Friends/Family/Fans of Max Allan Collins

The Ritz Brothers? That’s What You’re Reading?

February 8th, 2022 by Max Allan Collins

We will be sending Tough Tender out tomorrow, and I remind those of you receiving copies that you can’t post Amazon reviews until the book has been published, which will be March 15. Same is true of the Quarry’s Blood winners, although that date is sooner – February 22nd.

I am mulling doing a giveaway of No Time to Spy next week. It’s such a big book that postage will be nasty, and I may limit the giveaway to five copies. We shall see.

I am working on the new Nate Heller right now and am about at the half-way point with an April 1st deadline. With luck I will make it, although I have jury duty next week. I actually enjoy jury duty (I’ve served twice in the past) but would rather write Heller.

I’ve talked a lot about the writing process lately, and bitched about reviewers. So for a change I thought I’d write some reviews, or at least reactions, myself to what I’ve been reading and seeing. Probably the question I get asked most – particularly by people who don’t read these updates and don’t already know the answer – is, “What are you reading?”

Again, frequent visitors here know I read very little fiction these days, and almost no crime fiction other than re-reading books by people who influenced me, like Spillane, Cain, Hammett, Chandler, Stout and Christie. (Most of my reading is non-fiction research.) The crime fiction I do absorb tends to be on TV or at the movies…but particularly TV. I’ll talk about what Barb and I have watched and enjoyed lately, but first…what have I been reading?

Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World by Mark Aldridge is a massive and quite wonderful trip through every Christie novel about the Belgian detective as well as most of the short stories and the various adaptations, including films and TV. Though published with the Christie estate’s blessing, the book is not afraid to criticize (if fondly) the fiction and does not hesitate to find fault with adaptations, though never in a mean-spirited way. Amazingly, the book talks about each novel, intelligently, without revealing the solutions to any of the mysteries. And I was particularly pleased that the author agrees with me that Evil Under the Sun (1982) with Peter Ustinov is “an unmitigated joy” and the best Poirot film.

The Ritz Brothers by Roy Liebman is absolutely the best book on the Ritz Brothers ever written. Also the only one, but it’s damn good if organized in a somewhat head-scratching manner. The Ritz Brothers would be one of my prime guilty pleasures if I considered pleasures found in books and films and TV anything ever to feel guilt about. I say this fully cognizant that their film The Gorilla (1939), despite having a guy in a gorilla suit in it, is truly awful. I’ve seen it half a dozen times.

Sidebar: why do I like the Ritz Brothers? I find their eccentric dancing amazing and their lookalike goonery amusing. The biggest factor is probably Harry Ritz, the “funny” one (think Curly) (or, later, Shemp), without whom we would not have had Danny Kaye, Sid Caesar or Mel Brooks. Oh, and Jerry Lewis. That’s why. Also, their Three Musketeers movie is one of the best versions of one of my favorite stories, with the added benefit of getting Beaver Cleaver into a lot of trouble when he wrote a book report based on that movie.

Blake Edwards: Interviews edited by Gabriella Oldham. The man who gave us Peter Gunn, The Pink Panther and The Great Race, but also gave us some films that make The Gorilla look pretty good, has fascinated me for years. Plus, he wrote and directed the first Mike Hammer TV pilot. And I bet he would have agreed with me about the Ritz Brothers.

Noir City Annual 2020, Eddie Muller publisher, Vince Keenan editor. This publication routinely ignores me and my work, and yet I remain (largely) unoffended because Noir City is so great…and now is publishing as a monthly magazine. This annual covers postwar Japanese noir and actor Jo Shishido (my son Nate and I are fans) as well as Harper and Point Blank, Hubert Cornfield (who directed Bobby Darin in Pressure Point), Christa Faust on older women in noir, and so much more. (Drawback: no Ritz Brothers.) If you haven’t joined the Film Noir Foundation yet, there is still time to save yourself and do so.

That’s it for books lately (25 others are stacked and waiting by my bedside) but there’s been lots of TV. When I write all day, which is most days, I spend the evening with Barb (also writing most days) watching TV and enjoying stories other people have come up with. We binged (well, over two evenings) on the first part of the fourth season of Ozark, in which no one was safe (nor should they have been). I may discuss the series in depth when the second half of this last season appears later this year; but I will say it strikes me as the only true rival to Breaking Bad, with the exception of Better Call Saul.

