Title: Majic Man
Release: September 1999
ISBN: 0-525-94515-6 (1999 Hardcover), 0-451-19945-6 (2000 Paperback)
Publisher: Dutton (1999 Hardcover), Signet (2000 Paperback)
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Washington, 1949.  With World War II over and Truman in the White House, the country stands on the threshold of the fabulous fifties.  Even Chicago private eye Nathan Heller is reaping the fruits of the postwar boom:  His A-1 Detective Agency has acquired a respectable new address and a more or less respectable clientele.  But a summons to Washington plunges Heller into the dark side of the new era where creeping Commie paranoia has everyone seeing Red, master muckrakers . . . Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson . . . are pointing fingers at the rich and famous from Beverly Hills to Capitol Hill, and atomic-age jitters have the whole country doing the duck-and-cover.

Retiring Secretary of Defense James Forrestal believes that someone is out to get him.  He wants Heller to find out who and why.  It's an investigation that will take Heller from Washington to the desert town of Roswell, New Mexico, where a UFO is rumored to have landed two years before.

When Heller uncovers information about a mysterious military group called the Majestic Twelve, evidence of a far-reaching conspiracy begins to surface.   Suddenly Heller is asking questions no one wants to answer and making enemies in high places, as two seemingly unrelated cases converge -- with deadly results.

Filled with colorful real-life characters and the chaos, persecution, and runaway conspiracy theories of McCarthyism, Majic Man gives us a mystery wrapped in a riveting political thriller -- and a solution to one of history's most fascinating enigmas.

Killers, Cover-Ups & Max Allan Collins: Interview by J. Kingston Pierce for January Magazine. September 1999.

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