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Bullets in Santa’s Bag for a Christmas Book Giveaway!

Tuesday, December 12th, 2023
Big Bundle cover
Hardcover:
Paperback (New!):
E-Book: Kobo Google Play
Digital Audiobook:
Audio MP3 CD:

The Big Bundle with Nathan Heller is out in trade paperback from Hard Case Crime today. If you’ve not read it, what are you waiting for? What’ll it take, a free copy?

Okay. The first ten of you who write me at macphilms@hotmail.com will get one fresh off the presses in return for writing a review at Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Goodreads or your own blog or whatever. Due to shipping costs, this is open to US Residents only. Yes, it’s another free book giveaway – Merry Christmas!

Also, any of you who have been good enough to buy and read the new Heller, Too Many Bullets, need to write a review at Amazon and elsewhere, toot sweet. As I’ve harped about here, because of a dock strike in the UK last year, the hardcover edition of The Big Bundle didn’t hit our shores until this year, months after its 2022 publication, sending it careening into this year’s Heller, Too Many Bullets, and causing the trade reviewers in the US to ignore the second book – no review in any of ‘em (Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Booklist, Library Journal), which hurts brick-and-mortar bookstore sales and library sales, too. And not a single appearance on any “best of the year” mystery lists, despite some of them being voluminous.

So please fight back with posting a review. (If you hated the book, why not find something else to do with your time?)

We are soon to launch the crowd-funding effort to help launch the ambitious Nate Heller podcast series adapting as many of the novels as possible (starting with True Detective and True Crime) with me scripting and Todd Stashwick (of Twelve Monkeys and Picard Season Three fame playing Nate Heller. I hope to get my pal Dave Thomas to portray Mayor Anton Cermak – he’s said yes, tentatively.

The great Robert Meyer Burnett is producing/directing the project, and frequently mentions what we’re calling True Noir on his popular podcasts (he does several). He’s been good enough to hold Too Many Bullets up for the camera to catch, and frequently.

To promote True Noir and the publication in trade paperback of The Big Bundle and in hardcover of Too Many Bullets, I’ve done an interview with Titan mastermind Andrew Sumner that you can find here.

Andrew is fantastic interviewing the likes of me, and Titan and their sister publisher Hard Case Crime have been responsible for keeping me and Nate Heller (and Quarry and even Nolan!) afloat despite this uptight politically correct climate. Andrew Sumner and Charles Ardai are the champs who have kept Heller and me in the game.

* * *

In the meantime, producer/editor Chad Bishop and I are putting the finishing touches on our film, Blue Christmas. I am thrilled with how it’s come together. Here’s the poster.

When can you see this? We’re not sure. If the Greenlight grant had come through, we would have shot the feature in time to get it out for this Christmas (2023). Then Greenlight decided to fund a couple of documentaries instead. But we decided to make the darn thing anyway. (I can’t say “damn thing” because it’s, well, Christmas and all.)

We have a distributor already interested, but it will probably be held for Christmas 2024. I’m sure we’ll have some events (local and area premieres, a few film festivals) that may allow you to see it sooner than that. And it’s also possible it will come out much sooner than Christmas 2024 and then be re-promoted at that time.

All I can tell you is that I’m very pleased with how it’s come together. As I say, we are almost done. Chad and I have the edit where we want it, with just one little Second Unit shot to grab this coming week. I think my grandson Sam is going to be in that shot!

The novella on which I based the screenplay, “A Wreath for Marley,” is dear to my heart for reasons I’ve expressed here numerous times. You can find it in Blue Christmas and Other Holiday Homicides by me and published by Wolfpack. You can also find it in Otto Penzler’s The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, a Vintage Crime Black Lizard original.

* * *

Barb and I make a habit of watching a Christmas movie every evening in December. I’ve written about my favorites here before, but here they are again:

THE TOP FIVE

1. Scrooge (1951). Alistair Sim is the definitive Scrooge in the definitive filming of A Christmas Carol.

2. Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Hollywood filmmaking at its best, with Edmund Gwen the definitive, real Santa Claus, Natalie Wood in her greatest child performance, John Payne reminding us he should have been a major star, and Maureen O’Sullivan as a smart, strong career woman/working mother who could not be more glamorous.

3. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Heartwarming but harrowing, this film is home to one of James Stewart’s bravest performances and happens to be Frank Capra’s best film. (I thanked him for it in the Green Room at Good Morning America in 1981 – promoting the Dick Tracy comic strip.)

4. A Christmas Story (1983), Jean Shepherd’s unlikely claim to fame, and a Christmas movie with Mike Hammer and Carl Kolchak in it. Now if the PBS specials about Ralphie and his family would only emerge on legal home video!

5. Christmas Vacation (1989) uncovers every Christmas horror possible when families get together and Daddy tries too hard. This holds up very well and has unexpectedly eclipsed the original film.

THE WONDERFUL RUNNERS UP:

Bad Santa (2003). This dark comedy has a warm heart, but you have to wade through a whole lot of black humor to get there. Billy Bob Thornton is wonderful, but here’s a special salute to the late John Ritter (who apparently died during the production) for the funniest moments in a side-splitting film. It’s become a Christmas classic at our house, and the very underrated sequel,

Bad Santa 2 (2016), is perhaps even funnier with Kathy Bates almost stealing the picture playing Billy Bob Thorton’s mother, who deserves more coal than anybody in either picture.

Holiday Inn (1942) is easily better than White Christmas, although the latter has its charms – it’s helped keep Danny Kaye from being forgotten, for one, and my late pal Miguel Ferrer’s mom is in it. The original has better songs and is funnier and ultimately more heart-warming.

Bell, Book and Candle (1958) is an old favorite of ours, the the movie Kim Novak and James Stewart made together after Vertigo. With Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs stealing scenes left and right, it’s a precursor to

Bewitched and might seem a better choice for Halloween, only it’s set at Christmas. I love the George Dunning score (he did some of the best scores for the original Star Trek TV series).

The Family Man (2000) with Nic Cage, a modern reworking of It’s a Wonderful Life, heartwarming and funny. Cage may be an over-the-top actor, but the man commits – he gives one thousand percent to every performance, and this time he has a wonderful movie to do it in. This is a favorite of my son Nate’s, whose goals in life include seeing every Nic Cage movie.

The Twelve Days of Christmas (2004). Okay, so it’s a shameless reworking of Groundhog Day as a Christmas movie, but this admittedly minor TV flick is funny and rewarding – good-hearted but with a darkly comic sensibility. Steven Weber is excellent as the successful slick businessman (similar to Cage in The Family Man) who has twelve tries to get Christmas Eve right. Molly Shannon gets her best post-SNL role.

Remember the Night (1940) is probably second best (after Double Indemnity) of the films Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray made together. It’s written by Preston Sturges – should I really have to say anything more? – and makes its humanistic points with sentiment, not sentimentality. It’s really a gem worth looking for.

I, the Jury (1953). The Classic Flix multiple disc set (with both 4K and 3-D versions, as well as Blu-ray) is finally a reality and anyone following this update/blog probably has already made that essential purchase. But this much underrated first Mike Hammer movie is set at Christmas and plays off of that fact throughout, with Christmas cards and carols the connective tissue between scenes. I continue to feel Biff Elliott was much underrated, and the cast is filled with wonderful character actors. The great John Alton shot it.

A Christmas Horror Story (2015) features William Shatner, excellent as the comic glue (a disc jockey) holding together inter-related stories about Krampus and Christmas. There are almost as many horror movies about Christmas as there are Christmas movies, but this is one of the best. It was put together by many of the Orphan Black people.

Office Christmas Party (2016) is a raunchy comedy whose preview in the theater (remember those?) turned me off. Somehow I wound up seeing it on Blu-ray and turns out it’s very funny and eventually betrays a good heart. The great cast includes Jason Bateman and Kate McKinnon.

A Bad Moms Christmas, recommended to me by Mark Lambert (who produced my documentary Caveman and is an associate producer on Blue Christmas), is an unlikely combination of raunchy humor and even dark comedy of the Bad Santa sort but an overwhelmingly good heart. It’s worth seeking out. Thanks, Mark!

