadership of Charles Ardai – continues to support Quarry and other work of mine. The Antiques series is no longer at Kensington, but is moving elsewhere (to be announced), though Caleb York will stay at that house as long they want him (and me).

These are early days at Wolfpack, but I can safely say that all of the original titles – including the novel I just delivered – will be published as physical books as well as e-books. This will include the new short story collections, and I hope the same will be true of the reprinted collections. (The Ness Omnibus is too large to be published as one book, but we are discussing the individual novels coming out in physical form.)

By the way, I do intend to continue my regular book giveaways with the original Wolfpack titles, to generate much-needed reviews. (Speaking of which, if you “owe” me reviews from past giveaways, better late than never.)

Coming soon – I don’t have a date to share just yet – will be a book collecting both Mommy novels. They will appear as a single e-book, but also as a “real” book, the first time both have been gathered together, which is something I always hoped for. Always intended.

Mommy Mommy's Day: A Suspense Duo cover

I am sharing the cover with you this week, because I think it’s terrific. I find it very amusing because it plays off a line I came up with early on, in not only promoting Mommy as a home video release, but in putting together the investor proposal that raised the funds for the first feature’s production back in 1994. Specifically, I described the Mommy character as “June Cleaver with a cleaver,” and the art for this cover pictures her just that way (the reflection design is incredibly cool, in my opinion). Now, Mommy doesn’t actually wield a cleaver in either novel. Readers will have to accept that image as metaphorical, settling for the neck-breaking, electrocutions, shootings, and butcher-knife stabbings (among other things) that appear in the two novels.

Mommy and Mommy’s Day were originally published by Leisure Books in the late ‘90s. They were essentially tie-in’s to the DVD release of the movies (which came out on VHS in 1995 and 1997 respectively, and had a few theatrical screenings). The two books were novelizations of my screenplays, written during that period of my career when writing movie tie-in novels was a major part of how I supported myself as a freelance writer.

I had contracts for Nate Heller and other original work of mine with major mainstream publishers at the time, but those publishers – concerned about my selfishly prolific ways, crassly designed that I might make a living – did not want me to publish more than a couple of books a year, or better still just one. It wasn’t that I was being paid poorly, just that a paycheck for, say, $20,000, wasn’t something my family and I could live on for a year.

Because the Dick Tracy novelization (1990) – written strictly because I was then the scripter of the comic strip and had a proprietary attitude toward the property – was a success, I was able a few years later, post-Tracy, to offer myself as a writer of tie-ins. I loved doing the movie novels, because I was able to write all kinds of different genres and really flex my muscles, pursue interests beyond suspense, and learn new techniques. After all, I did Tom Clancy style techo-thrillers (Air Force One), war novels (Saving Private Ryan), westerns (Maverick), science fiction (Waterworld), sword and sorcery (Scorpion King), horror (The Mummy), espionage (I Spy), humor (The Pink Panther), and much more. Doing the novel for the second X-Files film was a real kick, as I was (and am) a big fan of the series. Eventually I was able to write original novels for such TV shows as NYPD Blue and (with Matt Clemens aiding and abetting) CSI, Dark Angel and Criminal Minds.

So it was natural for me to novelize my own two movies. I approached Leisure Books because one of their specialties was horror, and Mommy was psychological horror, often assumed to be an unofficial sequel to the classic The Bad Seed (I considered it more an homage).

Those two books are the most unusual novelizations I ever wrote, with the exception of Road to Perdition, where I was novelizing someone else’s version of my own work. What made the Mommy novels unusual was how different the process was from the usual novelization approach.

I have a feeling that many, if not most, readers assume that the novelizer of a film has seen – or perhaps has been provided a DVD (or back in the day, VHS) of the movie – for reference. That is never the case (almost never, as I will explain). Generally speaking, the film is being shot at the same time the book is written. The writer works from a script. I would make a novel out of the script from which the director was simultaneously making a movie. In surprisingly rare cases, the writer sees stills from the set, and even more rare a “sizzle” real designed for merchandising. A couple of times I saw the footage for films that fast food chains were viewing to decided whether to make a Happy Meal.

Which is an important aspect of explaining this: a novelization of a film is an ephemeral side product, like an action figure or lunch box. Novelizations happen less frequently now because one of their functions, maybe their main function, was to give fans of a movie an opportunity to re-experience it in those dimly remembered days prior to home video.

Often the script the novelizer works from is not the final shooting script – in fact, almost always it isn’t. In the case of I Spy, I was sent the script pages of a new ending that needed to be turned into prose just days before the book was to go into publication. Some studios didn’t care if the book wasn’t consistent with the finished film, which has made some novelizations highly collectible for the glimpses into what might have made it onto the screen, or for fans to experience scenes that had been cut.

Interestingly, many readers – wrongly assuming the novel came first – aren’t bothered by such inconsistencies at all.

