Posts Tagged ‘Barbara Allan’

« Older Entries

It’s a Quarry and Death by Fruitcake Christmas!

Tuesday, October 13th, 2026

I apologize for the emphasis on hawking my wares here for the last few weeks, but it’s not often I have two books out at essentially the same time.

And, at least in the Collins household, the 50th anniversary of Quarry is kind of a big deal (specifically of the publication of the first novel about him, The Broker, available from Hard Case Crime as Quarry, my intended title). The imminent publication of Quarry’s Reunion – sporting a fantastic Paul Mann cover – is the official 50th Anniversary Release. But there’s something else that’s exciting, at least to me.

As some of you know, I do a certain amount of work for Kino Lorber doing commentaries with my buddy Heath Holland. A few months ago I contacted Jeffrey Goodman, the director of the 2008 movie The Last Lullaby, based on my short story “A Matter of Principal” and the novel it spawned, The Last Quarry…a novel that itself spawned this whole raft of Quarry novels I never expected to get to write.

As a collector of DVDs, Blu-rays and 4K discs, I asked Jeffrey if the film’s physical media rights were available (I knew its distributor had placed The Last Lullaby with some streaming services). I wanted to see if we could get The Last Lullaby released on Blu-ray as part of the 50th Anniversary of Quarry.

Jeffrey loved the idea and acquired the go-ahead from his distributor. Next, I approached Frank Tarzi, head honcho of Kino. Lightning fast, Frank got on board. I got Heath involved, so that we could do a commentary where he would interview Jeffrey and me together.

I am very fond of the short film, “A Matter of Principal,” made in the early 2000s by Jeffrey from my script, and hoped we could include it on the Blu-ray as a bonus feature. I felt it would be a particularly nice touch, because first of all, it’s a good little film; and second, the character is called Quarry, whereas in The Last Lullaby he had been renamed Price (a name I kind of like) to protect my sequel rights.

I wanted to make it clear Lullaby was a Quarry movie.

Just last week I learned that we would indeed be able to include the short film on the Blu-ray. And another significant piece of news came in shortly after that: The Last Lullaby will have a December 2026 release! That gives us a Quarry novel in November and a Quarry Blu-ray in December.

Some of you may recall I had some issues with the film because a second writer worked on the script after my initial two drafts (and of course I was the source writer). But I did give notes after the rewrite, which Jeffrey largely paid heed to, and anyway it’s a good film, which is all the source writer can ask, beyond being paid (which I was, rather handsomely).

I’ve always liked the film. Looking at it for the first time in many years, I’ve warmed to it even more. The late Tom Sizemore makes an excellent latterday Quarry, and librarian Sasha Alexander is a terrific unlikely target for a hitman. The direction is excellent and should have led to more Goodman films. It has its own distinct approach and mood. And I am particularly fond of the Midwest setting.

There’s some irony in that. As some will recall, the single season of the HBO/Cinemax Quarry TV series was set in Louisiana and leaned into that setting, as if it were a key element of the Quarry stories. Now the truth is that the series was shot there simply to take advantage of generous tax credits. My Quarry yarns are not steeped in swamp blues.

Jeffrey is a longtime Louisiana resident, and he went out of his way to make his film (shot perhaps half an hour from his house) look like Quarry’s Midwest. My early books in particular, written at the Iowa Writers Workshop (Bait Money, No Cure for Death, Quarry) were in part my effort to show that hardboiled crime fiction didn’t have to be set in New York or Los Angeles. Much of my Iowa upbringing is in those books (Quarry himself is an Ohio boy, and the first book takes place in Port City, Iowa, a lightly fictionalized Muscatine).

This is one of the reasons why I consider The Last Lullaby a better representation of what I am up to in the Quarry novels than the TV series – and why I prefer it.

* * *

We had a book giveaway (of Quarry’s Reunion) last week and the copies went fast. These were ARC’s, advanced copies although they are in the same format as the actual books will be and differ little. When that book hits print, and I can access some copies, we’ll do another book giveaway.

* * *

Antiques Web is now available, the latest in our long-running Trash ‘n’ Treasures comic cozy series. The “our” in the previous sentence is my wife Barb and me – “Barbara Allan.”

