Posts Tagged ‘Fate of the Union’

Capitol Crime, The Dark City & San Diego Comic Con Schedule

Tuesday, July 1st, 2025

Here’s a trailer for Cap City aka Mickey Spillane’s Cap City.

This movie is something director David Wexler and I have been working on for some time. The idea was always for me to adapt the Spillane/Collins novella, A Bullet for Satisfaction, into a film. The novella shared space with The Last Stand in the Hard Case Crime-published book of that title.

The script went through various iterations. Originally, as in the novella, the lead character, a tough detective in a corrupt town, was male. For various reasons, it was decided I’d rewrite it for a female lead, a la Ms. Tree.

The projected budget was in the very low millions, and we came close to getting it financed. But it never quite came together, and finally David was ready to move on; but I suggested I rewrite it to mostly play on one set, a technique I had used on Blue Christmas. This excited the director, my envisioning a way to go from low-budget to micro-budget and still get the story told.

So I rewrote the script accordingly.

Ironically, David wound up shooting Cap City during the same two-week period that I shot Death By Fruitcake – two movies of mine shooting simultaneously! I had to turn down a trip to the east coast to be on set for Cap City because I was busy.

I’m very pleased with the finished result of Cap City (and Fruitcake of course). David is preparing to take it out to festivals, and I may be screening it in the Quad Cities in August as part of the non-competitive festival, Alternating Currents. That looks likely but not a sure thing just yet.

More to come on that front soon.

In the meantime, here is David’s biography:

David Wexler is President of Cinema 59 Productions. He is a writer/director based in New York City. Prior to his feature films (EVIL WEED, THE STAND UP, ANCHORS, TURTLE ISLAND, LAST SUPPER, VIGILANTE), David focused on television, creating and producing the critically acclaimed reality show “College Life” for MTV.

Wexler’s film, Motorcycle Drive By, about Third Eye Blind, was an official selection of the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival. Most recently, his film Disintegration Loops was an official selection of the 2021 SXSW Film Festival.

Cinema 59 often works with Creative Diversions (a Toy/Game company) to create 360 degree entertainment.

* * *

Executive Order and Fate of the Union will be promoted via Amazon’s Monthly Deals, starting 7/1/2025 and running through 7/31/2025, each will be offered at 2.99 USD during the promotion period. (This is e-book only.)

These are book two and book one of the Reeder and Rogers Trilogy. Supreme Justice is not part of this offer, but it’s available here.

The trilogy by Matt Clemens and me has proven unfortunately prescient, particularly Supreme Justice, which has gone on to be one of my bestselling titles, just behind Road to Perdition and Saving Private Ryan.

* * *

Cleveland Magazine has put out a “read local” booklist and the first of my Eliot Ness novels, The Dark City, is on it. I might have preferred Butcher’s Dozen, but a recommendation is a recommendation.

Here is where you can get The Dark City.

* * *

For those of you who asked where my movie Mommy could be streamed, the link is here.

* * *

Finally, here is the schedule for my panels at the San Diego Comic Con.

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON PANELS 2025
THURSDAY
“Leave Them in Suspense”
11:00 AM — 12:00 PM
Room 23ABC
Panel will include Ted Van Alst, Jr., Max Allan Collins, Arvind Ethan David, Shane Hawk, Holly Jackson, and Catriona Ward. This panel will be moderated by Mysterious Galaxy.

FRIDAY
“Spotlight on Max Allan Collins”
4:00 – 5:00
Room 28DE
Robert Meyer Burnett (Robservations) interviews Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition) on a career ranging from Dick Tracy and Ms. Tree to the current all-star immersive ten-chapter audio drama, True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak, based on Collins’ Nathan Heller series.

SUNDAY
“Max Allan Collins: A Titan at Hard Case Crime: From Ms. Tree to Nolan to Heller to Spade & Hammer!”
11:00AM – 12:00PM,
Room: 32AB
Andrew Sumner interviews Max Allan Collins on the author’s work at Titan Books and sister company Hard Case Crime.