The Mommy novels, because I had complete control over them, lacked the usual studio constraints. Both features were completed before novel rights were sold. Of the two, Mommy is probably the most satisfying, because I was able to start the story several months before the action of the film. So the first third or so is not in the movie version.
Mommy’s Day, a somewhat more complex story than its predecessor, filled out the desired number of pages without such extra material.

What made writing both novels unique in the novelization experience was my intimate familiarity with both movies. I was in the editing suite with director of photography/editor Phil Dingeldein every step of the way. While Phil is as expert an editor as I could imagine working with, he and I made each decision together, from which takes and camera angles to utilize to the length of holding shots. I loved the editing process, and eventually essentially edited my second documentary, Caveman: V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop, at home, by use of freeze frame and time code, making a list for the assembly of edits. (Phil was not on that project.)

The director of a film sees it countless times. I know every frame of both Mommy films, every nuance, every line reading, every facial expression, every pause, every damn thing, so intimately that even today when I watch either film (or any of my films) I remember them in a way that is true of none of my novels or short stories.

So when I sat down to write the novels of the Mommy movies, I was recording them in a way unlike any other novelizations I’d written. At times it was a burden, because I was describing my indelible memories of the expressions on the faces of actors, and their line readings; of the sets, the locations, the lighting.

But it was also an opportunity to correct things I hadn’t been able to control in the editing suite. In editing, you have to deal with what you shot. If you never got exactly the line reading you wanted, but practicality made you move on, you’re stuck with what you settled for. Here I could tweak things further.

In a very real way, Mommy and Mommy’s Day are the only movie novelizations I ever wrote. Everything else was a novelization of a script.

My mantra, where writing movie novels was concerned, was always to make the novelization read like the book the movie was based on. I think I was very good at that. Oddly, making the novelizations of my own movies achieve that goal was trickier than usual. But I’m confident I succeeded.

I am thrilled to have these novels collected into one book – as I said, I always wanted that, always intended it. And, very soon, Wolfpack will make that happen.

* * *

Here’s what DICK TRACY 2 would have been. Gee, wonder if I would have gotten credit….

Finally, though you’ll have to scroll down a bit, here’s a great review of Hot Lead, Cold Justice.

M.A.C. Makes a “Wolf” Pact, and It’s Dynamite!

Tuesday, July 7th, 2020
An Eliot Ness Mystery Omnibus
E-Book: Amazon Purchase Link

I am happy to announce that I have signed with Wolfpack Publishing to bring out some old titles – and, soon, brand-new ones. First up is the Eliot Ness Mystery Omnibus, which includes all four Eliot Ness in Cleveland novels, and is priced at $2.99.

This is an e-book, available only on Kindle (i.e., at Amazon). There’s a good possibility the novels will be available individually as “real” books, but the omnibus is strictly an e-book collection.

Having the four Ness novels, covering his time as Cleveland’s young, hardhitting Safety Director, is particularly satisfying, with the non-fiction account, Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher coming in August from Morrow – the follow-up by A. Brad Schwartz and myself to Scarface and the Untouchable.

Together those two non-fiction titles essentially comprise a full-length biography of Eliot Ness. That massive project began with the research for the four novels collected in the Eliot Ness Mystery Omnibus, which were the first time the Cleveland years had been looked at in depth, and the first time crime/mystery novels about actual cases of America’s most famous real-life detective had ever been written. Butcher’s Dozen was the first book-length treatment of the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run serial killer case, and has been much imitated and plundered by novelists, graphic novelists and even non-fiction accounts.

The research George Hagenauer and I did for those four novels was – I say with no modesty at all – groundbreaking, and formed the basis of the eventual in depth research for the non-fiction Butcher book, with Brad Schwartz building mightily on that initial research. (My play and video feature, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, also pathed the way for these two non-fiction opuses.)

Wolfpack Publishing is one of the fastest-growing and most successful new publishers, as detailed in a glowing Publisher’s Weekly piece that you should check out.

My longtime friend Paul Bishop, a terrific writer (and terrific guy), has encouraged my bringing my work to Wolfpack, where he is acquisitions editor, with the visionary Mike Bray the publisher. Wolfpack is a “hybrid” house, which means – unlike traditional publishers – they place primary importance on e-books and secondary importance on real books, which are Print-on-Demand.

It should be said that Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer, where the Heller and other titles of my backlist have been very successful (as have been half a dozen original novels, including the current Girl Can’t Help It) are similarly a hybrid publisher. So I’ve had a positive experience with this publishing paradigm before.

The Corona Virus pandemic has seen a real jump in sales of e-books while at the same time traditional publishers are at least somewhat frozen in place. Several of my current publishers are either not buying anything or are curtailing the amount of what they contract to publish. For me, already prolific, I found myself facing sheltering in place with a dwindling number of projects to keep me busy.

As it happens, two opportunities came along in the e-book world, one of them Wolfpack, that I quickly embraced. (The other one I will discuss at a later time, but it’s also exciting.)

