Trash ‘n’ Treasures « Friends/Family/Fans of Max Allan Collins

Fancy Anders, Nic Cage, A Suspenseful Release and More

Tuesday, August 17th, 2021

M.A.C. and Barbara Collins holding Suspense - His and Hers

E-Book:

Trade Paperback:

Suspense – His and Hers (subtitled Tales of Love and Murder) is available now, both in Kindle e-book and a handsome trade paperback. It collects stories by Barb and me both individually and together. Two Quarry short stories are included (“Guest Service” and “Quarry’s Luck”) and a rare Ms. Tree short story (the Edgar-nominated “Louise”). It’s a pleasantly plump collection (almost 300 pages) and I think you’ll like it. Wolfpack did a marvelous job on the cover.

Fancy Anders Goes to War: Who Killed Rosie the Riveter?

E-Book:

Speaking of marvelous covers, feast you eyes on Fay Dalton’s cover for Fancy Anders Goes to War, which is available now for pre-order at $2.99 in Kindle form. There will be a trade paperback edition as well, but that isn’t up for pre-order just yet. This is the first of three novellas I’ve done for NeoText about Fancy, who is a 24-year-old (obviously) female detective in Los Angeles during World War II. The subtitle is Who Killed Rosie the Riveter? The fantastic Ms. Dalton has, in addition to the cover, provided a full-page illustration for each of the ten chapters.

If you like to read on Kindle, an advantage is that Fay’s artwork is presented in color (well, a couple were intentionally left black-and-white for film noir reasons) whereas only the cover art will be in color in the trade paperback. These are short novels (hence the term novella) but longish ones, running 30,000 words each. They will make nice additions to the shelves of Luddites like me who prefer “real” books.

It is my intention, my hope, that the three Fancy Anders novellas will be collected in one book with the Fay Dalton art properly showcased. (The Fancy Anders trade paperbacks are POD and only the cover will be in color.) I had a wonderful time doing these stories and hope more of Fancy’s cases will find their way through my fingers to the pages of books. These may not be as hardboiled as Quarry or Nolan or Hammer, but then what is? Fancy is like a younger Ms. Tree and is not shy about taking bad people down violently.

* * *

My classic rock band Crusin’ will be performing at the Muscatine Art Center’s Ice Cream Social this coming Sunday. Details here.

Right now this is the final scheduled gig of our short season. I had hoped to line up a few more, but with the surge in Covid the better part of valor for Crusin’ is to fade into rehearsals for our much-postponed CD of original material. Rehearsing and recording that CD is our winter project. It was supposed to be last winter’s project, but….

Here is a link to a video of the second set of our recent Sunday Concert series performance. I warn you that the instrumental is waaaaay back – you can barely hear the keyboards and the punch of the guitar is dialed down from the actual event. That’s because this is a sound board recording and you get mostly vocals.

I’m providing this because I do think it captures the casual intimacy of the event, which is quite different from working a larger venue. Thanks to Chad Yocum for shooting the video and providing the link.

* * *

As I may have mentioned, my son Nate and I are fans of actor Nicolas Cage. It’s odd to be a Nic Cage fan, because you never know whether the film at hand will be gold or dross, or something in between.

Some time ago Cage began taking (apparently) any job that comes his way if his price is met, and that price must not be sky high considering how many jobs he takes. This practice began some years ago when he had a tax problem that sent him spiraling from A-list to Direct-to-Video.

Cage was always quirky and for some an acquired taste. But here’s the thing: Nic always gives 100%. The film can be utter shit (and occasionally is – a few have caused even the loyal Collins boys to bail) but you never know when something really special is going to crop up.

Willy’s Wonderland, with the sublime premise of a defunct Chucky Cheese wanna-be restaurant becoming a haunted house for its mechanical animal musicians, has Cage giving a full-bore eccentric performance that almost elevates it to something special. Not quite, but for some of us, essential viewing. Primal is terrible, A Score to Settle rather good. You never know. A Cage movie is the surprise package of cinema.