M.A.C.

My Bestsellers, A Great Blue Christmas Review, and Quarry

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024

You may not know what my bestselling books actually are. And I don’t know for sure that these three novels have outsold everything else I’ve done – various editions of Road to Perdition for example – but they continue to sell and generate income.

They are on sale right now.

Supreme Justice cover
E-Book:
Executive Order cover
E-Book:
Fate of the Union cover
E-Book:

Supreme Justice, Fate of the Union and Executive Order will be $2.99 each starting 12/1/2024 and running through 12/31/2024. These are e-books not physical publications. (The physical editions are nice, just not on sale.)

The novels, the last of which was published in 2017, have some interesting themes, considering what has transpired in America since.

Supreme Justice dealt with a Conservative-stacked Supreme Court; Fate of the Union was about a multi-millionaire who runs for president and tries to overthrow the government; and Executive Order concerns a coup by the Secret Service to replace the President.

My co-author Matt Clemens and I have pitched several further Reeder-and-Rogers novels with Thomas & Mercer and have gotten nowhere, despite the strong sales of this (what now appears to be a) trilogy. As tumultuous as the politics are right now, Matt and I actually feel a little relieved not to be adding to the Reeder and Rogers canon. They take place somewhat in the future – not enough to be viewed as science-fiction certainly – and despite what some have posted on Amazon reviewing pages, the books do not take a political stand, at least not overtly. The politics of the two main characters are not the same, for one thing.

I mention all this because (a) you might have been unaware of them and that they are among my bestselling novels, and (b) they are on sale right now.

* * *
Blue Christmas banner

You’re going to have to put up with me talking about Blue Christmas for the next few weeks, since we need to encourage you to buy it on physical media or stream it on Amazon Prime (and a couple of other places) before Christmas 2024 is in the rear-view mirror. I encourage you to use Diabolik, but you can get it from Amazon, obviously. Don’t pay more than around twenty bucks, despite its official price of thirty or so.

We had hoped to do a few more Iowa advanced screenings of Death by Fruitcake, but that hasn’t jelled. We have not been helped by how late Thanksgiving came this year, and how suddenly we’re in December already.

I made a calculation that following Blue Christmas up with a second Christmas movie was the smart thing to do. I still think it was – particularly since the two movies are very different – but it made dealing with a limited theatrical release in our native Iowa become problematic. We did do very well with our Death by Fruitcake advanced screening in our native Muscatine, selling out the houses on the two nights we premiered the production.

We spent a little more money, and took a little more time, on Death By Fruitcake than we did Blue Christmas. I think it represents a step up. But I am grateful to the reviewers and, well, viewers who have been gracious about the micro-budget nature of Blue Christmas.

To all of you who have posted glowing reviews, positive Facebook posts and nice e-mails about our modest little effort, thank you so much…and merry Christmas.

One of the best reviews we’ve received is from the well-respected Douglas Pratt at his DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter.

Have a Blue Christmas!

We hate to spoil it, but it happens in the first few minutes anyway and it is just the very beginning of the film’s inspirations when you hear that the name of the grumpy detective’s dead partner, at the start of the VCI Entertainment MVDvisual Blu-ray, Blue Christmas), is ‘Jake Marley.’ It is 1942, and Marley was killed a year ago, of course, on Christmas Day. What happens when you take A Christmas Carol and cross it with The Maltese Falcon? Well, with a good-sized cast and the creative inspiration already in place, you get the most perfect community theater property to show up this side of Mamma Mia! That is how the very low budget film plays, but its imagination and wit are so compelling, and the Dickensian emotional hooks are so effectively preserved, that it can do no wrong. Written and directed by Max Allan Collins, Rob Merritt stars as a 4F detective who is running a reasonably successful detective agency in Chicago, even though he’s chintzy with his staff and blows off requests for charity. He falls asleep at his desk that night, and the visitors start coming, the first of which is his former partner, who needs him to find the killer. Everything else in the 79-minute feature is such a joy to discover, we will leave it to you with glad tidings.