Our novels used to be carried regularly by Barnes & Noble, and in fact often made their cozy mystery bestseller lists. But our current publisher, Severn House, is based in the UK and our penetration into B & B and some other brick-and-mortar stores can be spotty.

Severn recently joined up with Joffe in the UK and we anticipate our bookstore availability will improve quite a bit. In the meantime, please send for Antiques Web at Amazon and other favorite online booksellers of yours; you should be able to get the hardcover and e-books as well. If you’ve missed some of the other Severn House Antiques titles, those are available in trade as well as hardcover. The series numbering has started over at Amazon with the Severn-published titles, omitting the many Kensington titles.

We’ve had nice comments about Death by Fruitcake, our Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures movie, a micro-budget affair we made ourselves. It can be found on Tubi and various other services, sometimes for a fee, now and then not. YouTube has it free, for example, from the service Free Time Movies.

Now for physical media fans like me, here’s something interesting: Amazon has been bouncing around the price for the DVD of Death by Fruitcake from $22.98 to (gasp!) $4.83 and various points in between. Right now, it’s at its 90-day low!

And the Blue Christmas DVD – our 2024 micro-budget but acclaimed mash-up of A Christmas Carol and The Maltese Falcon – is Amazon at an almost equally astonishing $7.49. The blu-ray is $12.70.

These are perfect stocking stuffers at this price, so please take advantage. Do be aware that while these micro-budget productions have been mostly well-received, you will find occasional condescending coal among the candy-cane opinions.

Here is a review that should tell you whether or not you would enjoy Blue Christmas. It’s from Patrick J. Regal at Letterboxd.

The Under 700 Club started three years ago with a holiday recommendation, Edward Burns’ story of familial forgiveness, The Fitzgerald Family Christmas. The next year, a Christmas entry became an annual tradition with a review of the CW’s 2021 version of The Waltons’ Homecoming, a remake that was much better than I expected it to be. Last year, I reviewed another television film, BET’s ridiculous comedy Christmas Party Crashers. My annual gift to you, an underseen and underrated holiday film, returns this year with another offering, 2024’s noir Blue Christmas.

Marley was dead, to begin with. It’s Christmas Eve in 1941, and Jake Marley (Chris Causey) was murdered one year ago tonight. His private dick partner, Richard Stone (Rob Merritt), never bothered to solve the murder because, well, he’s just kind of an asshole – a draft dodger who didn’t choose the most noble of careers. In this take on Charles Dickens’ immortal A Christmas Carol, Stone is visited by Marley, as well as the ensuing three ghosts, in his Chicago office after everyone else has cleared out for the holidays. Unlike the top review on Letterboxd, I wouldn’t spoil anything about the ghosts, so I’ll just say that two of them are recognizable historical figures, and the title does reference something specific about one of them.

The film is written and directed by Max Allan Collins, one of the finest writers of crime fiction over the past few decades. Carrying the torch from the likes of writers like Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett (Collins’ next book is a sequel to Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon), Mickey Spillane (the two collaborated toward the end of Spillane’s life, and Spillane chose Collins to finish his incomplete manuscripts after his death), Collins was of the next generation of hardboiled storytellers. With a career that has lasted five decades, he’s written over 100 novels (I’m working my way through his Quarry series), comics (Ms. Tree and Dick Tracy, though he’s probably best known for Road to Perdition), and screenplays, both produced and unproduced.

But low-budget filmmaking is the great equalizer, and Blue Christmas is as micro-budget as it gets. It does look and feel like it was shot for roughly $10,000 in six days in a community college’s black box theatre, and that’s because it was. However, that’s what I find so impressive about it. Very few people understand how hard that is to pull off, and it’s a shame that so many folks are unable to look past that, as several of the reviews have been harsh and unfair. After all, the movie’s most recognizable actor is Alisabeth Von Presley, a golden ticket recipient on American Idol ten years ago and a competitor on the short-lived American Song Contest, but I think you’d have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of reality competition shows to pull those out. The rest of the cast is populated with actors local to Collins’ home state of Iowa.