We watch far more British mystery and crime series, however, than stateside stuff. I had to buy from an e-bay seller of current British (legal) DVDs to see season eight of Endeavour and season 6 of Shetland. (Amazon UK, where I used to do a lot of business, has hiked their shipping fees to the sky since Brexit and Covid, both of which are nasty diseases.)

The sixth season of Endeavour is three movie-length (90-minute) episodes linked by the increasing emotional isolation and drinking problem of its hero. Actor Shaun Evans, who has done the impossible by following the legendary John Thaw into the role of Morse (the young Morse admittedly), is a master at conveying little through his dialogue while conveying much through an understated yet absolutely readable performance. He is matched by another master of understatement, Roger Allam, as DI Thursday (his surrogate father), whose approach recalls Michael Caine at his best. The final episode of the three stumbles a bit, as writer Russell Lewis discovers how difficult it is to do an Agatha Christie-style closed-environment mystery – it entertains, but you will likely (as did Barb and I) glaze over during the convoluted solution. A season nine has yet to be confirmed, but there’s certainly more story to tell.

Shetland’s sixth series is one six-episode, six-hour story, rich in character and plot. Often locales are cited as characters in stories, and mostly that’s an exaggeration, but the austere beauty of the Scottish archipelago here rises to that. The storytelling approach is unique – long shots of cars on a narrow highway go on longer than might seem necessary, cliffs and oceans and fields stretch forever, cars pull up to lonely houses and people get out and walk slowly up to the door; but the leisureliness of that (normally a negative) is offset by crime stories that have twists and turns and characters who suffer one small (and occasionally large) crisis after another. The protagonist, Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall), is always on the move, making a steady progression through crime scenes and the police station itself, even his own kitchen at home, a presence knifing through the quiet. This is one of the best of the UK shows, and that’s saying something. A season 7 has been announced.

Netflix has two mystery-oriented shows that provide very different comic takes on crime.

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window is, as its title tells you, a parody of the current female-dominated psychological thriller – everything from Hallmark movies to books (and movies) with titles like The Girl on the Train or, well, The Girl Most Likely. The star is Kristin Bell, Veronica Mars herself, and I guarantee that any working mystery writer will be uncomfortable at times, as the series nails the cliches all of us occasionally fall into.

I’m not sure whether Bell is the woman in the house or the girl in the window – depends on your perspective – but the series is just a good enough mystery to stay compelling despite the wonderful silliness (like the dim-witted handyman who is repairing the same mailbox throughout all eight episodes). Mostly it’s just amusing, but from time to time some truly outrageous moment – right out of Airplane! – will blindside you with hilarity. A few episodes in, the woman (or the girl?) played by Bell turns amateur detective; seeing Bell in Veronica Mars mode again, even in a spoofing way, is a pleasure…as I say this as one of the producers of the Veronica Mars film (well, as someone who gave enough to the KickStarter campaign to get a t-shirt). We watched one episode and wound up bingeing on the entire eight.

Or, as the girl (or woman?) would say, “Bingo!”

The other Netflix mystery series, derived from a UK source, is Murderville, which is essentially Police Squad Meets Whose Line Is It Anyway. A demented Will Arnett, making his Arrested Development role look grounded in reality, is Detective Terry Seattle in an unnamed big city. In each episode he is confronted by a murder to solve, and burdened with a new homicide department trainee – played by a celebrity with no script, who must muddle through the plot and the indignities with no one to help but Arnett, who basically is there to make their lives miserable. Every guest star did well, but Conan O’Brien, Kumail Ali Nanjiani and Ken Jeong are the standout trainees. We found it hilarious.

You know – like the Ritz Brothers.

M.A.C.

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Not Another Book Giveaway! Also, Entertain or Impress?

February 1st, 2022 by Max Allan Collins

Paperback:

E-Book:

Yes, just one week later and it’s another book giveaway.

Hard Case Crime continues its wonderful (to me, anyway) series of Nolan reprints, with two novels to a volume and terrific, movie poster-ish Mark Eastbrook covers. Tough Tender, including both Hard Cash and Scratch Fever, will be published March 22. I have ten advance copies for readers willing to do a review at Amazon (and/or other Barnes & Noble and other review sites). This is USA only and (IMPORTANT) you must include your snail-mail address, even if you’re entered and won before. [All copies have been claimed. Thank you for your support!]