Now and then, however, Nic and his collaborators knock it out of the park. Often he does extreme action and/or horror stuff – common among low-budget indies – and Mandy is something of a masterpiece. It’s sort of The Evil Dead without the laughs (except very dark ones) or the zombies. I would recommend it wholeheartedly to any even mildly adventurous movie fan.

But the current Pig (streaming for a price at the moment) is a reminder of just how great an actor Cage can be when a director handles him well and the material is strong. On the surface, it seems to be a revenge story, but that’s an assumption you’ll make that will prove wrong. It has tension and one violent scene, but it’s not an action movie. The premise sounds fried even for Cage: a hermit in the forest survives on the truffles he and his truffle pig find, which are sold to a city-boy hustler regularly; somebody beats Cage up, steals the pig, and Nic goes to the big city (Portland) to get his pig back.

If this sounds like you asked somebody to imagine a movie that even Nic Cage would reject, you’d be very, very wrong. It’s a wonderful movie and about all sorts of things, but revenge isn’t really one of them. Unexpectedly it becomes about being a chef, as opposed to a hermit, but really it explores loss and father-son dynamics. Pig centers on (get ready for it) an understated Cage performance that is Oscar worthy, and includes one of the best scenes you’ll ever see in any movie – what is that scene about? The hermit makes a chef cry in the latter’s trendy restaurant.

You can dismiss me as a crazy hermit who lives in Iowa if you like, but the loss will be yours.

* * *

Here is a delightful review of Antiques Carry On from Ron Fortier’s Pulp Fiction Reviews. But…it isn’t written by Ron! Suspense killing you? Read on…

ANTIQUES CARRY ON
A Trash ‘N’ Treasures Mystery
By Barbara Allan
Severn House
Guest Reviewer -Valerie Fortier

Ron isn’t into Cozy mysteries and when this one arrived in the mail, he dropped it on my desk top with the suggestion I give it a go. Months later it’s still sitting there and I decided to give it a try. As a Mom myself, I totally get the mother-daughter dynamics. Sometimes they gel, other times they are nothing but oil and water.

I would recommend you take time to meet Vivian and Brandy. The mother-daughter team that never misses a chance to inject humor and fun while investigating a new mystery. I really enjoyed the book; especially the great twist at the end in regards to who done it. Just when you think you’ve got it solved, there’s more to be revealed.

The book offers up a truly wonderful cast of characters to “cozy” up by the fire and share some time with.

Final note – This is the start and end of my reviewing career. Thanks, Ron.

* * *

Finally, here is an interesting, in-depth look at the film of Road to Perdition.

M.A.C.

Tags: Antiques Carry On, Appearances, Barbara Allan, Crusin', Fancy Anders, Fancy Anders Goes to War, Movie Reviews, Ms. Tree, Music, New Releases, Quarry, Reviews, Road to Perdition, Short Stories, Suspense His and Hers, Trash 'n' Treasures
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 4 Comments »

Sand Number Three and Wild Dog Goes Number Two

Tuesday, July 13th, 2021

Paperback:

E-Book:

The third in the John Sand Trilogy – To Live and Spy In Berlin – comes out tomorrow, Wednesday July 14.

Both my co-author Matthew Clemens and I consider this the best of the three, although we are proud of each one individually and more so collectively.

As Matt and I have often expressed, the John Sand novels reflect our love of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels and the movies they spawned, particularly the first six (five of which starred Sean Connery). There’s been some confusion from people thinking we’re doing spoofs when homage is more like it. Possibly pastiche, although I think we go beyond that.

The books imagine John Sand as the “real-life” spy the world’s most famous fictional spy was based upon. Sand has a new wife, Stacey, and is working for a new international espionage organization. We put him – them – in an historical context, so a few famous faces turn up in each novel. And in the first three, John F. Kennedy has chosen Sand as his go-to spy.