But when I see a play or musical at a community theatre, I don’t expect Broadway quality. When one of those amateur troupes does Hamlet or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it’s still a play by William freaking Shakespeare. And made by amateurs, this is not. A Chicago crime version of A Christmas Carol is still just that, and Collins, adapting his own short story “A Wreath for Marley,” writes dime novel dialogue with the best of ‘em. Hell, he’s one of the best of ‘em. He slings the lingo. The one-liners are quick and witty. I mean, come on, the movie features the phrase “ho-ho-ho-homicide,” and it doesn’t get any better than that. And the credits roll at the 73-minute mark – it really doesn’t get any better than that.

You can watch this one for free in all of the usual free movie places (which is how I watched it), but I’d like to check out the special edition Blu-ray, which features over two hours of bonus materials, as well as a commentary with Collins and producer/editor Chad Bishop. If you wanted to get me a present this year…

A note to Patrick Regal, who I do not know. If you e-mail me at macphilms@hotmail.com, I will send you a Christmas present: Death by Fruitcake. Yes, I am incredibly generous, but hey, it’s only gonna cost me $4.83.

M.A.C.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 2 Comments »

The Borne Girls Are Back

Tuesday, July 21st, 2026

If you haven’t seen Death by Fruitcake yet, it has just gone up on Tubi and you can watch it free. Please do!

Will we continue the book series? We hope so, but that remains to be seen. The final book on our contract is Antiques Web, which will be published by Severn House (now an imprint of Joffe Books) at the beginning of this coming October.

Pre-order in Hardcover:

What a pleasure it is seeing Barb grow and develop as a writer. She began writing short stories, a few of which were collaborations with me; but she has a feel and instinct for the shorter form that I, frankly, lack. When we began the Trash ‘n’ Treasures/ANTIQUES series, the drafts she handed on to me were perhaps 200 of the 300 pages we need to submit. Now her draft is closer to 250 (or more) pages and my addition is around 50.

Those aren’t additional pages in the sense that I continue the story for fifty pages – I revise throughout, expanding her chapters. She leaves breathing room for me in dialogue scenes and often leaves action scenes to me. Early on we plotted the books together, but it’s evolved into us just agreeing on a basic idea of what the next book will be, and Barb does the actual chapter breakdown. I don’t see anything till her draft is complete. Rarely she may run into a problem and ask for my input, but hardly ever.

Just as Barb has grown and developed, our two main characters have evolved considerably. When we sold the series to Kensington in 2005, our editor (Michaela Hamilton) told us to write a “chick lit” mystery – lots of fashion and shopping tips. We set out to do so, but midway, Michaela called and said, “Chick lit is dead,” and we adjusted. There are probably still ghosts of that initial concept in the books. What has been most surprising though, is how Brandy and Vivian have changed.

We set out with Brandy as the amateur sleuth and Mother as the comic sidekick; but Brandy soon became the reluctant partner in the pair who would rather not be dealing with mystery and particularly murder at all. And Mother asserted herself, wanting to write her own chapters. While Brandy, as our Watson, still has the lioness’s share of first-person chapters, Vivian shoulders her way into an increasing number of them.

The two women took over, and Barb and I dutifully followed them.

The idea was always to keep in tongue in cheek, and spoof the cozy genre without minimizing the mystery aspect – to make sure murder was murder. Death is no laughing matter.

I know it’s sometimes been tricky to find us, since we left Kensington in 2020, as Severn is a UK house, though they continue to make inroads into the American market. If you have difficulty finding us in a brick-and-mortar outlet, various sites (including Amazon and Barnes & Noble) will help.

Here are the Severn titles: ANTIQUES CARRY ON; ANTIQUES LIQUIDATION; ANTIQUES FOE; ANTIQUES SLAY BELLES; ANTIQUES ROUND-UP; and of course the forthcoming ANTIQUES WEB. These are all available at the Amazon and Barnes & Noble sites.