These novels were the last in the original Nolan cycle – all of them (save Scratch Fever) were written for Curtis Books in the early seventies, and later minorly revised when Pinnacle Books picked the series up. Only Bait Money and Blood Money (the first two) saw publication from Curtis Books in 1973. Scratch Fever was written expressly for Pinnacle, and would be the last Nolan until Spree in the eighties. Spree, designed to be the last in the series, has been followed by a “coda” novel, Skim Deep, out last year.

I continue to emphasize the importance of reviews at Amazon in particular. Some of these books – the Hard Case Crime titles and Titan titles – you can find in your favorite brick-and-mortar bookstore. But the likes of The Many Lives of Jimmy Leighton (by Dave Thomas and me, and a book I really love), Fancy Anders Goes to War (I love you, too, Fancy!) and No Time to Spy (the new John Sand omnibus by Matt Clemens and me) can only be ordered online – Amazon probably your best bet.

* * *

As I mentioned in recent posts, I’ve decided to slow down my rate of production. In 2021 I amped things up, and you’ll be seeing the results in the coming months, in part due to this year’s 75th anniversary of the debut of Mike Hammer in I, the Jury. I am hopeful that Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction (the biography by Jim Traylor and me) – will get some special notice. An Edgar nomination is the dream, but Mickey Spillane on Screen by Jim and me, which I remain very proud of, was roundly ignored. Skim Deep got great reviews and was mentioned on not a single “Best of 2021 Mysteries” lists.

I talked a bit last time about books like mine that aim to entertain rather than impress. It’s the books that try to impress (and are often no fun at all) that get the acclaim. Frustrating as that can be, I don’t envy my peers who get the accolades. For one thing, I’ve had my share of honors over the years – maybe more than my share. For another, to be jealous of another writer you have to be willing to trade your book for one of theirs. I might like Angel in Black to have the sales and reputation of The Black Dahlia, but I wouldn’t swap it for a box of Edgars and a boxcar of money.

If writing isn’t about the writer, it isn’t about anything at all.

I mention The Black Dahlia only because a genuine frustration I feel comes from the countless times some well-meaning reader says to me, “You are one of two favorite writers. The other is James Ellroy.”

I usually don’t comment on other writers, and I won’t here, except to say Ellroy is the rare fellow writer I have at times admitted not caring for (his work – personally, our encounters have always been friendly). It just makes a writer’s brain hurt and maybe explode when fans say their other favorite writer is somebody whose work that writer deplores.

But it makes sense that somebody who likes Ellroy’s fiction might like both his and mine. We work the same side of the 20th Century true-crime street, which is enough to attract the same readers. Sex and violence and traditional hard-boiled themes occur in both of us. What somebody like me has to wrap his head around is this: a reader may have the capacity to like two very different approaches to the same subject matter. In fact, a reader should have the capacity to do that.

Writers, however, often have tunnel vision in this area. For me writing is a trial-and-error process. I don’t mean the plotting or the story selection or any of that. I refer to the actual word-for-word hammering it out, the way sentences are assembled, the way paragraphs get put together. On another level, thematic concerns come into play, albeit often subconsciously – world view.

What I am trying to do, in a perhaps stumbling way, is what I’ve been doing all along: attempting to perfect my approach to storytelling. This is one reason why I don’t read much fiction anymore, especially mystery/crime. I’m no longer interested in being influenced. On some perhaps naive level, I am trying to come up with The Way to Write Crime Fiction.

I should be glad that Ellroy’s approach differs so drastically from mine. I should understand that the reader is somebody who goes along Restaurant Row and sometimes eats Chinese and sometimes Italian, and loves both. Nothing wrong with that.

With Ellroy, I have encountered too many smart people who like his work to dismiss their opinions. I have come to accept that I have had a strong element of envy in my reaction to him, because he is more successful in terms of readership, acclaim, earning power, etc. But where he isn’t more successful (and is in no way trying to be) is as the author of Max Allan Collins novels.

Shakespeare said the play is the thing. From this we extrapolate that the novel is the thing – the fiction (short stories and movie scripts, too) a writer creates is the thing. I congratulate any writer who can manage to make a living doing this throughout a lifetime – even me.

Even James Ellroy.

Smart people’s tastes vary. Here is the sentence many consider to be the best first sentence in private eye fiction; it’s by James Crumley in The Last Good Kiss:

When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.