The entire film was shot on a single set, mostly as the detective’s office, but redressed slightly for a few flashback scenes and the like. The one quibble we would have is that the film, shot on HD, is presented in widescreen format with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1. It is very clear in scene after scene that there is not enough decoration to support the framing and that blocking the movie in a squared, full screen image would not only have given it greater production value, but would have better captured the Forties tone the film otherwise so lovingly conveys. Nevertheless, the colors are bright and sharp, and the endless string of instrumental Christmas tunes playing on the soundtrack are well served by the modest dimensionality of the stereo sound. There are optional English subtitles, a trailer, an excellent 26-minute profile of the Iowa-based Collins that barely mentions his work as a film director as it focuses on his prolific writing career (nothing like the Iowa cost of living when you’re trying to get by as a writer…), and an extensive 102-minute collection of post-screening interviews with almost the full cast and crew at different locations, as they all share their eagerness for the project and the enjoyment they had putting it together. Although she only appears in one of the Q&A’s, it is worth noting that regional actress Alisabeth Von Presley is as captivating in person as she is in the memorable part she plays in the film as the specific and inspired ghost of Christmas Past. Scot Gehret, as another inspired ghost of Christmas Future, also has several crowd pleasing moments in the interviews.

Collins and producer Chad Bishop provide a decent commentary track, talking about each cast member (including how they were chosen, their working methods, their personalities and many other details), the technical choices, the adjustments when they decided to do the whole thing in one location (they shot it at a college theater in Iowa in 6 days), how the story was gestated, its previous iterations, and what their own working relationship was like.

Doug Pratt’s ability to take the production on its own (admittedly limited) terms is textbook Good Reviewing.

* * *

I have delivered Return of the Maltese Falcon to Hard Case Crime and sister company Titan Books.

Publisher/editor Charles Ardai got back to me lightning fast, as is his habit, so the book has largely been put to bed – though not due out till January 2026. My Mike Hammer editor Andrew Sumner, at Titan, will be giving it an editorial pass soon, which will really finalize matters.

That gives me a year to be ready for what I think will be a lot of praise but possibly as many attacks. For readers of hardboiled/noir fiction – or just great American fiction – my providing a sequel to a work of this stature – takes a good deal of nerve…and maybe reckless abandon.

But I’m something of an old hand at taking over for my heroes – scripting Dick Tracy for fifteen years, completing Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer over a period of seventeen years. It’s done out of love and respect, I assure you. And I consider it an incredible privilege to walk in such shoes, despite the unlikelihood of ever really filling them.

* * *
Quarry's Return audiobook cover
Quarry’s Return Audiobook Cover

Sample Audio:

Trade Paperback: Bookshop Purchase Link Amazon Purchase Link Books-A-Million Purchase Link Barnes & Noble Purchase Link
E-Book: Google Play Kobo
Digital Audiobook: Audible Purchase Link Google Play Kobo
Audiobook CD: Amazon Purchase Link Books-A-Million Purchase Link
Audiobook MP3 CD: Amazon Purchase Link Books-A-Million Purchase Link

With all the fuss over my little movies here of late, the new Quarry has gotten a bit lost in the shuffle, But we have 24 Amazon reviews currently, all five-star.

And Barb and I are listening to Stefan Rudnicki’s reading of Quarry’s Return right now, and he’s done usual terrific job – he really gets it.

In case you didn’t see it, here’s the Publisher’s Weekly review.

