My friend Bill Crider, that terrific writer whose blog is one of the most entertaining in the mystery field, got some bad health news recently. Read about it here (and use the link to his Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine blog to leave him some good wishes):
What is special about Bill, beyond his talent as a storyteller and the humor he displays every day in his blog, is the way he supports and encourages other writers. If you follow these updates, you should have noticed how often he has had nice things to say about my work. So send one up for Bill, and make it a good one.
I came back from the San Diego Comic Con with a few health issues of my own, albeit much more minor. For one thing, I’m retaining water (do your own joke here) and, in unrelated medical fun, am facing another procedure. An apparently non-cancerous growth on my right lung requires some attention that will give me a return trip to the hospital for a couple of days followed by a week or two of serious loafing. I have lots scheduled this month and next, including Bouchercon and my 50th High School Reunion, at which the Daybreakers are regrouping for a rare performance. So I’m hoping to put this off till very late September or early October.
Right now I’m working on EXECUTIVE ORDER, third in the Reeder and Rogers “Branches of Government” trilogy. It’s been very stop/start – last week two doctor’s visits screwed me up – and that’s not helpful. Before that, five days came out of my schedule to attend San Diego Comic Con (somehow I don’t sense any sympathy coming my way for that). Thing is, I like to burrow in, keep right at it. Writing a novel is like reading one: put it down for a while, you forget what it’s about.
Also, I just signed 1000 signature pages for the limited hardcover of the Mike Hammer short story collection, A LONG TIME DEAD. Jane Spillane will be signing, too. Here’s the info if you’re interested.
My pal Terry Beatty clued me in about a nice defense of the much-maligned-but-actually-quite-wonderful STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE from Simon Pegg, who not only plays Scottie in STAR TREK: BEYOND, but co-wrote it. Barb and I saw BEYOND for a second time, in 3-D for this go-around, which I thought was an improvement over an already strong entry. BEYOND is possibly too action-heavy, some of it incoherently so, and the villain’s motivation is hazy to say the least; but it really captures the characters and their interplay, and should delight STAR TREK fans (and I am one). Several references to the late Leonard Nimoy are moving, and an end card dedicates the film to the late Anton Yelchin, tragically dead at 27, who has many nice moments as Chekov in the film.
This site has a complete listing of QUARRY episode titles and air dates.
The writers responsible for getting Quarry on the tee-vee, Michael Fuller and Graham Gordy, are interviewed here. They have spent four hard years making this happen.
Finally, here’s another podcast devoted to a MS. TREE issue (haven’t listened to this one yet myself, but I will).
Barb and I will be attending Comic Con in San Diego. I will be taking it easy, since I’m still in recovery, but it’s nice to be getting back to normal…not that Comic Con is in any way “normal.”
No signings are scheduled, but if you’re in the hall and spot me, and have something for me to sign, I’ll gladly do so. Usually Mysterious Galaxy’s booth has a decent supply of my most recent novels.
The only event I’m part of is the annual International Association of Media and Tie-in Writers “Scribes” awards. I will be moderating the awards panel (I have two nominations, both for Mike Hammer – the short story “Fallout” and the novel KILL ME, DARLING).
Here are the details:
Friday, July 22 [ROOM CHANGED, NOW AT:] Room: 28DE
6:00 – 7:00 PM
International Association of Media Tie-in Writers: Scribe Awards — Max Allan Collins(Mike Hammer), co-founder of the IAMTW, will host this year’s Scribe Awards for excellence in tie-in writing, including honoring this year’s Grandmaster Award “Faust” winner, Timothy Zahn (Star Wars) . Join panelists Michael A. Black (Executioner), Adam Christopher (Elementary), Matt Forbeck (HALO), Glenn Hauman (Star Trek), Nancy Holder (Crimson Peak), R.L. King (Shadowrun), Jonathan Maberry (Wolfman), Andy Mangels (X-Files), Cavan Scott (Pathfinder) and Marv Wolfman (Batman) for a freewheeling look at one of the most popular and yet under-appreciated branches of the writing trade. Room 23ABC
Since Nate won’t be along this year, and my activities will be limited, I won’t be posing daily reports from the Con. But there will be a convention wrap-up here next week.
* * *
The news that Hard Case Crime, through Titan, is doing a comics line – with me writing a Quarry mini-series for collection as a graphic novel – was all over the Net last week. No artist has been selected, and I probably won’t start writing for two or three months; the graphic novel will likely be called QUARRY’S WAR and will deal more directly with his Vietnam experiences than I’ve ever done in the novels.
Meanwhile, there’s a new Cinemax trailer for the QUARRY series.
* * *
Here are a few brief reviews of movies recently seen by Barb and me.
