Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Justice’

Real Life Intrudes

Tuesday, March 10th, 2015

REAL LIFE INTRUDES

This will be a short update because I am very much in the bunker, working on the second Reeder & Rogers novel, FATE OF THE UNION (I changed the title from STATE OF THE UNION when somebody pointed out there was a Brad Thor novel by that name) (I’ve never read him, is my lame excuse).

The book feels very good, but the work has been exhausting. Matt Clemens, my co­-author, is actually still working on his draft, and I expect the rest of his material by mid-­week or sooner. Matt and I have been on the phone a good deal – not constantly, but frequently – as we consult on the phases each of us is working on. Of all the books we’ve done together – that’s easily approaching two dozen – this one feels particularly collaborative.

Normally Matt would deliver his rough draft (based on our co­-plotting, about two-­thirds the length of what my final draft will be) before I begin writing; but the complications of real life threw both of us curves. Matt got involved driving a good friend to chemotherapy sessions some miles away, later lost that friend, and then his mother­-in­-law passed away. I got sick last year – a bronchial thing – while working on the new Heller. No project of mine is harder than a Heller, and while I never stopped writing, my work days were truncated.

Writers live by deadlines, but deadlines don’t give a damn about illness or family tragedy or really anything approaching real life. This past week, in and around working on FATE OF THE UNION, I have been helping Barb deal with our terrible leaky roof problems due to the suddenly melting snow and ice here in the Midwest. Those of you know how bad my vertigo is will be astounded to learn that I’ve been up on the top roof of our multi-level art deco house with its flat roofs (hence leaks) shoveling snow and chopping up ice like an Eskimo in an old cartoon.

We have severe water damage in several rooms, and even had to move from our bedroom into the guest room. None of this is meant to solicit sympathy. As I’ve said here before, my late friend Paul Thomas always said, “If you want sympathy, it’s between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.” But part of what I’m trying to do in these updates is provide a glimpse into a working writer’s life. And the intrusion of real life into the fantasy we create can cause problems.

I think anyone who likes my work will enjoy FATE OF THE UNION. Some of you, even my most loyal readers, haven’t checked out the first Reeder & Rogers book, SUPREME JUSTICE, because it’s from Amazon, in their Thomas & Mercer line, and isn’t easily found in brick-­and­-mortar bookstores. Its success has been largely as an e­-book. What may surprise you is learning that – excluding various editions of ROAD TO PERDITION and certain movie tie­-ins, like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and DICK TRACY – SUPREME JUSTICE is my biggest bestseller.

Like the first novel, FATE OF THE UNION is a political thriller set around fifteen years in the future. It deals with big issues in, I think, an exciting way. SUPREME JUSTICE caught a lot of flack for having a liberal hero (most political thrillers are conservative, I’m told). This time I feel confident I’m being an equal opportunity offender.

M.A.C.

Supreme Resolutions

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

This is the time for making New Year’s Resolutions, and mine are fairly typical – lose weight, spend less, that kind of thing. It may not be possible at this late date, but I would like to spread my work out over the year, instead of having it front-loaded as it’s been the last several, punishing years. Though it feels like a plot against me, the reality is that the various editors and publishers I work for have their own agendas, and by accident those agendas want me to deliver promised books in the first six or seven months of the year.

Part of why I’ve gone along with that is to save the second half of the year for a Nate Heller novel. I have been working on the new Heller novel, BETTER DEAD, for several months now (much longer, factoring in the research, which remains on going). It’s been a tough one because it covers two cases and the research just never lets up. The process is start/stop because each chapter – frequently covering two major scenes – requires in depth research. Thank God for the Internet, and a pox upon ye all non-fiction works that lack an index.

The relative slowness of the process this time (not slow by almost anybody else’s standards, I admit) means I’ll be delivering the book a little late – not much, probably a week or even a few days (it’s due Jan. 1). But those days eat into the time allotted for the next book, and endanger the break of a week or so I need to take between projects just to recharge, and to do smaller promised projects, and guide my brain onto a new track. On top of this (not seeking “get well” cards or anything), I am still fighting, after two weeks, a bronchial virus that has hit this part of the Midwest pretty bad.

Writers don’t get sick leave, and deadlines don’t give a damn. The answer here is for me not to be so quick to say yes to deadlines suggested by editors with their own needs. I don’t have a handle on this, but I’m going to have to get one. Fortunately, this virus is limited strictly to a nasty cough, so I have been able to work through it, admittedly at a slower pace than normal.