M.A.C.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 1 Comment »

True Noir on CD, Love for Fruitcake & A Falcon Nice Review

Tuesday, April 21st, 2026

This week marks the release of the Blackstone/Skyboat four CD-set of True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak (a one-disc MP3-format edition is also available). I’ve talked here often about the amazingly stellar cast (headed up by Michael Rosenbaum) and the direction by my buddy Robert Meyer Burnett. Rob and I both think True Noir is among the best things either of us has done.

You can order it here: https://downpour.com/products/book-101t

[Or here on Amazon. –Nate]

Incidentally, this link accesses 81 titles of mine, in all formats, including Return of the Maltese Falcon.

I get a few inquiries about why True Detective has been adapted under the name True Noir. The obvious (and correct) answer is that HBO used the title on its acclaimed series of a while back. But I like getting the word “noir” in there (and it was my suggestion).

For those of you unfamiliar with this project, here’s what True Noir is: a full-cast, fully scored (by Alexander Bornstein), complete with meticulous sound effects, scripted-by-me adaptation of the first Nathan Heller novel, True Detective. That book won the 1984 Best Novel “Shamus” award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and led to a long-running series (that I may return to one of these days). It really is a movie for the ears, running four and a half hours and providing several evenings of entertainment, or good company on a long road trip.

We hope to do more, but that’s up to you.

A big True Noir event at the Putnam in Davenport, Iowa, is coming up next month. Much more about that later.

* * *

Alisabeth Von Presley and Paula Sands in Death by Fruitcake

My old Ms. Tree cohort Terry Beatty stepped up to inform his Facebook friends about my little movie, Death By Fruitcake, which has just recently been offered here: Xumo (free); Roku Channel (free); Amazon Prime Video (free); YouTube ($2.99); Google Play Movies & TV ($2.99); and Apple TV ($4.99).

Here’s what Terry had to say:

My pal Max Allan Collins’ latest “no budget” movie is now available to stream on Amazon Prime — based on the cozy “Antiques” series of novels written by Max and his wife Barb, under the pen name of Barbara Allan. Well, this one’s based on a novella from an anthology of Christmas themed mysteries — but it features the mother/daughter amateur sleuths from the books. I’ve been providing illustrated maps of the fictional town of Serenity, where the books take place, for the whole run of the series, and just turned in a newly revised map for the next book this morning.

If you’ve been reading the books, you’ll know what to expect here. If “Brandy and Vivian” are new to you, you’ll have fun being introduced to them. As I noted — this is a super low budget movie, so don’t go in expecting Hollywood production values. You also shouldn’t expect a “tough guy” mystery here — this is drawing room/cozy stuff — but with the Collins touch all over it.

You’ll likely have to use Prime’s search function to find it, as they’re busy highlighting bigger budget fare. Enjoy — and don’t eat the fruitcake.

This nice post from Terry elicited this post from Steven Thompson:

HT (hat tip) to Terry Beatty for this morning’s entertainment, a delightful little cozy mystery on Prime written and directed by the estimable Max Allan Collins. The two leads playing mother/daughter small town sleuths are extremely charismatic and both quite well-known in other fields. The non-violent murder mystery is more fun than mysterious, with numerous winks and 4th wall breaks. The dialogue sounds stagey but hey, I talk that way sometimes myself. People tell me I sound odd. Having been an amateur actor myself, too, I certainly recognize that in the film’s entire cast but by no means is that saying they’re bad in any way. As a director, Max makes the most of his low budget quite well indeed, and he even gives a cameo to Dick Tracy, the strip he wrote for years!

Having looked into them now, I see where Paula Sands retired a couple years back from a 40 year career as an Iowa newswoman and talk show host. She is great fun as the theatre director attempting to solve the murder of her much disliked leading lady. Tall and sharply eyelashed Alisabeth Von Presley is really a singer and has appeared on shows like American Idol but she can deliver lines well and she has a wonderful grin and wink. Her relationship with Paula as her mother carries the show.

Highly recommended as long as you don’t expect Oscar-quality anything! A great way to start my morning.

And mine! Though Fruitcake is probably best watched some quiet evening over several glasses of wine with someone you love.

I’m grateful to all of you who have given Fruitcake a try, and especially if you’ve posted at Facebook or elsewhere, including Amazon reviews, where right now we only have two reviews but they are overwhelmingly positive.