GHOSTBUSTERS – Despite the talent on display, and in part because of too much special effects work, this reboot is merely okay. At an hour and forty-five minutes, it seems much longer. Losing ten to fifteen minutes would make it funnier and also more suspenseful. The Bill Murray cameo is disappointing, and the other original cast cameos are mostly perfunctory. Why were the original cast members wasted? Why wasn’t there a passing of the torch, with the original actors/characters? The new cast is winning, though, with Kristen Wiig the standout, though Leslie Jones mostly stands around channeling Ernie Hudson.
LEGEND OF TARZAN – This is much better than it’s cracked up to be, and more faithful to Burroughs than any other Tarzan film with the possible exception of GREYSTOKE. This has more plot and action than the latter, and the two leads, Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie, are charismatic and have nice chemistry. The landscapes are stunning and the CGI animals work fine, especially the apes. Christoph Waltz is starting to wear out his villain welcome, though.
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE – Kevin Hart is amusing but upstaged by the Rock – okay, Dwayne Johnson – who is extremely, unexpectedly funny in the best spy spoof since, well, SPY. I was shocked by how entertaining this was.
DE PALMA – We caught this at Iowa City’s FilmScene, the theater smart enough (or anyway nice enough) to recently book MOMMY. Brian De Palma was, for many years, my favorite director, and PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (which back in the day, Terry Beatty and I saw endlessly in theaters around the Midwest) remains in my top ten films…make that top five. But some later missteps of director’s like MISSION TO MARS and SNAKE EYES cooled my enthusiasm for everything but the earlier stuff like SISTERS and OBSESSION. The documentary is a long interview with De Palma made visually arresting by many clips from his own films and the films that influenced him. The result is at once a character study of a kid with a nurturing mother and a distant father whose idea of bonding was taking his son to bloody surgical operations, and a master class in direction in terms of a talented young indie director’s rise to Hollywood fame (and his periodic return to his trademark thrillers, to revitalize himself and his career). Virtually every film of De Palma’s is discussed, and excerpted, and the missteps are explained and put in context. His stories of dealing with Hollywood stars and studio executives are funny and revealing (of both himself and a terrible system), though I strongly disagree with his apparently low opinion of Cliff Robertson’s work in OBSESSION. If De Palma has a flaw as a director – and I’m not referring to misogyny – it’s a tendency to value hammy performances over understated ones. But performances and for that matter characterization are secondary to De Palma, whose visual sense and storytelling via camera is second to none…except maybe Hitchcock, who he unapologetically admits is his model and idol. The film concludes in a bittersweet, even moving manner, with De Palma saying that a director is finished when he can no longer walk, which is juxtaposed with the only non-interview footage of the now-overweight De Palma as he walks unsteadily down a New York street. He also, as the film wraps up, states his opinion that directors do their best work in their thirties, forties and fifties. De Palma is 75.
The first of eight episodes of QUARRY will be on Cinemax on September 9 at 10 p.m. (I assume that’s eastern time).
Obviously this has been a long time coming, but I think the wait will have been worth it. Already the series has resulted in Hard Case Crime reissuing the first five books, with a new book coming in October (QUARRY IN THE BLACK), a four-issue comic book series early next year, and another novel (QUARRY ON TARGET) that I will write later this year.
The news about the series and its debut is all over the Internet – probably a couple of dozen write-ups. Here are several that should serve to catch you up.
A big Kindle sale is coming up later this week, featuring assorted titles of mine in the Mystery, Thriller & Suspense category. Each book will be $1.99. The sale begins July 1 and runs through July 31.
Here are the specific titles: [Note from Nate: For your convenience, I’ve linked the Amazon logo to each book’s Amazon page, and the text title to each book’s info page on our website.]
If you go there before that date, the page may not show the new promotion, or it may be empty. If that’s the case, check back on July 1, the official start date.
* * *
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame discussion continues. Here’s a great comment from Mike Dennis that you may have missed:
I’m on board with Pat Boone, Max. For exactly the reasons you cite. He singlehandedly opened the door for R&B artists who couldn’t get their records played on white radio stations by recording their songs himself. And of course, those R&B artists collected lots of money in songwriting
royalties.
As far as the 1958-63 (Elvis/Army – Beatles invade US) era is concerned, I’ve thought about that. It was not the most fertile period for rock & roll. Think about 1958. Rock & roll was in danger of disappearing altogether. I’m sure you remember. Radio DJs were breaking records on the air, clergymen from coast to coast were pounding their pulpits over this sinful, new music. It was not a given than the music would survive, rather it was held together by a loose gathering of young artists and the eager teenagers who had fallen under their spell. The adults couldn’t stand it.
