Yes, it’s yet another M.A.C. Book Giveaway!
I have ten copies to give away of the very handsome Wolfpack trade paperback of Come Spy With Me by yrs truly and Matt Clemens, the first in the John Sand series. Should you win a copy, you agree to write a review for Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble (review blogs are also kosher). [All copies have been claimed. Thank you for your support! — Nate]
These reviews are extremely important (and not just from those of you who get a free book now and then). Amazon is key, because the e-book version is available only on Kindle, Amazon’s format. The trade paperback can be ordered at Barnes & Noble and other on-line retailers. I think finding a copy at a brick-and-mortar store is unlikely, at least at this point.
Wolfpack has been very supportive and even ran a big ad in Publisher’s Weekly (reproduced here).
I should have mentioned when I announced the Skim Deep book giveaway a few weeks ago that you cannot post reviews at Amazon until the book’s publication date (Come Spy With Me is out now). Those were advance copies of Skim Deep, and a few of you tried to post reviews unsuccessfully. Amazon is listing that pub date as Jan. 5, although I believe that’s inaccurate – it’s actually going to be available early December. I will try to get this corrected at Amazon, but keep trying if you’ve written your review, when we get into December. I’ll try to have updated info on the official pub date soon.
(By the way, Nate always provides ordering links when you click on the first mention of a book title in any of these updates.)
Meanwhile, Booklist has given Skim Deep a very strong review:
Collins’ first novel, published in 1972, was called Bait Money and was intended as a stand-alone homage to Donald E. Westlake’s Parker thrillers, which Westlake wrote as Richard Stark. The one-off homage, however, became a series starring Collins’ version of Parker, superthief Nolan, and his surrogate son, musician and comics artist Jon.
Now Collins returns to Nolan and Jon in a new adventure, set in the late 1980s. Nolan, living the straight life as a restaurateur in the Quad Cities, has decided it’s time to marry his longtime lover, Sherry. A trip to Las Vegas ensues, where the newlyweds reunite with Jon and settle in for a long weekend of fun and frolic. Not quite. Unfortunately, one of Nolan’s pals from the bad old days has a plan to steal a week’s worth of skim from a Mobbed-up casino and to use Nolan as the fall guy. Meanwhile, trouble’s brewing back in Iowa, too, where a Ma Barker–type wants Nolan’s head in a basket (literally).
This jaunty caper novel has a definite dark side—Nolan is no ersatz antihero—but Collins, as always, mixes blood and badinage with gusto. — Bill Ott
Ms. Tree, Volume Two: Skeleton in the Closet has made the Mystery Scene Gift Guide, as assembled by the great Kevin Burton Smith of the equally great Thrilling Detective web site. Burton describes Ms. Tree as “9mmm-toting Chicago private eye, Michael Tree, who’s been pushing envelopes and taking out bad guys since 1981 (scooping Grafton, Paretsky, et al., on women’s issues and Law & Order on “ripped from the headlines” plots in the process). This volume rounds up the rest of the uncollected stories from the DC Comics 1990s run (which Collins considers ‘the best’ of the long-running series), and it’s just waiting for a whole new generation of fans. As usual, Tree and her agency take the ‘edgy route,’ dealing with homophobia, date rape, POW/MIAs and…exorcism?”
November, of course, means Gift Guide and Black Friday deals and other holiday-oriented consumerism. In these Pandemic times, gift buying has been driven indoors even more than in recent years, and it also finds us (well, me anyway) in a WTF mood when it comes to, “Should I buy this or not?”
So here are a few suggestions for yourself and others.
Kino Lorber has a Noir-vember sale that ends today – November 24, 2020 – but if you read these updates the day they appear, you have time to partake of a number of noir (or anyway noir-ish) titles. But pertinent to our interests here, they have:
The Girl Hunters (Blu-ray $12.99 and DVD 9.99). I did the commentary and the interview footage with Mickey from the Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane shoot in 1999.
My Gun Is Quick (Blu-ray $7.99 and DVD 6.99)
I, the Jury (Blu-ray $9.99) The Armand Assante version.
Among other strong titles on sale are I Wake Up Screaming, Murder He Says (among my favorite comedies), and No Orchids for Miss Blandish.