In addition to the four Ness novels, I have licensed the two Mommy novels to Wolfpack, and Shoot the Moon (the novel in the now out-of-print collection, Early Crimes) as well. Even more exciting, at least to me, are half a dozen short story collections we will be doing for Wolfpack. These include Barb’s Too Many Tomcats, our joint collection Murder – His and Hers, and my Blue Christmas collection of holiday-themed mystery and crime stories.

Also, three new collections are included in the Wolfpack pack: Suspense – His and Hers from Barbara and Max Allan Collins; Murderlized, an enormous gathering of almost every short story Matt Clemens and I have done together; and Reincarnal, bringing together virtually all of my horror short stories (and two radio scripts from Dreadtime Stories).

I will also be doing some original novels for Wolfpack (I hinted at this in recent Updates). Matt Clemens and I have a new series, the first entry in which I have just completed. Matt and I may also be doing a fourth Reeder and Rogers political thriller, and I intend to do a third Krista Larson mystery.

For now I will withhold the nature of the new series, and will only say I’m excited about it – that it quenches a thirst for a specific kind of thriller that I have always wanted to write but never got around to. You will not have to wait long to read it. Wolfpack turns books around much more quickly than traditional publishers – you will see the first novel in the new series before the end of the year…perhaps well before the end of the year.

If this relationship works, I will be in a position to do projects in a vein not possible with any traditional publisher. Those publishers only want new series or standalones from an author like me. Nothing from a “busted” series. (An exception is Hard Case Crime, where innovative editor Charles Ardai encouraged me to start Quarry up again, and my hitman has of course had a more healthy life the second time around than the first.)

But at Wolfpack, I can do a Jack and Maggie Starr or a Mallory or a “disaster” or a Perdition prequel or a Black Hats sequel or even – should the current publishers stop doing them – new Spillane titles. Wolfpack is interested in whatever I might want to do. This feels incredibly liberating.

Of course, we have to see how I do for them, and how they do for me. And you have to be willing to settle for trade paperbacks in series (like Nate Heller, should he wind up there) where a collector would prefer a hardcover.

All of the books I mention above, the new novel, the old novels, and the short story collections (new and old) will be available as trade paperbacks – the kind of thing Luddites like us like to see lined up on a book shelf.

I am not unaware of the irony that the virus that has required Barb and me to be hermits has led to this e-book surge, giving me an opportunity to try something new in the world of publishing. When I signed much of my backlist over to Amazon some years ago, I was warned not to do so…and yet it proved to be a move that has kept me and my world of fiction alive and flourishing.

And let me applaud another hybrid publisher, Brash Books, who have brought out the three Perdition prose novels, and the revised, properly bylined Black Hats and USS Powderkeg (aka Red Sky at Morning). The Brash boys made a major dream of mine come true by working hard to get the rights to publish my complete, full-length prose version of Road to Perdition.

Bridling against conventional wisdom has always worked out well for me. Let’s see if I’m right again.

* * *
Johnny Dynamite: Explosive Pre-Code Crime Comics—The Complete Adventures of Pete Morisi’s Wild Man of Chicagos
Hardcover: Indiebound Purchase Link Bookshop Purchase Link Amazon Purchase Link Books-A-Million Purchase Link Barnes & Noble Purchase Link
E-Book: Amazon Purchase Link Google Play Purchase Link Nook Purchase Link

Diehard fans of my comics work may recall that when artist Terry Beatty and I created Wild Dog for editor Mike Gold at DC in 1987, we continued with the monthly Ms. Tree, meaning we had to limit the number of pages for that latter title, to be able to meet double deadlines. Out of the blue we had the opportunity to buy the rights to the 1950s Johnny Dynamite character and all the existing stories that had been done about him. We were approached because both Terry and I had been vocal about our love for the feature, and in particular for its Mike Hammer pastiche nature and the great Pete Morisi’s artwork.

So we began reprinting, in black-and-white, the Morisi stories in the back of the Ms. Tree comic book, so that Terry and I would have fewer pages of that character to produce concurrently with Wild Dog.

Now, thanks to the redoubtable Craig Yoe, we’ve had the opportunity to collect the complete Morisi Johnny Dynamite stories in a beautiful full-color volume. Both Terry and I have provided introductions. Mine is very long and detailed, explaining to modern comics readers just how important Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer were (as well as Mickey’s background in comics), as Johnny Dynamite is a direct imitation – and among the best of countless imitators in novels, television, movies and comics.

I can’t say enough about how physically beautiful this book is. Yoe and his team have outdone themselves. It’s a hardcover worthy of any book shelf of either hardboiled fiction and/or comic book reprints.

It’s getting great write-ups, though one reviewer complained about my intro being “excessively long.” I plead guilty, but will say that I only wrote the word length requested of me by Craig Yoe himself. And I doubt anyone who follows my work will have a similar complaint.

You can read about the new Johnny Dynamite collection here,

and here,

and here,

as well as here.

M.A.C.