QUARRY’S RETURN
Max Allan Collins. Hard Case Crime, $12.95 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-80336-876-4
Retired hit man Quarry returns to the killing business with ruthless efficiency in the highly satisfying 17th entry in Collins’s crime series (after Quarry’s Blood). When a journalist shows up at Quarry’s door searching for his daughter, bestselling true crime author Susan Breedlove, Quarry senses trouble. Predictably, the reporter turns out to be a hired assassin, and his expert knife skills make him more than a match for the 71-year-old ex-killer. Fortunately, Quarry’s former lover Luann Lloyd, who he believed was dead, arrives in the nick of time to rescue him. But Quarry’s daughter is far from safe; evidence suggests she’s been abducted while investigating a series of cold case murders, forcing Quarry to return to Port City, Iowa, where he met Susan’s mother and left contract killing, and where Susan had been conducting research. With Luann’s help, Quarry begins his own investigation into the killings Susan was writing about, in the belief that exposing the culprit will lead him to her. The fluid narration is better than ever, and Collins brings the proceedings to an exhilarating and unexpected conclusion. Fans will hope Quarry returns again soon.
* * *

I hope all of you had lovely Thanksgivings – we did, with a jaunt to the Amana Colonies for an incredible meal – and are dealing with the imminent arrival of Christmas.

Really comes roaring down the track this year.

M.A.C.

Dirty Deeds (Sometimes) Done Dirt Cheap

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024
Ms. Tree: Heroine Withdrawal cover
Paperback: Bookshop Purchase Link
E-Book: Google Play

The latest “archive”-style edition of Ms. Tree is available now: Ms. Tree – Heroine Withdrawal. Titan has done a beautiful job with this one (volume #5) and it contains some of Terry Beatty’s best work (and, maybe, mine). These books are a little pricey, but they are beauties and jam-packed. Even if you have a complete run of the original comics, these are worthwhile.

There’s a particularly nice price for the volumes here.

We did, as I mentioned recently, make a number of Best Of lists. But Craig Zablo (bless him) is the first to put two of my novels on his list of year’s best. Check it out here.

My books for Thomas & Mercer are turning up in book promotions (there are e-books one and all, on Amazon).

The War of the Worlds Murder will be promoted via Limited Time Deal in the US marketplace, starting 1/8/2024 and running through 1/14/2024. 1.99 USD during the promotion period. ()

The Lusitania Murders will be promoted via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US marketplace, starting 1/1/2024 and running through 1/31/2024. 1.99 USD during the promotion period. ()

Fate of the Union will be promoted via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US marketplace, starting 1/1/2024 and running through 1/31/2024. 2.99 USD during the promotion period. ()

The best deal of all is from Wolfpack, however: Max Allan Collins Collection, Volume Two: John Sand (John Sand Books #1-#3) for $0.99! ()

Wolfpack has five collections of my novels, and a lot of other titles of mine, including an anthology title, Murderlized, that includes the first story about Secret Agent John Sand. Check them out here.

That page includes some titles by good pals of mine, Steve Mertz and Paul Bishop.

* * *

For those of you following the trajectory of my movie Blue Christmas, here’s a brief report. Editor/producer Chad Bishop and I completed our edit and this Saturday past ran it by our partner in crime, Director of photography Phil Dingeldein. We screened the feature and Phil had a grand total of three notes, and I had one.

Today – the first day of January 2024 – Chad and I made what I think are the final tweaks, reflecting the notes Phil and I had (Chad a few himself, also).

So we have crossed that finish line, with other challenges ahead. Two Iowa theaters are interested in having premiere screenings, and more are likely to come. We should have word soon about distribution (physical media and streaming). We have entered the Iowa Motion Picture Awards and two festivals.

I hope some of you have sampled Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane (75th Anniversary Expanded Edition) on Amazon Prime or VUDU, and the Hammer Golden Age Radio play, Encore for Murder, on those same venues. Both are reasonably priced. And you can get the Blu-ray from Amazon here (right now, at only $20).

But from the distributor, VCI, directly you can get the expanded Spillane documentary for $14.98.

The Blu-ray includes Encore for Murder as a bonus feature. But Encore is also available, stand-alone, as a DVD, here, directly from VCI for only $9.99.

