The new, expanded version of my 1999 documentary, Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane, is available now for pre-order at Amazon. It ships on December 12.

This Blu-ray disc includes as a Bonus Feature Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder, the Golden Age Radio-style play with Gary Sandy as Mike Hammer, a 90-minute offering. (The doc is 61 minutes, so the Bonus Feature is half an hour longer than the main feature!) As you may know, Gary performed in Encore at Owensboro, Kentucky, and later in Clearwater, Florida. This presentation, about a year ago, was in my home town of Muscatine, Iowa, with Gary appearing with a particularly strong area cast. Many of these cast members are in my film Blue Christmas, currently in post-production.

Encore for Murder will be available separately as a DVD, also on Dec. 12. It too can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

Editor Chad Bishop and I have completed the edit of Blue Christmas with the exception of the opening credits sequence, which requires Second Unit photography and editing of stock footage. We have been waiting for snow to do the exterior shots and we have some today, so that may yet happen.

Chad and I met on the production of Encore for Murder and about a year ago began planning Blue Christmas. We thought we had a good shot at a $50,000 grant, but it fell through. We did a crowd-funding effort, in which some of you generously contributed, and raised around $7000 – hardly enough to mount a feature film (the operative term is “Yikes!) but neither Chad nor I nor Director of Photography Phil Dingeldein (my longtime collaborator) took any up-front pay. We share ownership of the final product.

I rewrote the script to utilize a single set and was able to secure the Black Box theater at Muscatine Community College, thanks to their generosity to a former student there (and teacher).

I am very pleased thus far. My underpaid cast was terrific, with Rob Merritt making a perfect Richard Stone (the Heller-ish private eye at the center of this Maltese Falcon/A Christmas Carol mash-up).

Barb swore up and down that she was not going to participate in my return to indie filmmaking; but of course she did. Son Nate did also, filling in on boom operator duties and even running camera at times. I admit pushing the “let’s put on a show” thing past the breaking point. I am pretty sure it was what sent me back into a-fib by the end of the week-long (double “Yikes!”) shooting schedule.

Already I’m very proud of this one.

Stay tuned.

I continue to need your help with the new Nate Heller novel, Too Many Bullets. And the previous one, The Big Bundle, could use a boost, too.

The accidental collision of these two titles being (essentially) published in the same year has damaged them badly. Unusual for any Heller, neither book had turned up on any year’s end “Best Of” lists – it’s as if they don’t exist at all. As I’ve mentioned before, not one of the trades (Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, Booklist) reviewed Too Many Bullets – and in the past they have covered every single Heller novel, including The Big Bundle. But because it appeared as though I had published two Heller novels in the same year, the second of those (yes, Too Many Bullets) got ignored.

In reality, The Big Bundle was published in 2022, but was held up in a dock strike till several months into 2023. That made it collide with the already scheduled Too Many Bullets.

What can you do to help?

Well, as my late friend Paul Thomas used to say (quoting his father), “If you’re looking for sympathy, it’s in the dictionary between ‘shit’ and ‘syphilis.’”

What you can do is buy and read Too Many Bullets, in which Heller reveals what really happened in the RFK murder case, and then (IMPORTANT) review it at Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere. In other words, get the word out. Reader reviews have been pretty much excellent, except for the occasional “I’ve been reading him for years but he sucks now” school of thought.

Otherwise, without your help, I can guarantee you that Too Many Bullets will be the last Heller novel.

Hardcover:
E-Book:
Digital Audiobook:

Hardcover:
Paperback (coming Dec. 12):
E-Book:
Digital Audiobook:
Audio MP3 CD:

Road to Perdition is one of fifteen mystery comics that a recommended here.

And Paul Newman’s wonderful performance in the film version of Perdition is discussed here.

M.A.C.

Tags: Blue Christmas, Encore for Murder, Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer, Mike Hammer's Mickey Spillane, Nate Heller, Road to Perdition Movie, The Big Bundle, Too Many Bullets