We pulled this off in a short period of time, and while we hope to do more Sand novels, we admit to being bushed. We plot them together, share the research, stay in constant communication while Matt writes a rough draft, after which I write my draft, still staying in touch with my co-author. It is as genuine a collaboration as you are likely to find, rivaled only by Barb and me on the Antiques series.

I refer to this as the John Sand Trilogy because whether it goes beyond that number of entries is wholly in your hands – yours and whatever readers otherwise stumble onto what we think is a very entertaining series.

No book giveaway yet, but stayed tuned.

* * *

My panel on Ms. Tree, Mike Hammer and Nolan for the virtual San Diego Comic Con is at 12 PM to 1 PM on Friday, July 23. Info here.

* * *

Some of you may be aware of the fuss regarding Wild Dog that was splashed all over the Internet last week (and still going). This is how CBR.com related it, relying on Bleeding Cool:

Wild Dog co-creator Terry Beatty slammed DC Comics for its upcoming Suicide Squad: Get Joker series, which depicts Wild Dog as being one of the insurrectionist who took part in the January 6th Capitol Insurrection.

Bleeding Cool posted a number of panels from the upcoming Brian Azzarello and Alex Maleev project, which shows the Suicide Squad paired with Red Hood to hunt down the Joker to finally make him pay for his crimes, and Wild Dog is available to be part of the Suicide Squad because he was in prison after being arrested during the Capitol Insurrection.

In the leaked panels, Wild Dog even brags about defecating on the desk of the Speaker of the House. He also says stuff like, “Garbage that’s been happenin’ in this country…it’s all fucking lawless…all the while we’re being regulated to think.”

Beatty, who co-created Wild Dog with writer Max Allan Collins, shared his displeasure with this new take on his creation on his Facebook page, “This is not the Wild Dog Max Allan Collins and I created. We are both angered and appalled at this offensive and out of character reworking of our hero. Yes, he was a vigilante. Yes, he was a gun nut.* But he wasn’t a conspiracy theory idiot or leader of a mob. This blatant disregard and disrespect for the creators’ intent is a slap in the face to both of us.”

Beatty referenced the CW version of Wild Dog, portrayed by Hispanic actor, Rick Gonzalez, as being a reason the artist thinks that this is a particularly bad idea, “It seems additionally insulting, considering the positive portrayal of Wild Dog as a POC on the CW ARROW TV series. To now make him the leader of a mob of racist, violent, moronic goons pretty much destroys any possibility of future use of him as an actual hero — vigilante or not.”

Wild Dog was introduced by Beatty and Collins in a miniseries for DC in 1987, as an urban vigilante who takes on the mob after his girlfriend is murdered. He later appeared in a series of stories by Collins and Beatty in Action Comics Weekly.

Beatty ended his missive by noting, “As the co-creator of Wild Dog, I need to say loud and clear, that what DC and Azzarello are currently presenting is not my Wild Dog, and neither Max nor I approve.”

Since then Terry has had more to say on his Facebook page (some of which has been quoted elsewhere). I was asked for my take on the matter by Bleeding Cool’s Rich Johnston.

Here’s what I wrote (with a title that was not used):

DOG POOP
Max Allan Collins

My first reaction at discovering Wild Dog had been recruited into the Suicide Squad as the leader of the Jan. 6 Insurrection as a defecating Proud Boy-style seditionist was bewildered shock. Basically, “Huh?”

That quickly grew to rage, expressed mostly as, “Fuck DC,” and “Fuck the writer.” I shared these sentiments with Wild Dog’s artist/co-creator, Terry Beatty, and he basically tried to calm me down. But, obviously, it gradually worked him into a rabid lather, too.

For me, it’s settled into disappointment and disgust. Wild Dog was conceived as a home-grown costumed hero. No cape, no cowl, just what could be put together out of such items as a hockey mask (with its Jason resonance) and body armor and real-world stuff from a hardware store and a home workshop. The usual “what if” all fiction writers operate from – “what if” somebody decided to actually be a costumed hero?

The results were not always beneficial. When Wild Dog found himself confronted by a would-be Bucky to his Captain America, despite our hero’s best efforts to discourage the Pup’s participation, the child is nearly killed. Terry and I pursued this with Ms. Tree – she was a vigilante, too, but wound up both in jail and in a mental institution. I might add in the Ms. Tree feature, Terry and I explored such then-current (and still current, unfortunately) topics as date rape, abortion clinic bombings, and gay bashing.

Some defenders of what we see as a perverted use of our creation dismiss it on the grounds that Wild Dog is a minor, forgotten character. Well, tell that to DC, who have used the character in at least three other comics, most recently as a cast member of the Cave Carson comic book, and to the CW network, where Wild Dog was a recurring character on Arrow.

Wild Dog debuted in a four-issue mini-series, had a regular slot in Action Weekly, and a “Special” double-length one-shot. In addition Terry is an Eisner-winning Batman artist, and we were Eisner nominees for our Ms. Tree work at DC. I wrote a year of Batman as well as two Batman graphic novels and was the initial writer of the Tim Burton-era Batman newspaper strip. My graphic novel (with Richard Piers Rayner), Road to Perdition, generated an Academy Award-winning film that is often cited as one of the best comic book movies ever made, and the graphic novel itself appears on many “Best of” lists. As recently as 2011 Terry and I did Return to Perdition for DC.

So what?

So Terry and I both have long relationships with DC and might have expected better where one of our creations is concerned. Yes, DC owns the rights to the character, but simple courtesy and common decency might suggest going down this path with Wild Dog was ill-advised – and that at least the creators should be warned. After all, invoking the Jan. 6 riot was bound to attract attention and controversy – shock value was the point, after all.

Of course we weren’t informed, just as we were not told about Wild Dog being used on the Arrow TV show. We weren’t paid for that (one of the few things our contract gave us) until that fact went public. I have worked with many terrific people at DC, but DC itself remains what it’s always been – a corporation built on the bones of two Cleveland teenagers.

As for Brian Azzarello, who I have never met, I have to wonder what kind of writer uses the creation of another writer in such a reckless, disrespectful manner. Azzarello is one of a generation of comics writers who owe a certain debt to our Ms. Tree, the first successful crime comic book in decades when it appeared in 1981. Still the longest running private eye comic book of all time (50 issues plus specials), it paved the way for everything that followed. We might have expected better thanks than this.

DC owning Wild Dog doesn’t stop it being characterized as my work – the fame of Road to Perdition guarantees I will be mentioned in the context of a character who is tied to a political movement I abhor.

But a modicum of consideration from the publisher, and some respect from the writer, is too much to expect from the company and talent who ignore Bill Finger’s Batman in favor of Batman fingering Catwoman.

* * *

The Bleeding Cool story on Wild Dog, with more Terry Beatty responses and a lot of comments (where I weigh in here and there) can be seen here. Most of the comments are supportive; some are asinine.

Here is a wonderful Mike Hammer write-up with a focus on Complex 90.

Here’s a favorable if slightly patronizing Bookgasm review of the new Antiques Carry On.

Finally, Atomic Junkshop serves up a swell look at the Caleb York series with a great art and wonderful words.

M.A.C.

Tags: Antiques Carry On, Caleb York, Complex 90, John Sand, Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer, Reviews, To Live and Spy in Berlin, Trash 'n' Treasures, Wild Dog
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 6 Comments »

Book Giveaway Part Two – Antiques Carry On and More

Tuesday, May 25th, 2021

Hardcover:

E-Book:

I have ten copies of Antiques Carry On by Barbara Allan (my wife Barb and me) to give away in exchange for reviews at Amazon (and elsewhere). These are beautiful hardcovers from our new publisher, Severn. Only about half the books on last week’s giveaway are gone, so this is Part Two.

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

Another important aspect of these giveaways that I sometimes fail to mention is that Amazon won’t publish a review until a book is available for purchase – until its publication date. And sometimes I am sending advance copies. So don’t try to post something, fail because of this Amazon loophole, and forget about your (don’t mean to sound scolding) obligation. As usual, that obligation becomes optional if you don’t like the book.

* * *

Barb and I ventured into the wild again – a day trip to Cedar Rapids (sixty miles from us) and Iowa City (a little more than half of that). We had a wonderful time, though it got rainy late in the afternoon, as we headed home.

We are simple souls. We listened to Dragnet radio shows in the car, to and fro, and had a nice Italian lunch at Biagi’s in CR. We shopped a little – separately – and wound up in Iowa City for more shopping, a modest amount, and had a pizza at Pagliai’s, probably our favorite pizza anywhere.

A delightful day, but the world is…different. Masks are still in evidence, and various Covid precautions, which is fine by us. We were the first patrons in the door at Biagi’s and it felt a bit like eating in a haunted house. But for some years, the older version of us has sought to eat early and go to movies at off-times, because we find our species better taken in small doses.

Barb, in her clothes shopping, found higher-end merchandise – which I quaintly refer to as designer clothes – in short supply. The amount of sweat pants on display indicates a lifestyle change during the pandemic. More startling were the bookstores, both Half-Price and especially Barnes & Noble, where things were laid out differently. Nothing negative about it – mostly bigger aisles and sometimes areas arranged in a square you entered to shop in – just different. At both Barnes & Noble and Best Buy, the decline of physical media was shockingly apparent. Best Buy’s Blu-rays and DVDs were perhaps a tenth of what they’d been pre-pandemic, areas partitioned off with nothing inside. Barnes & Noble’s music and movie section was a ghost town, perhaps a third empty bins and a dominance of the hipster LPs that have me scratching my head – I guess some people like clicks and pops.

Books and magazines seemed about the same at the CR Barnes & Noble, although rearranged and moved around, sometimes for Covid safety, with perhaps a dollop of having kept the staff occupied with busy work during the pandemic.

At any rate, the notion that we could blink away a year and a half and return to “normal” seems wishful thinking. This feels more like England after World War Two.

Another aspect of this new normal is that Barb and I watched, that evening, Army of the Dead, the new Zack Snyder movie that is in theaters and on Netflix. It’s exactly the kind of movie we’d have gone to see in the theater, pre-Covid. While I won’t review it, I will say we both liked it. I may discuss it in detail later on.

I mentioned Dragnet in passing, and one of these days I’ll go into that in depth, too. I will say the collection we’re listening to – “Get ‘Em” from Radio Spirits – is an outstanding one, including some of the earliest, toughest episodes (from 1949).

In the meantime, Matt Clemens and I have answered the proofreader queries on To Live and Spy in Berlin, which is now safely in the Wolfpack pipeline. And I am about to begin a novel based on an unproduced Mickey Spillane screenplay (non-Mike Hammer), also for Wolfpack.

So, with your permission, I’ll get to work.

M.A.C.

Tags: Antiques Carry On, Antiques Fire Sale, Barbara Allan, Caleb York, Giveaways, Hot Lead Cold Justice, John Sand, Mickey Spillane, Shoot-out at Sugar Creek, To Live and Spy in Berlin, Trash 'n' Treasures
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 3 Comments »

Reviews A Go Go (and a Book Giveaway!)

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

Paperback:

We are offering ten copies of the paperback edition of Antiques Fire Sale, the hardcover edition of Shoot-out at Sugar Creek (Caleb York #6), and ten copies of the paperback edition of Hot Lead, Cold Justice (Caleb York #5) in exchange for reviews at Amazon and other reviewing sites/blogs. Amazon, of course, is key.

[All copies have been claimed. Thank you!]

If you read the book and dislike it, you are relieved of your obligation to review it (though of course you can).

If you drop by here regularly, you know that reviews are a matter of some interest on these updates, and even of controversy. But reviews are important because they are one of the only sales tools available to authors. In our case, Barb and I are of an age (even before the pandemic) where we are no longer doing book tours. For years we supported our books with trips to such exotic locales as California, Texas and New York. But a waning desire to travel, and the increasing ineffectiveness of signings, has made book tours less attractive to us. (Centuries and Sleuths in Chicago remains our only regular stop.)

For a long time we maintained regular attendance at Bouchercon, where we could do signings for readers from hither and yon, but health issues prevented attending several of those and of course Covid prevented Bouchercon entirely last year. And we have already decided to pass on New Orleans.

We also did San Diego Comic Con regularly, but that too fell victim to health issues and later the pandemic. I will be doing a one-man (well, two-man because Andrew Sumner of Titan is interviewing me) panel for the upcoming virtual SDCC.

Barb and I hope to do both Bouchercon and SDCC next year. Those health issues I mentioned are well in hand, but we had to skip Bouchercon because of my heart surgery and later lung surgery, and Barb’s pertussis, which had me landing in New Orleans and immediately getting called back to Iowa, never getting beyond the New Orleans airport.

How much good reviews do, I’m not sure. But they seem to be the only thing left to us. They are not infallible –Antiques Ravin’ got rave reviews in all four publishing industry trades (Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal and Booklist), after which the series was promptly dropped by Kensington after thirteen successful entries.

The good news about the Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures series, of course, is that we’re doing it for another publisher now – Severn, a British house, which pleases Vivian Borne no end (everything, she reports, is “tickety boo”).

And now I will interrupt myself to share with you this remarkable review for the first Severn House Antiques entry, Antiques Carry On, from Publisher’s Weekly.

Hardcover:

E-Book:

Antiques Carry On
Barbara Allan. Severn, $28.99

Allan’s fast, funny 15th Trash ‘ n’ Treasures mystery (after 2020’s Antiques Fire Sale) takes brassy Vivian Borne and her long-suffering daughter, Brandy, the owners of the Trash ‘n’ Treasures antiques shop in Serenity, Iowa, to London, where, at the request of fellow Serenity antiques dealer Skylar James, they drop by the Old Curiosity Shop, whose proprietor, Humphrey Westcott, has a reprint of Murder on the Orient Express for Skylar to give his Christie-loving wife. When Humphrey is found stabbed to death with a letter-opener bearing Brandy’s fingerprints, the women are interrogated by a representative of MI5. Fortunately, CCTV footage proves the Bornes’ innocence, and they are unceremoniously sent back to Iowa, where more suspicious deaths await them. The pair investigate in their own inimitable fashion, eventually discovering a link between the murders and the copy of Murder on the Orient Express. Vivian and Brandy share narrative duties, and their amusing commentary provides much of the book’s appeal (Vivian admits she has “just a teensy-weensy, hardly-worth-mentioning, hint of bi-polar disorder”). Allan (the pen name of Barbara and Max Allan Collins) consistently entertains.

We are obviously thrilled about that one. The book will be out in early July. And the industry trades, PW a star in that galaxy of four planets, fuel both library and bookstore sales.

Let me interrupt this discussion (if me yammering can be so described) and share a wonderful fan letter we received – an actual, physical, through-the-mail letter.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Collins,

Thank you so much for continuing to add new novels to the Trash ‘n’ Treasures series. I just finished reading Antiques Fire Sale. I am looking forward to the release of your newest addition, Antiques Carry On! The characters seem almost like friends to me, since I have followed their adventures and shenanigans through all of your novels.

My sister Jessica Butler and I are huge fans! We share laughs as we discuss the stories. Please keep writing because your works bring joy and delight into our world! Thank you for sharing your talents with us.

Best wishes,
Suzanne Schumann

To say this kind of response makes our day (and not in a Dirty Harry sense) is an understatement. A reader response like this makes the struggle worth it, and believe me, writing – and publishing – is a struggle. Hoping it doesn’t sound patronizing, I am so proud of Barb for developing into a wonderful writer and collaborator – she is the one who makes these books really, really special.

* * *

On another front, it’s been difficult to get reviews for the John Sand series. This may be because Wolfpack – despite getting huge attention in the trades for its burgeoning success and innovative ways – places an emphasis on e-book publication, which seems (to me at least) to make reviews from the trades more difficult to get. How difficult? Neither Come Spy With Me nor Live Fast, Spy Hard has received a single review in any one of them.

Which is why the Amazon reader reviews are so crucial, as are reviews on Internet sites and in the handful of surviving newsstand mystery magazines (Ellery Queen, Strand, Mystery Scene). Thankfully we have had support from two key sites, Bookgasm and Pulp Fiction Reviews, and the Rap Sheet may be doing reviews soon. With your forbearance, I will share the Bookgasm review of Live Fast, Spy Hard with you right now:

Live Fast, Spy Hard, the second title in the John Sand series by Max Allan Collins and his writing partner, Matthew Clemens, again features the former MI6 agent and his wife, Stacey. This time, however, Stacey is the cause of the problems that send Sand around the globe while keeping one stop ahead of potential assassins.

John Sand is living out his role as a high-ranking executive of the oil company owned by Stacey’s father. But all the while he keeps a secret from his wife. He has been tracking Jake Lonestarr, the traitorous business partner of Stacey’s father. Lonestarr is assumed dead, but Sand still feels he is still at large.

Then Stacey mysteriously disappears. Lonestarr is the chief suspect in Sand’s search for his wife. But there is reason to believe that Las Vegas gangster Anthony Morello might also be responsible. Or is Stacey actually hiding from someone that Sand does not know of?

Sand’s search takes him Berlin to Mexico, and finally to the jungles of Curacao. But can he find his missing wife before an army of assassins catches up with him?

The authors present the novel in a third-person perspective, keeping the focus mainly with Sand. There are, however, occasional shifts that allow us to know the thoughts and emotions of Stacey and those intent on ending Sand’s life.

And while the novel’s tone and structure continues to follow the traditions of Ian Fleming’s classic James Bond stories, the references to Bond are noticeably less than the first Sand novel (Come Spy With Me), but Collins and Clemens continue their satirical wordplay with both the title and chapter headings.

Also reduced are the real-life figures Sand encounters. Here, they are mainly confined to President John F. Kennedy – who tries to enlist Sand into a new international spy agency — and, briefly, movie legend John Wayne.

Familiarity with the first Sand novel is not essential. The authors even devote the opening chapter to how Sand and Stacey first met. But reading this latest Sand adventure is greatly enhanced if you already met both characters.

Is this the last encounter of John Sand and his beautiful, resourceful wife? That, it seems, is up to Collins and Clemens. For the time being, we have these two thoroughly entertaining and exciting thrillers to enjoy. —Alan Cranis

Well, Live Fast, Spy Hard will not be the last John Sand book, because just last night Matt and I shipped To Live and Spy in Berlin to Wolfpack editor Paul Bishop.

We love doing these books and the only way we will stop is if sales don’t encourage us to continue. Reader response has been excellent – lots of nice things have been (and are being) said on Facebook about John Sand. But we need you readers out there who like Quarry, Mike Hammer, Nolan, and Nate Heller (even the Antiques fans) to give Sand, John Sand, a try.

Ron Fortier at Pulp Fiction Reviews also likes Live Fast, Spy Hard. His lovely review is right here.

Finally, here’s another great Shoot-out at Sugar Creek review.

M.A.C.

Tags: Antiques Carry On, Barbara Allan, Giveaways, John Sand, Live Fast Spy Hard, New Releases, Reader Mail, Reviews, To Live and Spy in Berlin, Trash 'n' Treasures
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 1 Comment »

Posts Tagged ‘Trash ‘n’ Treasures’

Fancy Anders, Nic Cage, A Suspenseful Release and More

Sand Number Three and Wild Dog Goes Number Two

Book Giveaway Part Two – Antiques Carry On and More

Reviews A Go Go (and a Book Giveaway!)