* * *

In case you haven’t got round to picking up the current Return of the Maltese Falcon, this review from Matthew Legare should encourage you.

First serialized in 1929, The Maltese Falcon is one of the mystery genre’s most enduring titles. It’s been adapted, parodied, and inspired countless writers. But now, it gets a sequel in the form of Max Allan Collins’s Return of the Maltese Falcon.

Not an official sequel, mind you, but since Dashiell Hammett’s original novel entered public domain this year, any writer can use it however they wish. It’s a bit dicey, since only the original novel is public domain, not the famous 1941 film with Humphrey Bogart, probably the single most influential piece of media for film noir and the hardboiled PI genre. Whenever a stock or cliché gumshoe detective shows up, they’re imitating Bogie as Sam Spade, not the original novel.

(MAC: Hard disagree. The novel itself was already the seminal influence on the private eye novel when the Huston/Bogart film appeared.)

As such, the sequel’s Sam Spade is described as he is in the original novel, i.e. a “blond Satan” and distinctly opposite to Bogart. What’s more, it’s written in Hammett’s distinctive, staccato prose, and all in third-person. That’s a detail I appreciate as too many mystery novels are first person à la Spillane and Chandler, but I’m biased as I always prefer third-person.

The 1941 film (as well as the less famous 1931 adaptation) actually follow the novel pretty closely, so Collins’s sequel actually works pretty well if you’ve only seen the movie and never read the book. Even the cover (a glorious piece of art by the legendary Hard Case Crime imprint) is more evocative of the original novel, with Sam Spade younger and more hawkish than his film versions, the femme fatale a sultry flapper, and the black bird itself more spindly than its bulky movie counterpart.

It starts off shortly after the events of the novel, set in late 1929 (Hammett never specified a date but 1929 is a perfect year in my opinion), Sam receives another mysterious femme fatale in the form of Rhea Gutman, daughter of the villainous Caspar Gutman aka the Fat Man and mastermind of the original novel.

(MAC: a gentle correction. The novel takes place in December 1928 as the text says.)

She’s convinced the Maltese Falcon is not only real but still in San Francisco. If you will remember, the Falcon was procured by a shadowy Russian officer, General Kemidov, who duped Gutman and his two criminal associates, Joel Cairo and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, with a lead phony.

Spade isn’t so sure, but he believes Rhea’s money and visits Cairo and Brigid in jail, asking where Kemidov’s whereabouts may be. Cairo, who was probably the best character in the original novel after Spade himself (famously played by the legendary Peter Lorre) is used sparingly here, which is unfortunate, but there really was no way to get him out of jail after being arrested in the original novel I suppose.

Regardless, Spade does what he does best, snooping for clues and getting into trouble. Sketchy characters emerge out of the San Francisco fog, like our old pal Wilmer Cook, Caspar’s boy gunsel, who has a few violent run-ins with Spade.

Added to the mix are a few other characters like Dixie Monahan, briefly mentioned in the original novel as a dangerous Chicago gangster, who is now also looking for the Falcon. Stewart Blackwood, a refined Englishman from a museum who has, apparently, already paid for the Falcon. Also there’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s sister, trying to find the black bird to help pay for legal fees. Kemidov himself features prominently in this novel with his invisible presence felt everywhere, something I appreciate since he was just a name and plot device in the original novel.

Spade juggles multiple clients and leads, along with a mysterious dead body he’s asked to identify, until he finally gets on the Falcon’s scent. Not a decoy, not a misdirect, but the actual Maltese Falcon. This time there’s no going back, but the dangers get even more perilous for Spade – Wilmer Cook keeps popping up but even more troubling, the Police check up on Rhea’s backstory and it turns out, Caspar Gutman never had a daughter.

Everything is wrapped up in the classic “exposition room” scene with all the suspects together and facts laid out. Cliché, but it works.