You may like it very much, and you won’t be the only intelligent human who shares that opinion. I think it’s a lousy first sentence, overloaded and too cute and trying way too hard. Really, just horrible.

We’re both right.

* * *

Speaking of right, here’s a lovely review of The Many Lives of Jimmy Leighton from Ron Fortier.

Road to Perdition, the graphic novel, has made a list of the best 110 “thriller books.”

The film is highly regarded here.

And here.

M.A.C.

Tags: Giveaways, Hard Cash, Nolan, Reviews, Scratch Fever, Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction, The Many Lives of Jimmy Leighton, Tough Tender
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 7 Comments »

A Free Quarry Book, Plus Why Reviews Do and Don’t Matter

January 25th, 2022 by Max Allan Collins

Here is an interview with me about two upcoming Hard Case Crime titles, Quarry’s Blood and Tough Tender, conducted by the great Andrew Sumner of Titan.

* * *

Trade Paperback:

E-Book:

And now – the first book giveaway of 2022. I have ten advance copies of Quarry’s Blood available to the first ten interested readers. [All copies have been claimed. Thank your for your support! — Nate]

More book giveaways will follow – I hope to get some copies of No Time To Spy to offer soon, and I have on hand advance copies of Tough Tender (which collects the Nolan novels Hard Cash and Scratch Fever), which will be given out possibly next time.

These reviews are extremely important in an era when I am no longer doing signings and haven’t done a convention since Covid came calling. Even brief reviews are appreciated, particularly since there are a handful of apparent trolls out there who want to make sure I can’t make a living during my dotage.

A No Time to Spy review, by the way, accuses you fine people of laziness, concluding: “And by the way most of the positive comments to the Sand trilogy as of today are copy and paste from the Collins blog.” (Feel free to defend yourself in the comments area under that review, which is by Robert Hölzl, who knows he hates all three Sand novels – would you keep reading a series you dislike? – but does not know how to spell my name.)

Just to clear the palate, here is a wonderful write-up from Facebook that just popped up out of nowhere, from Rick Greene:

I love the Quarry novels. They are all fast reads, masterful page-turners that one completes in one or two sittings, wildly violent, wickedly funny, the ultimate anti-hero. As much as I love Quarry – and the Spillane/Collins Hammer novels – I consider Max Allan Collins’ masterwork to be the Nathan Heller series. I’m just more than halfway through these detective thrillers that take real life crimes and revisit them via a fun house mirror. The Heller’s are NOT fast reads – they are dense, complex, deeply moving stories that often leave the reader emotionally shattered at the finale. You have to pay attention and turn the pages slowly. The Heller’s are books to savor, to immerse one’s self in. I’ve said before that the Quarry books are cake and ice cream where the Heller series are a five course gourmet meal. I love them all for different reasons. Collins is my favorite living author… and I hope he goes right on living and writing for a few more decades. Just imagine if Ian Fleming had lived another twenty years – the unusual and complex places he could have taken James Bond as they both aged together. I can’t wait to read about the true last Quarry adventure and to revisit Heller as much as Collins will indulge us with. Bring it on.

This came at a lovely time because (a) the new Quarry book is about to be published, and (b) I have just started writing the new Nate Heller. And the Hellers have always been hard to write, but I find that, at my age, the process may be the same but I am not. I was struggling with the first chapter and then Rick Greene’s nice words came along.

What was really nice about these words is that they were just a heart-felt reader’s outpouring of appreciation – not a review. I feel like I can take Rick’s words to heart whereas it’s dangerous to believe any review, good or bad. And then there’s karma….
Later the same day I read Rick’s celebration of my work, I came upon a current review of (the 39-year-old) True Detective that was patronizing and close to nasty in things it said about my work. I write “bad dialogue,” I’m told, and the reader has to slog through my work, and as a stylist I have all the poetry of the directions on a paint can. I would have shared this condescending thing with you, but I failed when I tried to track it back down via Google.

The review was well-written and not stupid, although – as usual – no proof backing the opinions was provided. How about quoting a few clumsy sentences to make your point, or reprinting a particularly bad patch of dialogue? (By the way, I have been publishing since 1971 and have never before had my dialogue singled out for anything but praise.)