Then Elvis entered the Army, Jerry Lee Lewis self-destructed on his disastrous tour of the UK, and Buddy Holly died in February of 1959. That was really the end of the period where this raw, exciting music was being made by mostly young Southern boys, independent of each other, music crafted and honed in the dirt-road joints of the emerging South. The songs, and the artists who recorded them, were a natural outgrowth of a post-World War II America, reflecting (like the film noir that rose during that period) all the alienation that existed in the country at that time.
The songs spoke only to young people, while the artists were generally sex-crazed hillbillies sent out on the road with no adult supervision. Elvis was the King of Rock & Roll. Jerry Lee Lewis was supposed to inherit the throne following his British tour. Holly represented the music’s sensitive side. But with all three of them gone by early 1959, there was a vacuum at the top. The major record companies saw their opening and moved in. They swiftly rounded up a stable of compliant, cute, barely-talented artists who were willing to do what they were told for a shot at stardom. Rock & roll songs were no longer written on the back of napkins or on paper bags, they were written in the Brill Building by calculating, businesslike songwriters whose job it was to turn out hits that had been scrubbed clean of sexuality.
Also, I’m glad you pointed out the role of the Wrecking Crew in the making of so many great records. I would like to note there was a British version of the Wrecking Crew — I’m not sure if they had a slick name like that — that played on most of the British Invasion records. One noteworthy example is the Kinks’ first two records, YOU REALLY GOT ME and ALL DAY AND ALL THE NIGHT. The opening buzzsaw guitar chords were played by Jimmy Page, not Dave Davies as is commonly thought. I met Page in 1966, right after he joined the Yardbirds and he told me all about those sessions. Until then, he was a first-call studio player in London and he and a few other guys played on all the British Invasion records (all, that is, except the Beatles, the Stones, and maybe a couple of others).
That said, I still don’t consider Buffalo Springfield as anything more than a one-hit wonder. Laura Nyro was a great songwriter, as you pointed out, but I don’t think she’s worthy of induction in the R&RHOF. There are artists I would like to see in the Hall, like Johnny Rivers, the Monkees, and the Association, but as long as the Hall is itself not worthy of having them, I’m not going to get too upset over their omission.
Mike, thanks for this articulate, insightful mini-essay. Much of what you say I agree with, but I think you (in a way characteristic of some who highly value Elvis, Jerry Lee and Buddy Holly) underestimate some of what was going on in the between-Elvis-and-the-Beatles years. Some very exciting stuff was happening, on the east coast particularly. You know I am a big Bobby Darin fan – his version of his own “Early in the Morning” is far superior to the rushed Buddy Holly cover, and Darin cut many strong rockers backed by great Atlantic Records session men. I would also cite artists like Bobby Vee and Bobby Rydell (two more of the much-maligned “Bobbys” and neither on a major label) as real rock artists.
Then there’s Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, and I can’t agree about the Brill Building output – not when we’re talking Bacharch & David, Goffin & King, Mann & Weil, Pompous & Shuman, Greenwich & Barry, Leiber & Stoller. A lot of that was anything but scrubbed of sexuality.
You mention 1958. Rock was not disappearing – not with the Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson, Danny and the Juniors, the Coasters, Little Anthony and the Imperials, and – oh yeah – a guy named Chuck Berry…all charting. From ‘59 to ‘62, there were many greats and near-greats making hit records: Lloyd Price, Ritchie Valens, Dion and the Belmonts, Freddy Cannon (“Woo!”), Ray Friggin’ Charles, Jackie Wilson, Johnny Cash, Del Shannon (opened for him!), the Shirelles, Gary U.S. Bonds, Joey Dee and the Starlighters, and Gene Pitney. Not chopped liver! And not a major record company artist in the bunch.
The supposed dearth of rock post-Elvis and pre-Beatles strikes me as highly exaggerated. I wonder how many people like me – I’m now the ancient age of 68 – lived through all of these eras of rock and loved every one.
A couple of footnotes. The Buffalo Springfield played at the Masonic Temple in Davenport, Iowa, within a year of when my band the Daybreakers played there, when we opened for the Rascals and Gary Puckett. Buffalo Springfield was amazing and brave – they played extended, very loud solos prefiguring what every band would be doing in a year or two, and alienating much of the Iowa teenage audience. And my God was the fringe on Neil Young’s leather jacket long!
Same venue, same year. Gene Pitney and several other acts, including the Turtles (opened for them twice!), appeared in a kind of caravan-of-stars format. Pitney tore the place up, his vocals just towering. Then half-way through the set, he spoke for the first time, telling the audience in a hoarse voice, almost a whisper, that he apologized for doing so poorly, but he had a bad cold and was fighting laryngitis. Then he sang THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE.
* * *
Finally, MS. TREE fans may enjoy this fun, smart podcast in which two comic book experts review (favorably) the story “One Mean Mother.”
I realize, as the writer entrusted by Mickey Spillane to complete his Mike Hammer novels-in-progress, that I have a good number of conservative fans. Few if any of them are concerned that my views are too left-leaning for the task – I don’t write my point of view when I’m doing Mike Hammer, I write his.
Also, I try not to indulge in politics here. I don’t want to alienate readers, or collaborators who might hold other opinions.
But I would be remiss not to share an opinion in the aftermath of the Orlando tragedy. Here it is: you don’t need an assault rifle to kill a deer, unless Bambi has one, too.
* * *
My first Crusin’ gig post-heart-surgery went well, if not perfectly. It was a hot, humid afternoon in Muscatine, Iowa, though a nice breeze rolled in off the river. The event was open to the public, designed as an after-work event for downtown merchants and businesses. Our host, the First National Bank, did a great, fun job creating a 1970s class-reunion vibe. On the slight downside, this tended to make us background music and not the main event.
I was a little frustrated that I had to curtail my showmanship because of my limited stamina – I feel like I’m just playing and singing, and that’s only half of the job. And during the last half hour of the two-hour gig, I seriously ran out of gas. I don’t think it was terribly (if at all noticeable) by the audience, but I knew it and so did Barb. But I made it. It was a start.
Brad Schwartz and M.A.C.
That was Thursday of last week. On Friday and Saturday, co-author Brad Schwartz and our research associate – both making considerable treks to join me – met at my house to work on the joint Eliot Ness/Al Capone non-fiction book we are doing. We sold the book, based on a proposal and sample chapter, a year ago, and this was our first face-to-face since. There’s a reason for that.
I learned on the set of QUARRY in New Orleans that we’d made the sale…and the night before I’d suffered congestive heart failure. So it’s taken a while for me to get in shape for such a meeting.
But these two guys know their subject inside/out. We talked strategy and scheduling and much more. We also watched two movies about the Capone case – the embarrassingly lousy SPECIAL AGENT (1935) with Bette Davis and George Brent (and Ricardo Cortez as the Capone figure!), and the very, very good UNDERCOVER MAN (1949) with the always top-notch Glenn Ford, directed by Joseph Lewis of GUN CRAZY fame. The latter film is practically a schematic for THE UNTOUCHABLES TV series, though the hero is not Ness but the over-rated IRS agent, Frank Wilson.
* * *
The Rock and Hall of Fame discussion rolls on. Witness Micheal Tearson’s comment:
As for the R&R Hall, that’s been kind of a bugaboo for me. I had to deal with it constantly while I was working on Sirius/XM’s Deep Tracks channel which was pretty closely aligned with the Hall’s own channel (same administrator for quite a while). It became my view that the Hall has long since lost any focus on R&R as more and more artists with little or nothing to do with rock & roll have been honored. My top omission would be Procol Harum (Love is another). I’d also argue they have been very harsh on prog rock by skipping Moody Blues, Yes and ELP, all of whom have had very influential careers.
And “robbiecube”:
As much as I think the RRHOF is a scam, when acts I dig get ignored as disco & rap acts are inducted, I need to vent. And by vent, I mean list the acts I believe should already be in the hall;
Blue Oyster Cult / Procol Harum / Thin Lizzy / Kate Bush / Rory Gallagher / MC5 / Motorhead / Mose Allison / Grand Funk Railroad / Johnny Rivers / X / XTC / Pretty Things / J. Geils Band / Husker Du / The Jam / Deep Purple.
I think Michael’s remarks show that each generation has its own valid complaints about which acts have been forgotten. I certainly can see his prog rock choices as worthy ones.
As for Robbie, I think the same (slight) generational difference is afoot. But I would certainly be in favor of Kate Bush, XTC, Johnny Rivers and Deep Purple. Personally I find a few of the choices less than worthy – J. Geils, Thin Lizzy, Grand Funk – but that’s just taste. And some are just outside my range of musical knowledge – I have heard of Husker Du, but that’s all, and Procol Harem (mentioned by both correspondents) is only “Whiter Shade of Pale” to me. My bad, as the kids (used) to say.
But it certainly indicates how the Rock hall has missed the boat on a ton of significant artists.
* * *
Here’s 10 hitman novels everyone should read (oddly, only one of them is a Quarry, making the other nine pretenders).
Here’s a fun, intelligent look at WILD DOG (although the otherwise well-informed writer refers to my DICK TRACY stint as “short” – fifteen years?!?).