Even if the sale is over, check the prices at Kino Lorber’s site. They run lots of sales and tend to be cheaper than ordering from other on-line retailers of their product.
For Spillane completists, the low-budget 1970 production of The Delta Factor (which Mickey co-produced) is available in a decent gray-market edition here.
Be advised that I haven’t found a really good-looking copy of this film anywhere, and this one at least comes in a fun full color package. If you’re into collecting oddball stuff (like I am), this seller – J4HI.com – has a wonderful off-the-wall selection. Regular sales and new titles are always in the offing. Buying several titles at once lowers the price per disc.
Tell Mike that Max sent you.
My production has slowed down for a few weeks. A very stressful situation having to do with a copy editor rewriting me practically line by line sent me into AFib. Atrial fibrillation is an occasional side-effect of my heart trouble of a few years ago, and I had to go into the hospital briefly for what is called cardioversion. This is basically getting your heart shocked back into its correct rhythm, or, as I like to put it, getting jump-started like an old Buick.
I appear to be fine, though I’m having to take it easy, which is generally against my nature.
What I am having to deal with is more psychological than anything else. I apparently care too much about my work. I’ve expressed my general hatred for copy editors here and that came to a head with this episode. Barb has drilled into me not to get bent out of shape about this kind of thing, with a “Is it worth dying over?” mantra.
She’s right, and I am working on it.
As for copy editors, I should amend my expressed hatred, which is deep and abiding, to apply only to the intrusive ones. All writers need a copy editor to check for inconsistencies, missing words, typos, etc. But about fifty percent of the copy editors I’ve dealt with over my career have appointed themselves co-authors. There appears to be an army of young people, fresh out of college and armed with a degree in English, whose goal in life is to teach a professional writer with fifty years in the business how to do what he does.
I attach a letter to the copy editor with every book manuscript, tweaked for that specific novel; but often my missive is ignored.
Anyway, I’m doing fine.
And the battle goes on. In a lower-key fashion, but on.
Here’s a nice review of Skim Deep at Crime Fiction Lover.
Please stay safe over this Thanksgiving holiday. We are back to sheltering in place interrupted by only a very early morning grocery run every week or two.
It’s like my raging against copy editors – Thanksgiving with family and friends…is it worth dying over?
M.A.C.
Tags: Come Spy with Me, Giveaways, John Sand, Nolan, Reviews, Skim Deep
Thank you, Max, for your incredible generosity, and your creativity. I pray you and yours have as wonderful a Thanksgiving holiday as the circumstances allow. You’re all in my prayers.
Stay well. Blast the copy editors and full speed ahead to a joyous and meaningful Thanksgiving.
Al, Joseph Losey’s THE CRIMINAL (aka THE CONCRETE JUNGLE) is also on sale right now on BR from Kino Lorber, a great hardboiled 1960 British heist movie starring the tough as leather Stanley Baker. A must for Nolan/Parker fans who might not have seen it, and if nothing else a nice stopgap for enthusiasts pending release of SKIM DEEP. Christ, take care of yourself. Barb absolutely is right, don’t let the bastards get under your skin.
Got a copy of Skim Deep but I have never read the earlier Nolans. Just how much of a stand alone is it? I am curious beacause I want to catch up with thd series and read them all as Hard Case Crime republish them. Does Skim Deep spoil events from earlier books in any way?
Fred, I haven’t watched THE CRIMINAL yet, so I couldn’t recommend it — though I already own it. Losey is a problematic director — sometimes he’s very good, even great, but as his career went on he became Joseph Lousy…ever try to sit through BOOM!? But everybody here should keep an eye on Kino, as well as check out Just for the Hell of It video.
Andreas, this comes up all the time. I would love it if you would buy and read the books as they come out. I always make my novels stand-alone. You do get some background from previous books, but few things that are really spoilers. In SKIM DEEP you learn that Nolan triumphed over bad guy Cole Comfort in the previous installment (SPREE, to be collected in MAD MONEY). Is that really a surprise or bothersome news? People who backtrack are wonderful, but do consider keeping up with current output — it keeps me in business, and gives me reactions to what I’m doing now. Advice on what I did well or poorly thirty years ago is a little…abstract…now.
Thanks for the answer. I will just go ahead and read Skim Deep and take it from there. I have started with other series in the “wrong end” before and ended up loving them.