The danger for a writer – and let’s pretend Rick Greene was writing a review and not just a sending me a valentine – is that if you take the good reviews seriously, you have to take the bad ones seriously, too. And doing so will make a real writer – which is to say, a working writer who makes his or her living this way – crazy. I will admit that the day after I read that largely negative True Detective review, I found myself back at work on The Big Bundle, second-guessing every Heller sentence I wrote.

The truth is, many of us in the arts can remember every bad review – can quote from memory reviews dating back decades – whereas the positive ones fly away like tissue paper on the wind. It’s human nature, I guess, but at the same time I know that I have to pay no real attention to any reviews. I am past the point, fifty-one years into my novel writing career, that I can learn much. I do still learn, but it’s incremental, and it comes from trial and effort, not something a reviewer points out or suggests.

The True Detective reviewer clearly considered me a pedestrian stylist. Hey, I think I can turn a pretty fair phrase. But I can guess the writers that this reviewer likes – the ones who are writing to impress, not to entertain. I pick up books at Barnes & Noble or BAM! and read the first paragraphs by writers with reputations as stylists, writers far more celebrated than I ever will be, and what I see is overloaded, overwritten, trying-too-hard bullshit (do not ask for names).

Reviews, as far as my growth is concerned, are irrelevant to a writer who has been working as long as I have. All I know how to do at this stage is write the book I would like to read. Really, I think that should be every novelist’s goal – write a book you wish somebody else would have. Please your own taste and hope enough others out there will have similar enough tastes to keep you in business.

And yet I am doing a book giveaway, soliciting reviews. I don’t do this so that you will tell me how wonderful I am (though feel free to do so). I do it to help sell books, so I can stay in business. To get the word out.

I talk a lot here about how, in recent years, in recent days, I have felt cut off from current popular culture. Today I went over the copy edited manuscript of the second Fancy Anders (Fancy Anders For the Boys) and was told I shouldn’t mention Mantan Moreland or Jap Zeroes. How am I supposed to react to that? As someone who writes about the Twentieth Century, must I clean up that century’s idiosyncrasies and failings? Or do I have a responsibility to depict that century as accurately as my flawed memory will allow?

But the truth is, it’s harder for me now to be accepted in a world of publishing where I am white and old and male. It’s not the marketplace’s fault – it’s just the reality. I am so very, very lucky that publishers like Hard Case Crime, Titan, Neo-Text and Wolfpack still find me a worthwhile addition to their lists. In a world where I have to explain to people who Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer are, I am damn lucky to still be in business at all.

* * *

Some advance readers of Quarry’s Blood have nice things to say about it at Goodreads.

Check out this lovely piece at Crimereads on Marshall Rogers, who illustrated my brief run on the Batman comic strip.

Finally, has it really been twenty years since Road to Perdition was released?

M.A.C.

Tags: Batman, Fancy Anders, Fancy Anders For the Boys, Giveaways, Hard Cash, John Sand, No Time to Spy, Nolan, Quarry, Quarry's Blood, Reviews, Road to Perdition, Scratch Fever, Tough Tender
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 5 Comments »

Reassessing Priorities & Fancy Anders Sounds Great

January 18th, 2022 by Max Allan Collins

For the first time in four or five months, my band Crusin’ played a gig. Generally we haven’t played during the winter months for the past several years, but this was a private party for a 60th wedding anniversary for a couple who had employed us for their 50th (back when Andy Landers and Jim Van Winkle were in the band). Also, they are clients of our drummer, Steve Kundel, who is an attorney (when I introduce the band members on a gig, I usually mention Steve being a lawyer, saying we find it wise to travel with in-house counsel).

Anyway, like Steve McQueen said in The Magnificent Seven, it seemed like a good idea at the time (it was not yet winter when I booked the gig). Now as the job approached, it was clear Covid was kicking back in, and the job was in Iowa City (forty miles away) and a snow storm was predicted. We did not, however, cancel.

The snow arrived but was not such that we couldn’t make the trip with relative safety. We arrived at the Iowa City Eagles and were pleased to find it a very nice venue. None of us were crazy about playing a job in a college town, particularly so soon after the holidays, with Omicron (which sounds like a bad science-fiction movie) running rampant. But we wore masks loading in. Barb accompanied me and helped a great deal, both in setting up and making several key suggestions about what songs to perform (for example, advising me to open with a slow song and have the celebrating couple start the festivities alone, then asking the rest of the guests to join in).