Scrooge (1970) is the second-best Christmas Carol movie. Albert Finney is wonderful as Ebenezer in this musical version, with the Leslie Briccuse score perhaps the one most like his work with Anthony Newley, who did not contribute to this score but who played in the much-seen British stage version (which came after the film).

Also, don’t forget It Happened One Christmas (1977), which I wrote about here a while back.

NEW ADDITION: Silent Night, the great John Woo’s return to theater screens after something like a two-decade absence, isn’t being greeted with much if any fanfare. But it’s a taut, harrowing revenge drama in the Death Wish mold, but better than any entry in that franchise. The underrated Joel Kinnaman (so good in the American version of The Killing mini-series) has the lead, and has virtually no dialogue. The movie itself, except for TV broadcasts and background noise, is essentially a silent movie…well, there’s the gunfire and explosions, a lot of them. The film takes the time to show Kinnaman training for his assault on the gangbangers’ hideout (my favorite moment is Kinnaman writing on his calendar, on the date Dec. 24, Kill Them All! The final half hour rivals the two Raid movies and is perhaps even more intense and effectively staged. I loved the hardboiled nastiness married to the occasional melodramatic, even sentimental moments of reflection by the vengeful father, between killings. And Woo uses Christmas imagery well and imaginatively.

* * *

Too Many Bullets reviews are coming in, thanks to the Good Folks at the Internet. Borg has a good one here.

Ed Catto at Pop Culture Squad has nice things to say about the latest Spillane/Collins Mike Hammer novel, Dig Two Graves.

A nice Goodreads review can be read here (and, below, more of the same and a very few naysayers, the world being a place where you find all kinds – I should know…I was at WalMart today!).

M.A.C.

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Our New Books Are Here! Our New Books Are Here!

Tuesday, September 26th, 2023

Wow, it’s been ages since we did a book giveaway here at M.A.C. Central – last week, wasn’t it?

I have ten hardcover copies of the new Nate Heller, Too Many Bullets. If you are one of the first ten readers to request one, and agree to write a review for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads and the usual suspects, I’ll send a signed copy along.

[All copies have been claimed. Thank you for your support! –Nate]

You must include your snail mail address, even if you’ve entered before. This is for American readers only because of shipping costs, and keep in mind you can’t review at Amazon until the release date on Oct. 10.

* * *

Receiving a copy of your just published book is a unique experience for an author. Barb, at least since the first few books, just glances at the things, maybe checking to see if something that required special typesetting (like the blackboard lists of suspects in the Antiques novels) looks right.

I am still genuinely thrilled.

On the other hand…

I remember vividly receiving copies of the simultaneously published Bait Money and Blood Money in December 1972. It was exciting until I looked at the covers. They were photo covers, and one was pretty good – Bait Money had a very Nolan-esque Nolan and a dish I’d seen in men’s magazines – but the other (Blood Money) was a young guy with a bad mustache who looked like a cast member of Boys in the Band.

Bait Money Curtis Edition Cover
Blood Money Curtis Edition Cover

Further, the byline was Max Collins, which was my father’s name, not mine. I was Max Allan Collins, Jr., and had always been called Allan or Al. That bummed me out bigtime. I was stuck with “Max Collins” for a while, but when a book of mine called The Slasher came out at the same time as Michael Collins’s novel of the same name, enough was enough. I started using Max Allan Collins.

Now about half the people I call me Allan or Al and the rest use Max. I have to work at keeping track.

Still, it’s a thrill to see your novel become an actual book – typeset, your stuff always seems more real, more official. And now and then you get a decent cover. The Nolan novels as published by Pinnacle had good cover art. But I haven’t loved a cover until Hard Case Crime started publishing me.

No matter what the cover, I always sit with the hot-off-the-presses copy and kind of just look at it. Page through. Frankly, kind of caress it. Barb, meanwhile, has gone off about her business. This morning I asked her about why she was so blasé about receiving Antiques Foe in the mail.

“That’s the old one,” she said. “I’m working on the new one.”

She is much more mature (except in looks) than I am, far more grounded. Me with a freshly published book of mine, I’m a kid with a new toy. I own ten original covers from various books of mine (most from Hard Case Crime), and they are on the wall inspiring to stay at this.

The thumbing through part is dangerous, though. There are a couple of errors (one in the text, one in the afterword) in Do No Harm that I have not been able to correct, as there has been no trade or mass market paperback of that Heller title. So I cringe a little when I see that book. I’m proud of it, of course, but I wish it were perfect.

Not that any novel is perfect, The Great Gatsby and The Maltese Falcon included. But right now, having thumbed through both Too Many Bullets and Antiques Foe, I am still a kid in the candy store.

Of course, some well-meaning (and in reality helpful) reader will no doubt approach me to share errors he or she has found. I will grit my teeth and thank them. And do my best to make the corrections, but without a second printing or new edition, it is…well, impossible.

* * *

We are less than a month out from the first day of shooting on Blue Christmas. I prepared a shooting script over the weekend and the sense of excitement (make that terror) is growing by the second.

Thanks again to those of you who have donated to the cause (lots of names will go in our credits). Most recently our longtime fan and friend Stephen Borer kicked in a C-note (well, a check for that amount). Thank you, sir.

* * *

Also exciting is the podcast project – turning Nate Heller’s memoirs into movies without pictures (i.e., top casts and music and sound effect, not just audio books). This will be my next big project after Blue Christmas, and I couldn’t be more thrilled than to be working with Robert Meyer Burnett. I love his various podcasts. I am going to provide a window on this week’s Let’s Get PHYSICAL MEDIA on which he talks about this project and says things about me that would make me blush, if I had any shame, which I don’t.

Rob and his German pal Dieter talk about what’s come out recently on Blu-ray and 4K, discuss various movies and TV series (emphasis this week on the Star Wars TV spin-off Ahsoka), answering letters on air, and news about what’s coming on physical media. This is not for everyone, because they are long, rambling, quirky but in my view incredibly entertaining episodes.

* * *

Barb and I got our Covid boosters today, something I wanted to make sure I’d done before going into full Blue Christmas contact with cast and crew (all of whom I’m going to suggest, if they are so inclined, getting theirs).

In an oddly related matter, last Saturday afternoon my grandson with my son along for the ride watched the second Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, having (I am glad to say) moved up from strictly CGI animated movies into actual live action. Eight year-old Sam was seated next to me in a comfy chair when a wasp stung him on the left cheek. He took it just the way his grandfather would have, howling in pain and indignation and bawling like a baby. As his grandmother tended his sting, he said something rather profound and hilarious.

“I want to ask Mr. God why he created wasps!”

I don’t think any answer Mr. God could come up with would be sufficient enough.

M.A.C.

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Another Book Giveaway, An E-Book Sale & Major Announcements

Tuesday, September 12th, 2023

A limited book giveaway kicks off this Update.

I have only five copies I can share with you of the new Mike Hammer novel, Dig Two Graves. So move fast.

[All copies have been claimed. Thank you for your support! –Nate]

IMPORTANT: If you recently won a copy of Too Many Bullets, please don’t enter. If you’re not sure whether you were a winner in that giveaway, e-mail me at the above address and I’ll let you know. But before you do, keep in mind that I contacted everyone who entered who did not win and informed them of it. And please don’t tell Nero Wolfe I used “contact” as a verb.

You agree to write a review (or reviews) at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and/or Goodreads, or your own blog.

* * *

Speaking of Dig Two Graves, the great Andrew Sumner of Titan interviewed me about it recently, and you can watch it right here.

Dig Two Graves will be available from Amazon and others a week from today (Sept. 19).


Hardcover:
E-Book: Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes
Digital Audiobook: Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes Chirp
Audio MP3 CD:
Audio CD:
* * *

Two of my novels are on sale right now (and until 9/30/’23) at Amazon, e-book editions of Executive Order ($2.95 Amazon) and Girl Most Likely ($2.49 Amazon). Exec is co-written by Matthew Clemens and is a Reeder and Rogers political thriller. Girl is one of my personal favorites.

* * *

Robert Meyer Burnett, You Tube’s finest commentator on pop culture and physical media, made an interesting announcement on air last night (Sunday Sept. 10). All of a sudden he was talking about me! Hearing my name invoked was startling and, I’ll admit, a little thrilling, because I respect this man’s opinions and admire his uncanny ability to hold my attention for literal hours with his good-humored brilliance. But I wasn’t entirely surprised, because he and I (and our mutual friend Mike Bawden, who is the producer of the Burnett podcasts, and happens to be located near me in the Quad Cities) are embarking on a project together.

We are setting out to do a podcast series based on the Nathan Heller novels. Each multi-episode podcast would take on a single book. I will write these adaptations myself. Rob Burnett is, among other things, a Hollywood director (Free Enterprise, Femme Fatales, The Hills Run Red). There will be a crowd-funding effort to get the first podcast off the ground, and I’ve written a 10-page self-contained script (based on the opening of Stolen Away), to be presented as an example of what we’re up to at the crowd-funding site.

These are early days, but I think we’ll be moving fast. We are talking to several terrific name actors about playing Heller on the crowd-funding pilot, and when we’re a go for the podcast (likely six episodes – we’re considering several titles, including Carnal Hours), other name actors will be cast as well.

Since we haven’t had a Heller movie in all these years, despite continued Hollywood interest, I think a superior podcast could really jump start things on that end.

But the podcast on its own will be great fun, and producer Bawden is a genius at promotion and utilizing You Tube. Not surprisingly, my longtime movie collaborator Phil Dingeldein is involved in the project, and we’ll be making behind-the-scenes and behind-the-story “true crime” videos. That, at least, is the plan.

* * *

Meanwhile, work on Blue Christmas continues apace.

We are trying to secure Gary Sandy, but he has several prior commitments we have to find a window between. If we don’t land him, he has nonetheless been a friend to me and my work, and incidentally a fan specifically of Blue Christmas. His taking on Mike Hammer for our Golden Age-radio style local production made recording it (and turning it into a modest but fun little movie) possible.

We are having auditions this week for the rest of the Blue Christmas cast, and I intend to use as many of the players from Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder as possible. I was very pleased with their work.

Both the Blu-ray of the expanded Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane documentary and a DVD of Encore for Murder will be out in December (exact date TBA). Here is the trailer for Encore.

We are on a very fast track for Blue Christmas – the shoot is toward the end of October.

* * *

Yesterday afternoon/evening (Sunday Sept. 10), my band Crusin’ made its last appearance of the summer. Rain kept threatening but never happened, and a large appreciative crowd seemed to have a great time.

Crusin' September 10, 2023
Crusin' September 10, 2023

Barbara and Samuel dance to Crusin’

I had to postpone this from a scheduled August appearance, due to my health stuff; but I was pretty much fine for this performance, although I admit to tiring easily. It’s becoming obvious that I’m near the end of my rock ‘n’ rolling days, and I think next summer (if the rest of the band is up for it) we’ll do a Farewell Tour of three gigs here in Muscatine.

We’ve been preparing new originals for one last CD, which would include the Crusin’ originals from Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market.

This version of the band has been very gratifying. This is the line-up, basically, that appeared at the 2018 Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction concert. Our late bass player, Brian Van Winkle, appeared with us there. He passed away not long after, most unexpectedly, and his sunny presence and self-deprecating humor is sorely missed – in many respects he was the heart of the band. His replacement – our guitarist Bill Anson’s son Scott – is one of the best bass players I’ve been privileged to appear with. He has his own sly sense of humor, too. By the way, Bill Anson came aboard just to fill in for a while – that was seven years ago.

I hate to hang it up, but I figure I’ve accomplished everything I ever will in this artistic/performing arena, and will concentrate whatever time is left to writing novels and working on movies. Blue Christmas is, in part, an experiment to see how I do directing a movie at this rarefied age.

I have designed it to be low-budget – a necessity, particularly since we didn’t get the expected Greenlight grant – and wrote it to be shot on a single set in a studio-style setting. I will have some wonderful actors lined up (with or without Gary, though I sure hope he’s able to do it) and great collaborators in Phil Dingeldein, Liz Toal and Chad Bishop.

Since Encore came out well and the filming of it was something of a last minute, impulsive decision, I had originally conceived Blue Christmas to be presented as a play that we’d shoot. There are advantages to that approach, but also disadvantages – shooting it film-style, without an audience, will broaden our market, and be more artistically satisfying to boot.

Wish us break a leg and stay tuned for reports from the front lines.

* * *

Here, from the Pulp, Crime & Mystery Books site, is a nice review of Dig Two Graves.

Finally, here’s a short but great write-up on Too Many Bullets from Craig Zablo.

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A Book Giveaway & A Preview of the Spillane Blu-Ray & DVD

Tuesday, September 5th, 2023
Too Many Bullets cover

Too Many Bullets, my new Nate Heller novel from Hard Case Crime, will be out on Oct. 10. I am offering ten copies of the trade paperback ARC (the actual book is hardcover) to the first ten of you who request it in exchange for a review at Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble or Goodreads (or your own reviewing site, if you have one).

[All copies have been claimed. Thank you for your support! –Nate]

This is for American readers only. That’s only because mailing outside the USA has become so expensive. Keep in mind you can’t review at Amazon until the book is actually available, which (again) will be Oct. 10.

I also want to share with you the front jacket of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (the expanded documentary), a Blu-ray release from VCI that includes the 90-minute Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder with Gary Sandy in a Golden Age Radio-style live performance. When I say Golden Age Radio, I don’t mean this is audio only, but a movie experience much like being in the audience at a radio show of the ‘40s. Gary, who appeared in Encore at Owensboro, Kentucy, and Clearwater, Florida, is the only actor to date to portray Mike Hammer on stage.

Encore for Murder will be available separately on DVD and I’ll share that front jacket art with you, too.

These are teasers. We don’t have release dates yet, but it will be yet this year.

* * *

I want to share with you a particularly nice review of Dig Two Graves from the Crime Fiction Lover website.

Dig Two Graves by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
By Paul Burke 29 August, 2023

Once, when someone complained that Mickey Spillane had eight books in a top 10 chart, he replied along the lines that the reader should be thankful he didn’t write two more. It’s hard to overestimate Spillane’s popularity in the 1950s and 60s. He has sold over 225 million copies and when he died in 2006 left a wealth of unfinished stories, many of them featuring his hardboiled PI, Mike Hammer. That’s where Max Allan Collins comes in. A crime fiction author with a solid record of his own, including Quarry and The Road to Redemption, he was invited to carry on Spillane’s legacy and Dig Two Graves is the 14th Hammer novel he’s developed and finished.

The story is set in 1964 and Allan Collins has slotted it into place in the series at the appropriate point. Velma is Mike’s girlfriend, and the US has government borrowed her for a little job behind the Iron Curtain because she’s a former cop and secret service agent, but nobody told Mike. He hits the bottle hard thinking Velma has been kidnapped or, maybe worse, killed. Then Velma just turns up, Mike pulls himself around and they’re a team again.

There are other bridges to be mended though and Velma is about to meet up with her mother to smooth over her disappearing act. At the rendezvous the woman is mowed down in front of Velma and Mike. The Chevy responsible crashes a little bit further up the road and Mike is on the driver immediately but can’t squeeze anything out of the man before he dies.

Clearly it’s no accident. In the hospital Velma’s mother suddenly confesses that Velma’s father is not the man she grew up with, who died in the line of duty. Instead, it was a gangster named Rhinegold Massey – AKA Rhino. Is this somehow connected? Mike pumps his police friend Captain Chambers for info. It turns out Rhino died in an armoured car robbery and his then girlfriend, Judy, vanished years ago. But that’s all a cover and actually Rhino was placed in witness protection, the first such programme set up.

Rhino is linked to a retirement village in Phoenix called Dreamland Park so Mike decides to head out there, and there’s no way Velma will be left behind. When they arrive, it turns out a lot of people with connections to Rhino have been dying in mysterious circumstances lately. Mike books himself into the village and it’s not long before he’s being shot at and, naturally, he shoots back.

Blood and bullets are easier to come by than answers for much of the novel. A game of cat and mouse ensues, played out against the backdrop of lies, secrets, conspiracy and revenge. And, did I mention a double cross love betrayal? Allan Collins and Spillane riff nicely on a theme that goes back to Confucius: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

Spillane wrote page turners and some of the best action scenes in crime fiction and that’s his great strength. Max Allan Collins knows that Mike Hammer readers want more and there’s no shortage of it here. He’s a subtler writer than Spillane so he nuances the plot, refines it for modern sensibilities without gutting the style. The characters have a little more depth but not too much.

The action is propulsive and the bodies drop regularly. It’s a deft art to recreating a novel that has to slot into a particular time in the Hammer cycle but the fact that Hammer has an arc means it’s crucial. In this case it’s Velma’s Russian sojourn and Mike’s descent into alcoholism in her absence. They add some humour to the plot, with references to his fitness and jibes along the lines of, “You used to be Mike Hammer.”

There’s a hint of sex smouldering behind the scenes and some cracking one liners in the snappy dialogue that give off a hardboiled vibe. Early in the book, the pace is a little more sedate than expected but it’s smoking by the denouement. Max Allan Collins really gets what makes Mike Hammer fun and never loses sight of that in the narrative. It’s a juggling act refreshing the form but maintaining the original ethos and mood, but mostly it is mission accomplished here. Hardboiled is alive and kicking; for a pulp fix this nails it pretty good.

For more revitalised Mike Hammer, see Murder Never Knocks.

As I say, a lovely review, but…the common mistake in reviews these days is calling Velda “Velma.” Apparently Mickey Spillane is getting confused with Scooby Doo.

* * *

Serious pre-production continues on Blue Christmas. We are hoping to secure Gary Sandy for the role of Jake Marley (the source novella is entitled A Wreath for Marley and is featured in the Wolfpack anthology, Blue Christmas).

We do need to raise some more money (having already raised $7000 from an indiegogo crowdfunding campaign). I am willing to dig into my stash of my stuff if you are missing anything in your M.A.C. collection. Tell me what you need and I will give you a price (it will not be outlandish) (maybe landish, though). Go this route and you’ll be listed in the credits.

* * *

Barb and I, as some of you may recall, are what might be called first generation Star Trek fans. We began watching when it was still on NBC, caught up with the first season via the James Blish short story collections (based on episodes), went to great lengths to see William Shatner in The Seven Year Itch at Pheasant Run outside of Chicago, saw Leonard Nimoy in The Fourposter at another dinner theater and also at a McGovern political event (recounted in Quarry in the Black), and cultivated a friendship with Walter Koenig.

Also, we stood in line for over an hour in the cold and snow to see, on opening night, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. We still consider it the best of the Star Trek films, not a widely held opinion, but Robert Meyer Burnett – who knows Star Trek as well as anyone alive – agreed with me when I shared this opinion with him. He feels it’s far and away the best original cast Star Trek film. So there.

Anyway, we did not watch Star Trek: The Next Generation when it aired. (I watched the opening episode and bailed.) But we did go to the four TNG motion pictures in the theater (usually on opening day) and liked all four, particularly the second one, First Contact. We also watched the handful of TNG laser discs that were issued, back in my laser collecting days. Liked those, too.

We have finally gotten around to watching the entire series – we started with Season Seven and worked our way back, for reasons too idiotic to share – and have more than warmed to TNG. We like it, perhaps even love it, and consider it a worthy continuation of the original series. We had been spurred to watch TNG by the excellent third season of Picard, which was essentially a long-form final movie for the original cast. (Picard season one was good, but the second season was dire, and like a lot of watchers, we only tuned in to season three because it restored the original TNG cast.)

Then Barb and I revisited the four TNG features, which we’d seen several times on Blu-ray and then 4K discs. And we discovered these films were much richer for us, a much more satisfying experience, having seen the entire run of TNG series.

And Star Trek: First Contact ties for second place (with Wrath of Khan) after Star Trek: The Motion Picture in our estimation.

Your warp speed may vary.

M.A.C.

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