Before we get to the free book section, I want to invite anyone and everyone in the Iowa City area to come to a special screening of MOMMY at the wonderful indie theater, Film Scene, this coming Wednesday (May 4) at 10:00 p.m. I will be introducing the film and maybe taking a few questions after. We’re part of Film Scene’s Grindhouse series. This is from their Facebook write-up:
Late Shift at the Grindhouse – Wednesdays get weird when Late Shift hosts Ross Meyer, Joe Derderian and Aaron Holmgren dig up low-budget b-movies, horror and gore-fests, and camp classics for your viewing pleasure. Buy your ticket and take a ride in our Time Machine! Punch in and earn a bonus! $3 Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboys and $2 small popcorn! PLUS– special custom trashy trailer reel curated by Ross with cheap swag and prize giveaways!
MOMMY
She’s pretty, she’s perfect, she’s June Cleaver with a cleaver.
“The Bad Seed grown up… chillingly good!” – Leonard Maltin
“Writer/director Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition) has crafted a fun little tribute to The Bad Seed that succeeds despite its ultra-low budget.” – Stacie Ponder, Final Girl
“What must be noted about Mommy is the amazing cast that Max Allan Collins has managed to assemble.” – Richard Scheib, Moria: The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Dialogue with writer/director Max AllanCollins in person.
In 1995 mystery writer Max Allan Collins created an indie thriller that scored surprising media attention and killer reviews – an “unofficial” sequel to The Bad Seed (1956) starring that classic film’s Academy Award nominated child star, Patty McCormack, grown into the menacing Mommy.
The scary black comedy also features Jason Miller (The Exorcist), Majel Barrett (Star Trek), scream queen Brinke Stevens and legendary “Mike Hammer” creator, Mickey Spillane, with an award-winning performance by 11-year-old Rachel Lemieux.
Happy Mother’s Day!
co-presented by Bijou Film Board
Free tickets for University of Iowa students. (Free U.I. student tickets will be distributed at 9:00 p.m.)
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The day this update appears (May 3) is the pub date of the new Nathan Heller. As you may recall, a flurry of new M.A.C. books has just hit, so we’ve decided to do what we’ve done occasionally in the past and offer free books in return for a review at Amazon (Barnes & Noble and personal blogs are also good). We will be giving out at least five copies of BETTER DEAD, THE BIG SHOWDOWN (Caleb York) and ANTIQUES FATE. We may go up to as many as ten copies each if demand is strong.
ALL COPIES GONE, THANK YOU!!
We ask the following: e-mail us at REDACTED and make your request for a free book, listing the order of preference. IMPORTANT: include your snail-mail address. Only USA please – foreign postage (even Canada) is a killer. Act now, because within about three days, they’ll be gone.
Also, if you’ve read and liked MURDER NEVER KNOCKS, we are still very under-reviewed at Amazon. If you’ve written a review at your blog, please post it at Amazon; and if you’ve read and liked it, please take time to write a short review there.
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In honor of the publication of BETTER DEAD, I thought it made sense to share with you this lovely review from the Historical Novel Society:
“Told in two novellas tied together by the unscrupulous Senator Joe McCarthy, Better Dead’s Book One finds Collins’s Nathan Heller hired by writer Dashiell Hammett to try to find anything to clear Ethel and Julius Rosenberg on the eve of their executions. Heller uncovers some discrepancies in the Rosenberg trial, including discovering the missing drop-leaf table. But even in Collins’s world, he can’t change history, and the Rosenbergs still die. In the second book, Heller is retained by McCarthy to try to pry loose any information the CIA might have on him. As Heller digs more deeply, he becomes entrenched in a labyrinthine maze of CIA spooks, LSD-25 experiments on civilians and agents alike, and an unlikely partner in a young Bettie Page.
“Collins’s writing is as electric as the Cold War atmosphere he’s set Heller into. All the characters, both real (McCarthy, Page, the Rosenbergs) and created, are authentic and believably written. There is a coarse, edgy feel to the writing that helps drive a frenetic pace to an ending that has Heller looking back at both cases with a sense of loss and wonder. In his wonderful take on the insanity of the McCarthy Red Scare and the CIA LSD-25 experiments of the 1950s, Collins weaves a fanciful story that honors history yet allows for his usual deft creative styling.”