I don’t know how long VCI’s reduced prices are going to last, so if you have an interest in Spillane (and me), now’s the time.

* * *

Here’s an interview with yrs truly.

Finally, here’s a pretty decent review of Ms. Tree – Heroine Withdrawal.

M.A.C.

Half-Price Books, The Other Muscatine Mystery Man & More

Tuesday, July 4th, 2023

Barb and I, stepping our toes in the waters of life after Covid and heart surgery (me not her), took a brief getaway to Des Moines, where we’ve often gone to relax at a favorite hotel (the Wildwood), indulge in some favorite restaurants (Noah’s Arc, Ohana Steakhouse), and shop at some of our favorite brick-and-mortar stores.

Master Chef Cy Gushiken at our favorite Des Moines restaurant.
Master Chef Cy Gushiken at our favorite Des Moines restaurant.

Unfortunately, Barb’s favorite of that latter category (Von Maur at Valley West) has moved to upscale Jordan Creek mall. West Des Moines/Clive (they are adjacent) has a very nice Barnes & Noble that is still open and apparently flourishing, despite a second B & N opening a while back at Jordan Creek.

The dog in my hunt, chiefly, is the West Des Moines Half-Price Books. I go to the Cedar Rapids Half-Price frequently, but I always considered the somewhat larger Des Moines outlet an outstanding one. This time I was less enthusiastic.

Now, let’s take a brief side trip into the competing worlds of streaming and physical media. Physical media has taken a bad hit – Best Buy has all but phased out the home video that was for decades their chief loss leader/draw. They dropped CDs several years ago. The younger world (the same one inexplicably drawn to vinyl) has done its best to convince everyone over thirty that physical media has gone the way of the dodo and dinosaur. That we will be able to get every, movie and TV-wise, that we could ever want from the streaming services.

Right.

What we really have in streaming is a combination of charging for everything (even the oldest content) or foisting commercials on us, and gradually…well, not so gradually…dropping the movies and particularly TV shows you were paying to get.

Thank God for physical media.

And thank God for Half-Price Books, right?

Sure, they rape you when you sell stuff to them, and pretend to care about the environment by eliminating plastic bags (and selling you five-buck cloth ones, if you insist upon transporting your purchases to the parking lot without encountering bodily harm). But at least they are the home of physical media.

Right? Right?

My visit to the Des Moines Half-Price Books began by the book/video buyer informing me they were now paying less (!) because so much was so easily available from the streaming services (!). Muttering, I trundled off to the wall of movies and TV shows on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K to drown my sorrows in cinema.

What greeted me was indeed a wall of video. But it was also an ungodly video mosaic – DVDs were now interspersed with Blu-rays and 4K’s. No separation of titles – like Criterions, or classic cinema, or foreign, or any classification. Everything and anything that could be considered a “feature film” was lumped together – Bambi and Night of the Living Dead sharing only horrific death scenes. A secondary wall of TV series also consisted of interspersed DVDs and Blu-rays.

A few classifications remained, outside of the feature film area. In the Entertainment book section, you could find a row of interspersed opera DVDs and Blu-rays. And in the sports area was a row of wrestling DVDs. No opera-singing wrestler videos appeared to be on offer.

Here’s the thing: Blu-ray/4K collectors generally do not also collect DVDs. Nor do most people still buying DVDs want to be bothered with them uppity Blu-rays and 4K’s. And few of us in either group want to go through hundreds upon hundreds of unsorted (if alphabetized) mixed formats. I do not care to go through the entire inventory of a Half-Price Books looking for the five or six titles I might pick up. Nor do they benefit from people who come in looking for a title, check its alphabetical position, and find it, or not, make a paltry purchase and exit. Impulse buying? We don’t need no stinking impulse buying….

This unsorted morass is courtesy of (a) a generation or two who have contempt for physical media, with (again) the inexplicable hipster obsession with the delights of snap, crackle and pop common to Rice Krispies and vinyl records; and (b) corporate decision makers who don’t know what the fuck they are doing.

