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.
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.