Not looking for sympathy here – my late friend Paul Thomas used to say, “If you’re looking for sympathy, it’s been ‘shit’ and ‘syphilis’ in the dictionary.” But there are some opportunities on the horizon – having to do with television – that could change the way I organize my writing affairs drastically.

Stay, as they say, tuned.

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Check out the TV program “Books Live: Books We Love,” featuring Amazon editors talking about their favorite book picks in the mystery and thriller, science fiction, romance, and general fiction categories. SUPREME JUSTICE is featured as a top pick in the mystery genre – discussed by Thomas & Mercer editor Alison Dasho and host Laure Roppe. In addition, a reader “thank you” I taped at Bouchercon is included in the segment. You can view the program here: http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=10126410011

I’m pleased to say that SUPREME JUSTICE was also chosen by Suspense Magazine as one of the Best Books of the Year.

Best of Suspense 2014

The editors of Suspense Magazine asked me to answer a few questions, and here they are:

If your book had a soundtrack what would be its signature song?

“America the Beautiful” sung by Ray Charles.

If you could go ‘into’ a book (any book) and live there for a bit, which book would it be? And which character would you be?

I’d like to be Archie Goodwin in just about any Nero Wolfe mystery by Rex Stout.

What is the best book you read in 2014?

Fiction: Jack Carter’s Law by Ted Lewis (I did the introduction for this American edition of the prequel to the classic British crime novel, Get Carter).

Non-fiction: Masters of Sex by Thomas Meier

I’d also like to announce that starting with the next Reeder & Rogers thriller, my collaborator Matthew V. Clemens will be receiving cover billing. This is much deserved and I’m grateful to Thomas & Mercer for allowing me to do this.

By the way, SUPREME JUSTICE is well over 3000 reviews at Amazon now.

Here’s a nice year’s-end recognition of KING OF THE WEEDS.

THE PEARL HARBOR MURDERS (published some time ago) somehow made a “best of” list, too!

SUPREME JUSTICE shares the spotlight with Ed Gorman’s RIDERS ON THE STORM as two great year’s end reads. Nice company to be in!

Finally, SUPREME JUSTICE hit this ten best list, as well. Remember, none of these lists is valid or worth your consideration…unless one of my books is on it.

M.A.C.

A Real Bookstore

Tuesday, September 16th, 2014
Centuries and Sleuths Signing 2014
Barbara Collins and Max Allan Collins with fan Andy Lind

Barb and I did a signing at one of our favorite bookstores, Centuries and Sleuths in Forest Park, Illiniois, this Sunday past. The turnout was modest but included some of our most dedicated fans – one of whom brought two cartons of doughnuts! (Thanks, Rick!) The relatively small group meant that these hardcore fans could ask all kinds of knowledgeable questions, and that was a real pleasure. Among them were Andy Lind – Cedar Rapids fan relocated to Rockford who came all that way – and Mike Doran, old TV expert par excellence and frequent poster here.

Hosts Augie and Tracy Aleksy are ever gracious, good-humored and interested in what authors have to say. We signed some stock for Augie, and since we are doing no more signings this year (and probably few to none next), you may want to pick up signed copies from Centuries and Sleuths. You can call Augie at 708-771-7243, and the e-mail is csn7419@sbcglobal.net. He has signed copies of KING OF THE WEEDS, ANTIQUES CON, THE WRONG QUARRY, and – yes – SUPREME JUSTICE. He has a good quantity of signed ANTIQUES and Hard Case Crime QUARRY titles, too.

What makes Centuries and Sleuths unique is the combination of history and mystery – not just historical mysteries, but books on history. Right now Augie is concentrating on World War One (“celebrating” its 100th anniversary), and has all sorts of non-fiction titles available on the subject, but also fiction. He’s ordering in THE LUSITANIA MURDERS, for instance, in its Thomas & Mercer paperback edition.

Walking into a bookstore like Centuries and Sleuths is a reminder of what makes book buying such a pleasure in a real store with an expert hand-selling owner who really cares. If you are lucky enough to have a good indie bookstore, particularly a mystery bookstore, within your home area, please support them.

As a guy published by Amazon, I buy a good number of books there. But I have a simple rule that I try to follow. If I spot a book in an actual store – and it’s a book of which I was unaware – I buy it there. I don’t look it up on Amazon to get the cheaper price.