Imagine if the books within Half-Price were similarly rearranged – mass market paperbacks intermingled with hardcovers, cats and dogs living together, no separate sections for fiction or nonfiction, no categories like mystery or science fiction or true crime or humor. Madness. Lazy madness at that, with a complete disregard for customers.

I must add that the staff at the buying counter agreed with me whole-heartedly and hated the new corporate policy of shuffling the DVD and Blu-ray decks. In fact, they beamed when I complained, eager to hear (and pass along) the criticism. It was like sending your food back at a restaurant and having the wait staff say, “Damn right! This is shit!”

Some stores – Cedar Rapids included, so far – have ignored this idiotic policy.

* * *

There are three major mystery writers who were born in Muscatine, Iowa. My wife Barb is one of them. I am another. But arguably the most famous is Ellis Parker Butler, who wrote the very funny comic essay (published as a short book) Pigs is Pigs. Read about Butler at Wikipedia.

While Pigs Is Pigs is Butler’s most famous work, the second most famous is his detective character, Philo Gubb. (Butler’s Philo pre-dates Philo Vance, incidentally.) You can read about Gubb at Wikipedia, too, right here.

Philo Gubb Book Cover

Philo Gubb, Correspondence School Detective is one of Ellery Queen’s chosen best and most important mystery novels (though the book is a short story collection, really); it’s number 61 on their Queen’s Quorum. Here’s what Queen says about Philo Gubb:

“The year 1918 witnessed the arrival between covers of the first correspondence-school detective, a small-town paperhanger who commits a slight case of murder on the King’s English every time he talks. Philo Gubb performs his rustic ratiocination in a yellow-lemon book, its front-cover illustration showing a tall, gaunt Holmesian figure wearing a cap and dressing gown, a long pipe sticking out of his Sherlockian face, an enormous microscope on the table behind him, a beautiful damsel sitting in the client’s chair, a bookcase jammed with ponderous tomes in the background, and a framed diploma from the Rising Sun Detective Agency’s Correspondence School on the wall.”

It would seem Philo Gubb is more an ancestor of the Barbara Allan detectives, Brandy and Vivian Borne, than Nate Heller or Quarry. Like Barbara Allan (the Barbara and Max Allan Collins writing team), Ellis Butler Parker was noted for his stories being funny, even laugh out-loud funny. Not bad footsteps to walk in.

I was aware of Ellis Parker Butler, but only recently did I start collecting him. At an estate sale here in Muscatine, held at the Art Center where my band Crusin’ was playing (I was on a break), I picked up nine books by him, and have since ordered several more from e-bay and ABE Books.

Have to check out the competition, you know.

* * *

We have yet another Amazon deal for those of you who are e-book readers.

Thomas & Mercer team has announced that Fate of the Union will be promoted via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US, starting 7/1/2023 and running through 7/31/2023 at 2.99 USD.

Also, the Amazon Encore team has informed me that True Detective will be promoted via a $3 towards this selection of Kindle books in the marketplace, starting 7/1/2023 and running through 7/31/2023. This promotion offers customers the opportunity to purchase books at a discount within a curated selection using a promo code offered to them in an e-mail. Customers who have purchase history within this genre will be presented this offer. Not all customers will be offered the coupon. But if it turns up in your e-mail, have at it.

Ordering info plus sample chapters and examples of Fay Dalton’s magnificent art for Fancy Anders For The Boys is right here. It’s a novella, remember, not a novel. Available in both e-book and physical (yay!) media.

* * *

I should note that I usually post a link to these updates on half a dozen Facebook sites where these missives might seem to have relevance. But last week I wrote almost exclusively about my weekend of playing two gigs with my band Crusin’, and ran a bunch of photos thereof, so I thought perhaps I shouldn’t bother people whose interests are old paperbacks, and noir mysteries and films and so on.

But if you’re reading this but missed last week, and think you might have been interested, just keep reading.

M.A.C.