The Maltese Falcon is one of my favorite novels and Hammett’s prose has influenced me in ways I am forever grateful. It’s a masterpiece and a great piece of American literature, albeit pulp fiction. There are definite problems, some important characters mentioned (like Kemidov) never show up and some of the plot seems rushed together, and the fate of several characters are explained to us off screen. However, all the elements flow together into a beautiful canvas by the end. If you’ve never read it, you don’t know what you’re missing.

(MAC: These are excellent observations. Hammett famously claimed not to have plotted the book in advance, rather writing it by the seat of his pants, as we pulp writers put it, which explains some of what Matthew has to say here.)

Max Allan Collins is what I call a “working man’s writer.” This guy has been writing for decades, across multiple platforms – novels, novelizations, comic books, comic strips (he used to write the official Dick Tracy strip) – and shows no signs of slowing down. He has over two hundred novels to his name with multiple series like the historical detective Nathan Heller, the hitman Quarry, and has collaborated with the legendary Mickey Spillane to finish off the Mike Hammer books. You can tell this man loves the crime genre with a passion and if there’s one living writer worth, and dedicated enough, to write its sequel, it’s Collins.

Return of the Maltese Falcon is a worthy addition to American pulp fiction and worth your time.

It’s incredibly gratifying to receive a smart review like this. I try not to be influenced by either good or bad reviews. I regard the good ones as positive publicity and the bad ones as negative publicity; but don’t allow myself to be influenced by either…though, like most people in the arts, I remember the bad reviews vividly while the good ones are a blur.

* * *

My son Nate and grandson Sam have been watching Cowboy Bebop on Blu-ray. It’s a favorite of Nate and mine, and it was a joy revisiting this incredible s-f/crime anime after so long a time. I would rank it with the original Star Trek and Lexx (a show criminally off my recent “favorites” list) as among my very favorite science fiction series (call it Number 6, although I should probably put The Prisoner there and give Lexx the Prisoner’s slot on the five favorites).

One of the things that characterizes the series is its outstanding music by composer Yoko Kanno and her band the Seatbelts. They just a few weeks ago performed in the United States. Here they are performing the opening theme of Cowboy Bebop (a theme rivaled only by Peter Gunn and James Bond). Enjoy!

M.A.C.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

True Noir Followed by a Slice of Fruitcake – WTF?

Tuesday, March 24th, 2026

I’m not sure what compelled me to do two weeks of lists of “Five Favorites” here. I can say with confidence it was more about me looking back and summing up than trying to sway anybody about those favorites. I do admit to trying to bring new eyes and ears to Bobby Darin and Vanilla Fudge, but otherwise I was just taking stock of what has shaped and is shaping me, even at this late stage of the game.

Yesterday (as I write this) Heath Holland interviewed me about my return in recent years to indie filmmaking. I haven’t seen it, and don’t believe it’s been posted yet; but it felt good. I’ll provide a link here as soon as I can.


Heath Holland

I mention this, first, because I want to recommend Heath’s work on YouTube in general (under his Cereal at Midnight banner). He is one of the best and sanest of the champions of physical media out there right now. He and I have been doing commentaries (about 10 so far I believe) for various Blu-rays and 4K discs).

Also, as many of you know, I have a regular segment on YouTube as part of Robert Meyer Burnett’s show Let’s Get Physical Media, with the great Dieter Bastion. It’s a show that usually runs about two and a half hours, airing live on YouTube on Sunday afternoon (1 pm Central). And of course you can catch it anytime, after it airs, at your convenience. I usually come on about 2 p.m. Central and discuss discs I’ve recently watched, usually noir/mystery-centric movies or at least noir-adjacent. I stay for about an hour. There’s lots of movie talk and news of forthcoming physical media releases. I was a fan before I become, well, a segment.

Rob and Dieter have been great about promoting Death by Fruitcake, though I suspect it is anything but their cup of tea. They have also relentlessly given time to Return of the Maltese Falcon and to the Burnett/Collins collaboration, True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak.

Rob will be coming to the Quad Cities some time in early May (exact date to be determined) for an event at the Putnam Museum in Davenport. (This event was supposed to be in early April but that didn’t work out.) We’ll be showing The Maltese Falcon on their big IMAX screen on the first night, followed with an interview with me about Return of the Maltese Falcon. On the second night we’ll present the opening chapters of True Noir, also in the IMAX theater.