Crusin' at the Iowa City Eagles, January 15 2022

The people were as warm as the night was not and there was dancing and a nice receptive response to our foolishness. A wonderful time was had by all. We’d only had two rehearsals to go back over the list and, surprisingly, we were pretty darn good. My bandmates, drummer Steve and guitarist Bill Anson and his son Scott Anson, who took over on bass when Brian Van Winkle passed, are fun to be around – very good company. At the rehearsals the absence of Brian’s sunny personality was keenly felt. Over the years the loss of bandmates – I’ve been playing rock ‘n’ roll since 1965 – is a wound that never really heals. Not a week goes by that I don’t think about my musical collaborator Paul Thomas.

I’ve had enough health problems that Barb has really been pitching in to help me set my stuff up and tear it down. I’ve talked here before about how the performances themselves are not any way burdensome, but loading up, setting up, tearing down, and loading back in will probably determine when I stop doing this. Musician friends have written me insisting that I should employ roadies, and these are mostly musicians who are getting paid the kind of money that allows that.

It occurred to both Barb and me, as we were driving up and back to the gig, that this might be my last performance with the band. Certainly it’s doubtful I would do more than one more summer season – last year, just four gigs. I would like to do a farewell appearance, and I’ve hoped to do one last CD – we were already working up originals and even playing them on the job when Covid hit and we lost over a year.

By the way, as you may have already noted if you follow these update/blogs, Barb is the best wife anybody ever had. She is smart, funny, thoughtful and beautiful. She does not, however, cut me undue slack – she knows just when I need to be cut down to size and reminded of reality. Which is of course frequent. But my God I am a lucky man.

My 74th birthday is approaching soon – March 3rd – and I find myself reassessing priorities. Last year I was crazily prolific, in part because I was doing my own fiction writing as well as putting the Mike Hammer 75th anniversary into motion. Adding in a 100,000-word biography to an already busy writing schedule took it out of me.

So while you may look to me to keep working as long as my noodle is functioning and I am above-ground, the pace is going to slow. I had to ask for an extension on the deadline for the new Nate Heller, The Big Bundle, after the unanticipated and most unwelcome return of kidney stones, which hadn’t reared their nasty, spiky little heads since 1998.

I have now begun The Big Bundle – one whole chapter is written (but also the research completed and the book worked up in chapter outline) – which is the first of a two-book RFK/Hoffa cycle (overall completing the Kennedy cycle begun by Bye Bye, Baby). Will these be the last Heller novels? Maybe. Right now my job is to complete these two. The Big Bundle will appear late this year, if all goes well.

* * *

A benefit of the Iowa City band job was that Barb and I were able to finish listening to the audio book of Fancy Anders Goes to War from Skyboat Media. (You can read about it here)

I’ve been blessed by having mostly really good readers of my books on audio. The head honcho at Skyboat, Stefan Rudnicki, has been doing both Quarry and Mike Hammer and knocking the ball out of the park; recently he’s embarked on Nolan, in his usual stellar manner. When we submitted Fancy Anders to Stefan, however, I requested that he use a female narrator, specifically Gabrielle de Cuir. He and she came through for me, and how.

If you haven’t read Fancy Anders Goes to War yet, this is an excellent way to do so. If you have read it, it’s still well worth the ride (and the price of admission), because Skyboat has done a fantastic job. They’ve used music and sound effects to really create Fancy’s world. Gabrielle does a lovely job, superbly differentiating the characters and (unlike some male narrators with female characters) nails the men, as well.

Skyboat will be doing the next two Fancy Anders books, as well – Fancy Anders For the Boys and Fancy Anders Goes Hollywood. Both are written (Fay Dalton is almost finished with the second book’s illustrations) and should be out next year as e-books, book-books, and audios.

* * *

Speaking of Fancy Anders Goes to War, here’s a great review of it at the Mostly Old Books and Rust review blog.

And the great James Reasoner likes Fancy, too – check this out!

Quarry’s Blood, not quite out yet, is already getting some swell reviews at Goodreads.

Finally, here’s a great look at the Nolan series.

M.A.C.

Tags: Crusin', Fancy Anders, Fancy Anders Goes to War, Jimmy Hoffa, Mickey Spillane, Nate Heller, Nolan, Quarry, Quarry's Blood, Reviews, RFK, The Big Bundle
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 3 Comments »