I have another rule that pertains to bookstores where I do a signing – I always buy a book there. It amazes me when authors do signings at bookstores and don’t repay the venue with a purchase. Maybe not all authors like books.

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Here’s a nice little write-up about COMPLEX 90.

And out of nowhere comes this fun write-up on the film THE EXPERT for which I wrote the screenplay. The writer doesn’t know the extensive backstory – such as my working for many months on a DIRTY DOZEN version for older actors, then when Jeff Speakman was cast at the last minute had to throw together a very different version – but his views are smart and entertaining.

The Kindle Taproom has a swell write-up on my favorite of the Mallory novels, A SHROUD FOR AQUARIUS.

Finally, a writer picks his five favorite Mike Hammer novels, and there are some interesting surprises, including his favorite (the undervalued SURVIVAL…ZERO!) and THE BIG BANG.

M.A.C.

Hooray For…

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Barb and I spent most of last week in Hollywood (California, not Florida). I rarely make trips out there, but this trek was to make “pitches” to various networks about a Heller TV show, and to take a few meetings (there’s a nasty phrase) about the QUARRY TV show.


Beautiful blonde spotted in the Beverly Hills Hotel lobby. Movie star?

First, QUARRY. Though a pick-up has not been announced, everything looks good – promising, let’s say. The meetings I took, both with the writers heading up the potential series and with the top execs at Cinemax, were encouraging.

As for Heller, the pitch meetings went very well and we have some interest. If you’re Heller fan, it’s premature to start doing cart wheels. At this stage, assuming a HELLER series will happen is like sending out birth announcements on your way out to a singles bar hoping to pick somebody up. But it’s a start.


Confused tourist outside CAA shortly before being seized by security.

The pitch process was interesting and a little odd, from a book writer’s point of view, anyway. For a long time – almost a year – I have worked with a top management company to develop a “pitch document.” I don’t remember ever polishing a piece of writing more times or more thoroughly, and I had expected I’d either be reading it or working from an outline of it. I practiced doing it both ways with Barb (don’t take that out of context) and hated the two approaches equally. One of the handful of things I do well is speak extemporaneously, and neither approach tapped into that.

Early in our marriage, when I was starting to publish novels and would do speaking engagements for the Rotary or whatever, I would prepare not at all, and it would make Barb very nervous, very anxious. She insisted that I prepare, that I do the next speech from notes. I did, and I sucked. After that, Barb gave her blessing to me winging such speeches, and never got nervous for me that way again.

I was relieved when, last Monday, my prep for the pitch meetings (set for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) included the news that I would not be using the pitch document. That I would be talking extemporaneously to the network execs. I don’t get nervous or anxious in front of audiences, and these pitch meetings included very high ranking people at some of the most famous cable networks. But I was loose and not intimidated, and pretty funny frankly, which I think helped.

Oddly, the pitch document was not left behind at any of the five networks we saw. Apparently you need to have such a document in case somebody asks to see it. But nobody did.

It was a stressful trip (my God I hate those freeways), and expensive, which is why I’ve only gone out to LA for pitch meetings on two prior occasions in the last ten years. But HELLER is important to me, and is a series I would like to be involved in myself, as opposed to just handing it off to talented writers and doing the occasional script.

We’ll see.

Did I mention it was expensive out there? It’s a shock to a couple of Iowa rubes to go out for a light lunch at a casual corner cafe and spend sixty bucks for it (a salad for Barb, fish tacos for me). But I was able to stop at my two favorite places in LA – Amoeba Records and Book Soup. At the latter, a customer recognized me as I was buying a magazine, and was dismayed at not having any of my books along for me to sign. Here’s a tip: everywhere you go, bring my books along. You never know when I’m going to show up.


A director and his star on the red carpet.

On the social side, Barb and I had dinners with Leonard and Alice Maltin; actor (Second City vet) Larry Coven of MOMMY’S DAY and REAL TIME: SIEGE AT LUCAS STREET MARKET; and Mommy herself, Patty McCormack. The latter was a splurge evening for us – we took Patty to supper at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and sat in a booth talking up a storm for almost four hours. I was a director taking his star to the Polo Lounge, and it felt very good.

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Here’s a nice review of SUPREME JUSTICE, which has drifted down the Kindle bestseller charts some but is still hanging on nicely.

M.A.C.