Robert Meyer Burnett salutes True Noir

As I’ve mentioned, True Noir is now in wide distribution at your favorite audio source, with a four-CD set due soon from Skyboat. There’s also a soundtrack of Alex Bornstein’s wonderful score in the works, and I believe the entire audio drama will be available on Blu-ray in 5.1 with the collected chapter-by-chapter videos I made about the history behind this first Heller saga.

Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What have you done for Max Allan Collins lately? I’m listening. I’m waiting.

Joking aside, you’ve done plenty. Many of you have reviewed Return of the Maltese Falcon on Amazon and elsewhere. That’s very helpful. The book is successful enough that serious talk is under way to do two Sam Spade follow-up novels. Barnes & Noble are carrying it widely now, again thanks to your nudging, although they have generally relegated it to the mystery section and not among significant new releases. BAM! has been much better.

Keep those reviews coming. If you’ve read the book, and like it, let Amazon know by way of a review, which can be as long or short as you like. If you didn’t like it, remember – silence is golden.

Death by Fruitcake can use your help, too – we have two lovely reviews at Amazon so far. It’s a little high-priced for a DVD (around $22) but unfortunately I can’t do anything about that. It’s streaming all over the place, but not free yet. That will come sometime next month, I think.

I was amused when Heath spoke of liking Fruitcake but being blindsided by what a different tone it has compared to my other work. (He had just listened to Michael Rosenbaum as Nate Heller in True Noir.) He also was not a fan or even familiar with “cozy” mysteries. But he did claim to have enjoyed our little movie, and particularly singled out Alisabeth Von Presley and Paula Sands for praise (not surprisingly).


Paula Sands and Alisabeth Von Presley in Death by Fruitcake.

And, for those of you who follow – or at least have sampled the Barbara Allan-bylined series my wife Barb and I write together – know, our Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures mysteries are what you might call subversive cozies. They contain at least as much humor as mystery, and our tongues are in cheek throughout.

At 20 books, these novels about Brandy and Vivian Borne are arguably my (our) most successful series. The current one, Antiques Round-up, is a fairly wild ride, I think you’ll find. And we just delivered Antiques Web.

What am I – are we – working on now? Well, I am waiting to hear about the prospective Spade novels and a sequel to another successful property of mine, which puts me in a limbo in which I am not comfortable. Ditto for Barb, as the book we recently sent in is the last on the current contract.

I guess Barb and I are in an uber-Spring Cleaning mode, as we have descended into our basement to thin my book and magazines and DVD collections into something that can reasonably be considered contained. It’s ain’t easy, kids. I am looking at close to sixty years (choke!) of collecting…no, let’s be frank: accumulating…and to give you an idea, we took seven boxes of magazines and books to the Source Bookstore in Davenport last week, and another seven to Half-Price Books in Cedar Rapids yesterday.

And we’ve barely made a dent.

Do not think that our basement will be empty when we are finished. The goal is to turn it from a hoarding nightmare into a curated dream, and it’s going to be a year-long job (in and around the books we both have to write).

Or at least I hope we’ll have books to write. That depends on editors and readers, and obviously that’s where you come in – it’s why I’m after you to write reviews, and why I hope you’ll consider ordering Death by Fruitcake from Amazon (Oldies.com has it, too, a little cheaper but with postage that will sting if you’re used to no postage charges as an Amazon Prime member).

The success or lack of it for Fruitcake will determine whether I can muster my aging body for another run at a micro-budget indie or two. I have a horror film next in mind, and would love to do another Antiques movie, if my cast will come back.

The crazy thing is this: I have three major movie options going right now (Mike Hammer, Eliot Ness and Nolan, with Ms. Tree bubbling), which stand to generate a hell of a lot more income than another homemade micro-budget movie. But here’s how I look at it: I have had probably twenty-plus Hollywood options over the years, and exactly two have come through (Road to Perdition and Quarry). And I don’t seem to be getting any younger. So I just stay at it.

And as long as I am here, and you are here, I will.

M.A.C.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries