Posts Tagged ‘Movie Reviews’

Encore for Filmmaking

Tuesday, April 25th, 2023

This new e-book collection of the three John Sand spy thrillers by Matthew Clemens and me is available from Wolfpack and, for the first time, includes Murderlized, a collection of our stories, one of which is the first John Sand story.

Max Allan Collins Collection Volume Two: John Sand cover image
E-Book:

An informal meeting of Quad Cities area filmmakers was put on at dphilms on Saturday, April 24. Since I‘ve largely been away from indie filmmaking in the area – though of course I’ve done some screenwriting in the interim – it was a nice opportunity to see some new and old (and in between) faces.

Quad Cities area filmmakers meet at dphilms
Quad Cities Filmmakers Meet at Dphilms, Rock Island. Chad Bishop and Max Collins at far left, Phil Dingeldein centerstage (next to colorful painting).

I had frankly thought filmmaking was behind me. The last thing I shot was an award-winning short in 2007 called “An Inconsequential Matter” starring my friend and longtime collaborator, Michael Cornelison (it’s a bonus feature on the Eliot Ness Blu-ray (), with excellent cinematography by Phil Dingeldein). Mike had starred in both the stage and movie version of Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life in 2005, as well as narrated Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane and my comics-history documentary, Caveman: V.T. Hamlin and Alley Oop (). Mike worked with my right up to the end of his too short life, appearing as Pat Chambers on both Mike Hammer audio presentations, “The Little Death” (winner of an Audie for Best Original Work) in 2010 and “Encore for Murder” (nominated in that same Audie category) in 2011.

Mike Cornelison

Losing Mike – who was as valuable a collaborator to me as is my friend Phil – took the wind out of my filmmaking sails. I have, of course, had some things happen since then in the movie realm – we sold Heller to FX and I wrote the pilot (never produced), Quarry became an HBO/Cinemax series in 2016 (and I wrote an episode) and I’ve written a screenplay, Cap City, for director David Wexler. Recently, Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher by Brad Schwartz and me has been optioned by CBS Films, Nolan has been optioned by Lionsgate, and Mike Hammer (not just Mickey’s novels but the joint Spillane/Collins ones) just closed a deal at Skydance. Some serious interest is also afoot for the Antiques series, Ms. Tree and Fancy Anders.

With Hollywood, you never know, but there has been a lot going on. The truth is, on these projects my direct involvement is likely to be limited to being the source writer and a consultant, and maybe getting to write an episode of anything that goes to series (Hammer appears to be on track for a feature film, which is great, but there’s no way I would get to write it).

After my heart and cancer surgery, I figured my moviemaking days were over, and they may largely be. We shall see as we shall see. But the “instant” movie that Encore For Murder with Gary Sandy became – a rather last minute decision to shoot the live semi-pro production with multiple cameras – is what really got me going. Sitting with the gifted Chad Bishop in his editing suite, seeing our little movie come to life, reminded me how much I love doing that kind of thing.

This is a good time to remind you that – if you are close enough to Muscatine, Iowa, to make the trip (the Merrill Hotel is great, by the way) – Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder, the movie, will be shown at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 5, at Muscatine Community College. The details are here.

We will also be answering questions about our upcoming production of Blue Christmas, my return to serious indie movie production. Chad Bishop, my producer on the project, will be present as well as much of the Encore cast (not Gary Sandy, though).

If you’ve dropped by here in recent weeks, you’ll know that we have launched an Indiegogo crowd-funding effort to raise a mere $5000 (of course in Iowa five grand is not “mere”) intended either to provide some matching funds required by the Greenlight Iowa grant we’re going after, or (should we not get that grant) to help fund a version of Blue Christmas along the lines of a recorded live production a la Encore (however not Golden Age Radio style – plenty of bells and whistles).

As an incentive strictly to those of you nice enough to show up here at my weekly Update, I will offer a perk to anyone who comes in at any level by way of some item from your M.A.C. want list. Now somebody at the $25 or $35 level needs to be sane about what books and such they put on their want list. Larger contributions mean you can shoot higher and, in any event, I will do my best to make it worth your while. (This has a nice Nate Heller sleazy sound to it, doesn’t it?)

Your name will go in the credits at the $100 level, and at $500 you get screen credit as an Associate Producer, enabling you to impress your more gullible friends. There are other perks mentioned at Indiegogo, and at that level you can probably talk me out of something rare from my private stash.

An Executive Producer credit is available at (choke) $2000.

As I write this we are at $1440 – 28% of our goal, with a little over a month left on the campaign.

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Quasi (2023) movie poster

For those of you with a twisted sense of humor, I have a couple of film recommendations for you.

Just debuting this past week on Hulu – wholly unexpected to me – is the latest from the Broken Lizard comedy team, Quasi, the only Quasimodo movie that lacks a bell tower. I love Broken Lizard. They are masters of smart dumb comedy. The movie everyone knows – and most comedy fans adore – is Super Troopers. They write the scripts together and – with the exception of the crowdfunder Super Troopers 2, produced a decade and a half later – always go after a different subject or genre. Hence, Super Troopers 1 & 2 (cops), Club Dread (horror films), Beerfest (well, beer), Slamin’ Salmon (the restaurant game), and now Quasi (historical epic). Various team members have taken the “hero” role in these films, and various of them have directed, most often prolific TV director, Jay Chandraskekhar, although Kevin Heffernan directed both Slamin’ Salmon and Quasi.

The humor in Quasi comes from a cheerfully anachronistic approach to dialogue and a sweetness surprising for a film depicting somebody’s ballsack being nailed to a wooden block. It recalls Monty Python’s Holy Grail (the Broken Lizard guys each play multiple roles) and Start the Revolution Without Me, but despite the nonstop silliness, Quasi is more concerned with story than either of its two probable inspirations.

I watched it twice.

As I’ve mentioned before, a while back Barb and I saw Broken Lizard perform live at the Englert Theater in Iowa City and got to spend some time with them after. They were nice, normal human beings, funny and approachable, exhausted from the show they’d just presented but signing all of our DVDs and Blu-rays with patience and even joy. (Probably helped that I had their somewhat obscure first outing, Puddle Cruiser.)

Streaming on Peacock, the already notorious Cocaine Bear proves to be the funniest gory movie since Evil Dead 2. Its humor is a blend of Coen character eccentricities, Three Stooges slapstick, and jawdropping carnage. It’s largely about parenthood – specifically, motherhood. I realize some horror fans want it to be even gorier and dislike the amount of humor – for me, the fact that I’m laughing to the point of pain while watching humans getting torn apart strikes just the right balance.

* * *

Back Issue, an outstanding magazine on comics history, covered my brief run (one continuity) on the Batman comic strip. It’s really in depth with lots of Marshall Rogers art, and I would encourage you to seek it out.

Finally, here’s a decent Kirkus review of the imminently forthcoming Mad Money, collecting Spree and Mourn the Living, the last of Hard Case Crime’s reprint series of the Nolan novels.

M.A.C.

Fancy Anders and the Beck/Woods Boys

Tuesday, March 14th, 2023
Fancy Anders For the Boys cover
E-Book: Amazon Purchase Link
Trade Paperback: Amazon Purchase Link
Digital Audiobook: Amazon Purchase Link
Audio CD: Amazon Purchase Link

Fancy Anders For the Boys – the second of the three Fancy Anders novellas – is out now, available in trade paperback, e-book and on audio. Each has its advantages – the trade is an actual physical book (yay!) while the e-book includes the Fay Dalton illustrations in full color, whereas the trade paperback has black-and-white versions (the cover is obviously in color). The audio is fabulous – Barb and I have been listening to it in the car, and Skyboat has again done an exceptional job featuring sound effects, music and a wonderful Gabrielle De Cour narration. Having a skilled female narrator reading Fancy is just perfect.

Here’s where you can get the trade paperback, the e-book, and audio.

I really love these novellas, and hope one day to collect them in an oversize hardcover edition with all the Fay Dalton illos in full color…but for now this is how they exist (and will exist – we have one more to go). I intended this project to be a full-length mystery novel that would first appear as three standalone novellas (much as Dashiell Hammett did in The Dain Curse). I wrote all three during the Covid lockdown and the length of time between publication of each book reflects the time it takes Fay Dalton to do these great illustrations. Worth the wait!

A lot of love and research went into these, which were inspired to some degree by a desire to do an American variation on the Australian “Phryne Fisher” mysteries (the TV series – I’ve never read the novels). Ms. Tree began similarly, as an attempt to be the “answer” to the UK’s Modesty Blaise. Fancy is sort of a younger version of Michael Tree, definitely sharing some storytelling DNA; but she is definitely her own specific character, a spoiled rich girl with a spine. But I also have long wanted to do something that really drew upon my love for Golden Age Hollywood, and Los Angeles during World War II attracts me as a particularly rich period to write about.

In the first Fancy Anders novella, Fancy Anders Goes to War, she goes undercover at an aircraft plant as a war worker, a rivetter; in this one, she is undercover as a hostess at the Hollywood Canteen among Bette Davis and other Hollywood stars.

We only have three Amazon reviews so far, two of which are glowing, the other being rather puzzling in its negativity. After saying how great the first novella was, the reviewer complains about how short this one is – actually, it’s exactly the same length as the first book – and the reviewer complaints that Fancy manages to always be in the right place at the right time. Okay, I would suggest two things: first, any detective in a mystery who is in the wrong place at the right time isn’t going to accomplish much of anything; and just about all of the action takes place at the Hollywood Canteen, where Fancy is working undercover. Of course she’s in the right place at the right time.

Anyway, if you read (or listen to) Fancy Anders For the Boys, your Amazon review will be appreciated, unless you hate it. And Fancy Anders Goes to War is still very much available here, in trade paperback, e-book and on audio (another elaborate Skyboat production).

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M.A.C. and Phil Dingeldein with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck

Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, the two young filmmakers who started making films at age 11 in their native Quad Cities, made it big by writing the smash hit A Quiet Place. They have since done a terrific little horror picture, Haunt, and now have a new science-fiction thriller, 65, hitting theaters – starring Adam Driver, no less.

These are two very nice and obviously talented guys and deserve their success. Barb and I, with my filmmaking associate Phil Dingeldein and his wife Shelley, were invited by the Woods and Beck team to attend a screening of 65 on March 11 in Davenport. They were kind enough to single Phil and me out, in the audience, as having been inspirations to them. Again, these are nice guys.

The really good part is how terrific their new film is. I’ve seen it get a few bad reviews and I frankly don’t understand it, unless petty jealousy is in play (and it frequently is). It’s an exciting ride with a great heart and I don’t know what more you can ask from a movie that already is giving you space ships and dinosaurs.

Barb and I have walked out on the last two movies we attended – both the new Antman movie (and we both like Paul Rudd) and Guy Ritchie’s latest film (and we both like Ritchie) after a painful half hour of each. 65 is 90 minutes that held us every one of those minutes.

* * *

Speaking of movies, March is my birthday month and here at the Collins abode we are commemorating it with a Max Allan Collins Film Festival, which is not a festival of Max Allan Collins films, but rather his (my) favorites. Here are the presentations thus far:

1. Chinatown. Probably the greatest private eye film ever made, not even excluding Kiss Me Deadly and The Maltese Falcon.

2. The Two Jakes. The criminally underappreciated sequel to Chinatown. Looks like it’s getting some reappraisals lately.

3. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. A fantasy film I’ve loved since childhood, featuring Robert Montgomery’s greatest performance.

4. American Graffitti. The film that gave me the idea to do a ‘50s/’60s nostalgia band, which became the you-can’t-kill-it-with-a-stick Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Association inductees, Crusin’. We saw this easily ten times in the theater, pre-home video.

More to come.

* * *

Here’s a short but sweet review from The Saturday Evening Post:

Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor. This is the definitive biography of the incredibly popular creator of the Mike Hammer novels. Collins knew Spillane and has taken over the writing of the novels, so he knows his subject well.

Here, speaking to Paul Davis, is the late great Elmore Leonard on Mickey Spillane.

And here is Paul Davis on Mickey and the Collins/Traylor biography on Spillane.

M.A.C.

The Rules for Writers, Fans & Editors – You’re Welcome

Tuesday, February 28th, 2023

Let’s start with this terrific review in the Washington Post of Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction:

Is Mickey Spillane now a neglected author? In the early 1950s, his immensely popular novels about private eye Mike Hammer were called sadistic and pornographic revenge fantasies, fever dreams of violence accelerating to “slam-bang” — Spillane’s adjective — surprise endings. No one who’s read “I, the Jury” (1947) will ever forget its final sentence, innocent-seeming but immensely shocking in context: “It was easy.”

In my early teens I raced through all the Spillane paperbacks I could unearth, so I quickly devoured “Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction” (Mysterious Press), by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor. With no-nonsense concision, it describes Spillane’s early career in comics, his jump into writing novels, the adaptation of his work into movies (most notably the noir classic “Kiss Me Deadly”), the various Mike Hammer TV shows and the later spy thrillers about Tiger Mann. The authors also discuss Spillane’s personal life, his three marriages and — paradoxical as it may seem — this tough-guy writer’s membership in the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

There’s only one caution I would make to a prospective reader of “Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction.” It’s forthrightly full of spoilers, so that Collins and Traylor can trace the connections among the early novels as Mike Hammer works through some formidable residual guilt. This openness about Spillane’s plots may have been unavoidable, but if I were about to begin “Vengeance Is Mine” (1950) or “The Long Wait” (1951) for the first time, I’d rather not know their tricky secrets.

Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction audiobook cover
Hardcover:
E-Book: Kobo
Digital Audiobook: Kobo Libro.fm
Audiobook Excerpt:
* * *

Last week, in a fit of petty panic, I disliked another writer’s work in public. I thought I was just being frank and knowingly exposing my frailties and frustrations; but I broke a rule. Writing fiction is hard. Writing fiction for a living is harder. Just typing a book-length manuscript is arduous.

So I shouldn’t criticize any other fiction writer in public. Not ever. And it’s rare that I do, and I was in fact reacting in frustration (and, later in the same post, expressing embarrassment at having done so) about a biography of that writer, a book I felt would impinge upon the chances of Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction getting an Edgar nomination.

Let’s start there. The Edgars, all awards in the mystery fiction firmament (all entertainment/arts awards, actually), are a will o’ the wisp thing. The MWA committees are comprised of members – publishing mystery writers – whose collective tastes will shift as the membership of these committees changes from year to year. So one committee can nominate a recent Ness non-fiction book without previous committees nominating either of the two (I feel definitive, groundbreaking) Ness books written by Brad Schwartz and me not long ago. At the same time, I can write Nate Heller books that are honored by the Private Eye Writers of America and other mystery writer organizations and never get an Edgar nomination for any of them. And then, out of nowhere, Quarry’s Blood can receive an Edgar nomination. I’d call it a crap shoot, but I think it goes well beyond that.

So even thinking about the ramifications of the publication of another mystery-writer biography, as far as Edgar and other award nominations for Spillane are concerned, is an absurd waste of time. It wouldn’t surprise me if neither book got a nomination. Or both did. Or one.

As I’ve said here before, nominations and award wins are good for the ego – a fairly fleeting feeling – but are most valuable as a marketing tool. I do my best to chart the good, bad and in between of reviews without taking any of it seriously beyond whether a review provides what’s called a “pull quote” (a blurb taken from a review, sometimes the only good thing said about a book in that review). That’s how “The best reason to show why Max Allan Collins must never be published again” becomes “The best…Max Allan Collins must…be published again.”

I stopped formally reviewing books and movies a long time ago. I felt with novels that it was unfair to the writer – the great Tony Hillerman wrote a bad review of an early Heller novel and it struck me as what they now call “punching down.” And I knew Tony a little from playing poker with him at Bouchercons, and it hurt me that a writer of his stature would pan my stuff, particularly since we were at least friendly acquaintances. Frankly, it still stings.

I stopped reviewing books because it seems like a chef reviewing somebody else’s restaurant – it’s an obvious conflict of interest. It’s lacking in grace, whether you’re a big writer panning an up-and-comer, or an up-and-comer attacking a big writer. When I made my first independent film (Mommy, 1995), I learned how hard it was to make a movie, and the difficulties the process entailed. I think Mommy is a good little movie, but I also know that it’s difficult to make even a bad movie. I truly hope Gene Siskel has been sentenced to Purgatory until he is able to make a movie as good as Ed Wood’s worst.

So I stopped writing movie reviews (I was the first regular Mystery Scene film critic) with the exception of a column in a now-defunct magazine devoted to Asian genre films, largely because I am such a movie buff I couldn’t help myself. Also, somehow I didn’t think I was threatening Hong Kong and Japanese filmmakers with my opinions.

Then these updates/blog entries came along and I drifted back into expressing my opinions about movies and TV. Not every time, but now and then. I try to limit myself to movies and TV I like, but I often slip. Early on these updates were more strictly just me hawking my wares, and my son Nathan said I needed to include other content – which led to “sort of” reviewing again and definitely sharing my personal thoughts about the craft and the business of writing.

My role model for this was my late friend Harlan Ellison, whose personal intros to short stories and columns in his collections really revealed the Man Behind the Curtain. My wife Barb, however, after the last few updates, said pointedly, “Careful you don’t become Harlan Ellison.” Harlan was a notoriously opinionated and combative writer and by the end of his life was viewed as something of a curmudgeon.

I defended myself by reminding Barb that at (nearly) 75 I had a right to be a curmudgeon; but she did not accept that argument.

Okay, then, James Ellroy. I have nothing against him personally, and we used to run into each other now and then and
always were friendly. He was unfailingly gracious to me. I was working the historical noir side of the street before him (not by much, but I was) and it’s probably natural that I would resent and even be jealous of his commercial and critical success.

That I don’t care for his approach is irrelevant. What I don’t like about it is something I don’t care to discuss, as it gets into that reviewing area. For a writer of fiction to be truly envious of another writer of fiction requires the former to be willing to trade books with the latter. I would not trade Angel in Black for The Black Dahlia no matter how much more money and acclaim it might bring me – writers have nothing but their own work to justify their presence on the planet.

So why does Ellroy remain something of a a thorn in my side? I’m sure I’m not even a gnat annoying his field of vision. It’s the fans. The readers. Some of you out there. So it occurs to me that it’s time to put down some rules, and we’ll start with the fans.

RULES FOR FANS (IN PERSON AND IN CORRESPONDENCE)

1. Do not tell a writer that he or she is one of your two favorite authors and then announce who the other author is. Particularly don’t go on and on about that other author. (I have heard that James Ellroy is someone’s other favorite writer countless times – probably because, again, we both work the historical noir side of the street.)

2. Do not tell a writer that you want to be a writer, too, and particularly don’t send that writer your manuscript or even request sending it. You are supposed to be interested in the writer you admire, not vice versa. And most writers have been told by their attorneys not to read other people’s unpublished work because of potential accusations of plagiarism.

3. Ask first before sending a book to be signed and, when you’re given the go-ahead, provide a self-addressed postage-attached envelope.

4. Do not share with the writer which books he or she wrote that you considered the weakest. In particular, don’t praise early books at the expense of later ones.

RULES FOR EDITORS

1. Do not take authors out for lunch on their visits to New York or at mystery conventions and tell them about other authors on your list you think are really great. More specifically, don’t tell a writer that a manuscript that just came in by, for example, James Ellroy is really, really terrific.

2. Do not take offense when you present something as a “suggestion” and the author doesn’t take it. If it’s really a change you feel needs to be made, be forthright about it. I would much rather have an editor insist on changes than just decide to stop working with me because I didn’t follow what he or she requested. Home work assignment: look up meaning of “suggestion.”

3. Inform the copy editor that line editing is your job and that the copy editor has not been hired to be a co-author.

RULES FOR WRITERS

1. Don’t review the books of other writers.

2. Don’t bitch about a movie ruining your book if you cashed the check.

3. Be patient with readers who may be nervous meeting you and think you are important in some way.

4. Understand that you are not important in any way, and that it’s a privilege to lie for a living.

The above are not complete lists, and don’t deal with things like writers making deadlines and editors returning calls.

* * *

So, of course, here’s some quick reviews.

Magnificent Warriors blu ray cover

Out on Blu-ray from 88 Films, Magnificent Warriors features a very young Michelle Yeoh – decades before Everything Everywhere All At Once – displaying her incredible martial arts skills and a charming, casually charismatic appeal. This has several of the greatest action sequences ever filmed, truly jaw-dropping stuff. Be prepared for the Chinese not to like the Japanese very much.

Marlowe with Liam Neeson from director/co-writer Neil Jordan is an abysmal misfire of a Phillip Marlowe movie, from a continuation novel (not Chandler). It’s shot in Ireland and Spain and is the worst approximation of Los Angeles in the Chinatown era I’ve ever seen, not surprising because it’s the worst period private eye movie I’ve ever seen. Neeson (who actually says “I’m getting too old for this” at the close of an awkward action scene) is adequate but everyone else hams it. Scenes end before they begin, incoherence poses as art, and dialogue approximates neither Chandler nor recognizable human speech. I went home and re-watched a 1947 Marlowe movie, The Brasher Doubloon (from The High Window) with George Mongomery as a mustached Marlowe. I always thought this one was lousy, and now it looks not bad at all. And James Garner’s Marlowe movie is starting to look like a minor masterpiece.

Party Down Season 3 Banner

Party Down, the Hollywood catering comedy from various Veronica Mars talent, is back on Starz after a brief thirteen-year hiatus. I’ve seen one episode and it’s already clearly the best show on television, painfully hilarious, with Ken Marino, Adam Scott and Jane Lynch standouts, though Martin Starr steals the show as a cynic who sees everyone else’s frailties except his own (he’s a sci-fi geek who once wrote an epic novel on a roll of toilet paper).

Poker Face banner

No, wait, Poker Face is the best show on television. Barb and I almost bailed after the first episode’s wrap-up seemed to promise a Columbo Meets the Fugitive premise for the series, with Natasha Lyonne having a superpower of sorts in her ability to detect lying. Nate nudged us to keep trying, and while it’s clearly a tribute to Peter Falk’s great detective, The Fugitive aspect is played down, and the lying shtick well-handled. Tons of great stars stop by to take the ride. Wanna see Nick Nolte playing a Ray Harryhausen type? You’re in luck! Episode eight.

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Here’s an interesting take on my first Batman issue (!). Check out my comment as well.

Scroll down for some more nice Rap Sheet coverage of Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction.

Guess what Collider thinks is one of the ten best Prohibition era gangsters movies.

M.A.C.

A “Big” Book Giveaway

Tuesday, November 29th, 2022
The Big Bundle cover
Hardcover:
E-Book: Kobo Google Play
Digital Audiobook:

I had hoped to do a book giveaway with copies of the Spillane bio, but I don’t have enough copies to do so – what I have has to go out to a handful of professional reviewers. Apologies.

But we do have a book giveaway this week – the new Nathan Heller, The Big Bundle, from Hard Case crime. I have ten trade paperbacks of the novel (which will be published initially in hardcover – these are ARC’s, Advance Reader’s Copies).

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

Because the physical copies of the book are tied up at the London docks, the novel won’t go on sale until some time in January. But the e-book is available Dec. 6 and the audio (indeed read by the great Dan John Miller!) is available now. So you should be able to post Amazon reviews as soon as you’ve read the book.

By the way, I received copies of the audio of The Big Bundle a few days ago, so it exists!

Speaking of which, here’s a spiffy review of The Big Bundle from the Considering Stories web site to whet your appetites:

THE CASE OF THE MISSING $300K:
MAX ALLAN COLLINS’ THE BIG BUNDLE
by Daniel Robichaud

When detective-to-the-stars Nathan Heller is called in to consult on the kidnap job in 1953, he’s got a few successes under his belt for work he’s done. The big marks on his record in terms of working kidnapping jobs was the work he did on the Lindbergh Baby case, which history has shown did not end at all well. Still, he’s a fresh set of eyes and ideas for the job, and the person or people who took Robert and Virginia Greenlease’s son Bobby from a boarding school are not exactly criminal masterminds. They snatched the kid just fine but walking the parents and the authorities through the ransom process has been trial after trial, with bumbling, idiocy, and amateurism on the kidnappers side. However, the ransom is the biggest on record so far: $600,000 in cash.

Well, Heller finds himself involved, but not as much as he might’ve wished. The FBI is calling the shots, when the local law is not interfering, and when Nate has the opportunity to wait for the perps and tail them or beat the answers out of them, he’s pulled away in an effort to save the kid’s life. By the novel’s midpoint, that particular mystery is mostly resolved: the fate of the kid is answered, the kidnappers are identified, and the money is recovered. Well, half of the money is recovered. The rest of the cash just vanishes into midair. All of that is historically correct, author Max Allan Collins finding gaps in real history to find a space for his fictional detective’s involvement along with some sly reworking of the facts and involved persons in order to make a satisfying narrative. As Westlake alluded in the opening of his tabloid-themed novel Trust Me On This, the real world seldom relies on plausibility while novelists are constrained by an audience’s suspension of disbelief.

One could consider the book to that point a rather involving work in its own right, but once that case is resolved, Collins really opens up the period and the scope, as parties are interested in figuring out just what happened to the missing cash. Fast forwarding to 1958, we find Senator Robert Kennedy convinced the money has made its way to the Teamsters via gangster connections—his Senate Rackets Committee is trying to find a platform to prosecute the leadership of that union. However, Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa believes the cash ended up in crooked hands. Both of these men want Nate Heller to go looking, and all roads lead him back to Saint Louis where the money disappeared in the first place.

It is there that Nate finds himself once again in crosshairs, people working angles and exploring various lines for locating the missing cash. Some familiar faces might know more than they are letting on, but all of them are interested in getting their own piece of the action, whether that’s a percentage of the missing fortune or a kickback. Will Nate find out what happened to all that boodle, or will he wind up one more victim, his career or even his life laid upon the sacrificial altar of mankind’s greed?

Max Allan Collins has been chronicling the life, times, and career of Nate Heller. The Big Bundle is the eighteenth novel featuring the detective, though he’s also appeared in numerous short stories and novellas. Heller’s adventures kicked off with 1983’s True Detective (which takes place in the 1930s). The books are generally engaging historical thrillers, balancing good research, engaging characters, and twisty mysteries. This eighteenth volume is no exception, either.

In The Big Bundle, we find Heller in his late forties. He’s got enough experience to know how to handle himself, and he’s not as prone to the sorts of leaps that younger folks get up to—but he’s also not so old that he’s completely risk averse. There’s a measured quality to his embrace of trouble that is engaging. Here’s a guy who will still get in over his head, who better understands the stakes as well as his own abilities. It’s the perspective of age that makes this adventure all the more intriguing. In fact, Collins has never shied away from involving Heller in some major historical crimes and situations.

The historical elements in The Big Bundle are big headline stuff from the times, in fact. The details behind the Greenlease Kidnapping and its resolution are easily available to true crime afficionados, and the general beats of the case are unchanged here. Those in the know will not find surprises in the flow of the case itself, but Collins does inject his character into the scenario in unexpected ways. Because Nate Heller has a history with corruption himself, he’s just as often seen as a force of law and order as a tool of the Chicago mob, and this dual reputation gives him access to places and people that normal law enforcement cannot. Collins uses the duality quite nicely here. That he gets to engage with people on both side of the case is quite enjoyable.

The later stuff takes a bit more license with history, using some big events and personalities as well as some created characters. It all rings just true enough that I don’t feel compelled to check a history book, which is how I most enjoy my historical fiction. A lived-in sense of the world, and a quirky perspective on the times are more enjoyable for me than a strict, dry, academic approach to the subject. Fans of James Kestrel’s Five Decembers will find plenty to love in Collins’ playing with history. The Big Bundle is a straight-ahead suspense yarn, a pairing of mysteries nested comfortably in real world events, more or less.

And though it is the eighteenth book in the Heller series, it stands on its own quite well. The first person narration hits on some of the events from past novels but does so without spoiling the secrets and suspense those books contain, inviting us to continue with the Heller series if we like the character here.

And there is plenty to appreciate. Nate Heller is a detective, and therefore a kind of knightly character committed to the resolution of mysteries. He’s not necessarily as righteous as Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, but he does walk down some mean streets. And given the aforementioned dual reputation, he’s as bound to rub elbows with racketeers or hoods as he is with honest citizens or law enforcement. In fact, Heller is a just character in terms of his understanding of right and wrong, as it applies to the way he operates and leads his life. But he also compartmentalizes this moral code while operating in a tough world.

The Big Bundle is a sprawling epic of mystery and suspense, a private eye story without any dames walking into offices but plenty of big, bad world to challenge our point of view character’s moral compass and detective skills. The book is bound to win new fans to the author’s series character, and one hopes Heller gets a bit of the same treatment as either Collins’ Quarry or Nolan characters, which both saw new releases as well as reissues of the earlier books in slick, new Hard Case Crime editions. The book is a dynamite read.

The Big Bundle is available for pre-order in eBook, hardcover, and audiobook editions from the fine folks at Hard Case Crime. The earlier novels have appeared in affordable eBook, paperback, and audiobook editions along with much of the prolific author’s backlist.

Check out the website here.

I have completed Too Many Bullets, the even newer Nathan Heller novel (out some time next year), and thanks to my indefatigable editor at Hard Case Crime, Charles Ardai, it’s really completed. Charles is blazingly fast, at least with my books. As almost a practical joke, I sent the novel out on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, saying it was just in time to ruin the long holiday weekend.

Well, Charles had finished his read-through and had all his notes…Friday morning! I spent the day dealing with his notes and fixing typos and such he’d spotted (and I’m pleased, even proud to say he likes the novel a lot). And now, with the ink barely dry…the novel is finished. Really finished.

Charles and I even worked on the backcover copy, which will also appear on the HCC web site.

All that remains is, at some point, a proof-reader to go through it and I’ll have a few questions to answer. Understand that this process can take months. And months. To finish a novel and two days later be doing the corrections and editorially requested tweaks is…astonishing.

Now I feel a little lost. I puttered around Saturday not knowing what to do with myself. This is a common feeling I have when I finish writing a book. I am working my ass off to finish it, then…what am I to do with myself?

I am taking most of December off from novel writing – I will have my draft of Antiques Faux to write come January. But I will be working on the video edit of the Mike Hammer play with Gary Sandy, Encore for Murder. I’ve seen the first act of two from editor Chad Bishop, and I like it. Not sure what to do with it, since it is after all an amateur production…though Gary, a real pro, is at its center; and the local cast seems pretty darn good to me.

As you may recall, this is a radio-style production, scripts in hand, though there is costuming and a big screen for scene-setting slides. We did this professionally, twice, in Owensboro and Clearwater, and I think this one stacks up nicely.

One idea I have is to include it as a bonus feature on the proposed disc of the expanded documentary, Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane, which is in progress.

* * *

A movie recommendation and a Blu-ray recommendation….

The Menu

The Menu (in theaters now) is an excellent black comedy with a strong cast led by Ralph Fiennes and Anna Taylor-Joy (in probably her best post-Queen’s Gambit role). Writer Seth Reiss is a veteran of the Onion and Comedy Bang! Bang!, his co-writer Will Tracy comes from Succession. Those credits make a lot of sense, because The Menu is very funny and very dark. The critics have mostly liked it, but miss the point by focusing on the film as a satire on the foodie culture when it’s much more about class in general.

El Vampiro Negro

From Flicker Alley on Blu-ray comes El Vampiro Negro, another outstanding Eddie Muller discovery, the best yet of the South of the Border noirs he’s dug up (which is saying something). Despite the “Vampiro,” this is not a horror film – rather, amazingly, it’s a remake of Fritz Lang’s seminal crime thriller M (1931), in which Peter Lorre made himself known to the world in all his creepy glory. M is one of the great movies, and it spawned a strong American remake of the same title by director Joseph Losey, a film doomed to be underrated.

What is amazing about El Vampire Negro is that it rivals the original and, in my admittedly skewed view (but one that Muller agrees with), is my favorite of the three versions. It just might be superior to the original. (Muller agrees.)

While Negro has familiar elements from Lang – the whistling by the serial killer of “Hall of the Mountain King,” for instance – it has an entirely new twist by putting women…the mothers of the little girl victims…at the center of the narrative. The main character, nowhere to be seen in M, is a chanteuse (Olga Zubarry) in a seedy nightclub. Madame Zubarry is excellent, alternately recalling young Marilyn Monroe and Gloria Graham. The seeming hero, a pillar of law enforcement, is a bully and a creep (though humanized by his love for his crippled wife). The shadows and Dutch angles are superbly rendered. This is a genuine noir find.

El Vampiro Negro
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Rod Lott, guru of Bookgasm, also has the Flick Attack movie site, where he talks about I, the Jury (1953) and does so intelligently.

M.A.C.