We have a less enthusiastic but not bad review from Publisher’s Weekly:
“In trying to cover too much ground, Collins dilutes the impact of the main investigation in his 18th historical whodunit featuring PI Nate Heller (after 2013’s Ask Not). In 1953, Sam Spade–creator Dashiell Hammett hires Heller to find whatever evidence he can to secure Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who are on death row for treason, a new trial. The investigator adroitly persuades U.S. senator Joe McCarthy, whose Communist witch hunt is at its height, and columnist Drew Pearson, a former McCarthy ally, to help fund his work by promising to reveal anything he finds to them as well. After learning how flimsy the government’s case was against the couple, Heller pursues some leads he gets from a visit to Julius and Ethel in Sing Sing. The truth proves to be more nuanced than any of his employers believes, and Collins again does an effective job of bringing the past to life and making a complex cause célèbre accessible. Recent disclosures about the so-called atomic spies, however, lessen the suspense.”
What both of these refer to is that BETTER DEAD is two stories, Book One and Book Two, that are linked by Senator McCarthy and general Red Scare era themes. I have known from the start that some reviewers, and perhaps readers, will complain that they are getting two short novels instead of one; but that was the best way, in my opinion, to deal with two very interesting McCarthy era cases, neither one of which could quite fill out a full 100,000 word Heller novel. I believe it works as a single novel. But if you view it as two Gold Medal paperbacks about Nate Heller, I am cool with it.
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Reader Kevin Helmsberg wrote a nice e-mail that included a number of questions. I figure it makes sense to answer them here.
1) I was very glad to learn that you’ll finally be publishing Road to Perdition (the novel) as it was meant to be. In one of the early interviews (2002) you said you’d turned in 90,000 words, however in your February 2016 post you mention 70,000 words as the complete version. You pointed out it was essentially the same book as intended in 2002, apart from “some tweaking” and “very little rewriting or additional writing.” So how come there’s a 20,000 words difference?
Also, in one of your interviews, you mentioned a Road to Perdition prequel – any news?
The PERDITION novel is about 70,000 words. I was just estimating when I used 90,000 words in that and other interviews – or maybe it was just hyperbole. Still, when you cut 30,000 words from a book, and replace all the dialogue with lines from the movie, it’s not only shorter, but bad things happen. I am thrilled that Brash Books is bringing out the novel and publishing it as it was intended to be.
2) The graphic novels in the series – Road to Perdition: On the Road (i.e. Oasis, Sanctuary, Detour) and Return to Perdition – is there a slightest chance of producing the prose versions? I’m one of those people who prefer prose fiction to comic books, so would be thrilled if I could enjoy it that way. I read some of your thoughts on the subject, including your love for comic books and some of the advantages in presenting the story, but still it would be great if you considered making real books. You’re a hell of a writer and I have no doubt the final product would be a hit. To quote yourself, “It’s great that I’ve become the poster child for graphic novels… but the fact is for my career, I need to hit a mainstream audience and I won’t by going out and only selling 3000 copies.”
I think it’s doubtful – but not impossible – that I would do a novel based on ON THE ROAD and RETURN. They probably suffice in their present form. The prequel I’m considering would work in either prose or graphic novel; it might be called RETURN FROM PERDITION, as it deals with Michael O’Sullivan Sr. returning from WW 1 to work for John Looney. Whether it’s a graphic novel or prose one might depend on what publisher is interested.
I also at one time considered a story about the Two Jacks and a Queen characters from ON THE ROAD, and I would love to do another project (PERDITION-related or otherwise) with Richard Piers Rayner.
3) In one of your posts, you mentioned that “several goofs in the hardcover of Complex 90 were corrected in the paperback version.” Do you have a list of errata?
Not a long list (references are to the hardcover edition):
On page 130, third line from the bottom:
“Irene Worth” should be “Irene Carroll.”
On page 222, third line from the bottom:
“Marley” should be “Romanos.”
4) Do you have plans to publish the following as ebooks:
– the Road to Perdition series, plus Black Hats and Red Sky in Morning;
– the Quarry stories: “A Matter of Principal,” “Quarry’s Luck,” and “Guest Services”;
– the Sherlock Holmes stories in jigsaw puzzles: “The Adventure of Professor Moriarty’s Notebook,” and the other one you mention in your blog (don’t know the title)?
ROAD TO PURGATORY and ROAD TO PARADISE – along with the full-length, aforementioned movie novel, ROAD TO PERDITION – will be published by Brash Books. BLACK HATS and RED SKY IN MORNING will be published by Brash as well, under my real byline (R.I.P., Patrick Culhane). At some point the three Quarry short stories will be published in a format that includes e-book, but no plans are afoot as yet. I doubt the Holmes stories by Matt Clemens and me will be collected anywhere, but it’s possible.
Thanks, Kevin!
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If you need convincing, here’s an except from BETTER DEAD at Criminal Element.
More on MOMMY at Film Scene.
Finally, here’s a lovely review of MURDER NEVER KNOCKS from J. Kingston Pierce at the Kirkus blog. I never thought I’d live to see the day I got a positive Kirkus review.
M.A.C.
