As The Crow Flies by Damien Boyd

Jake Fayter falls to his death during a routine rock climbing accident. At least that is what the report reads. His parents disagree. So they turn to their son’s old friend, Detective Inspector Nick Dixon.  Dixon was once Fayter’s climbing partner and has a hard time believing the report. He knows that there is no way that Jake made the mistake necessary to cause his death. So he begins to investigate. As he digs into his friend’s death he soon realizes that he is not going to like what he discovers.

As The Crow Flies is the first book featuring DI Nick Dixon. He is a quiet man who requested a transfer back to his home area instead of staying in London and working his way up the administrative ladder. Now he has a small place that needs furniture, a dog, and the peace and quiet of the countryside. Of course he also is on the trail of a team of burglars who keep breaking into the houses of the recently deceased. Now he has what appears to him to be the suspicious death of an old friend. Before it is over he will find himself dealing with a smuggling operation, drug dealers, and a killer who won’t go down easy.  Boyd’s is an excellent stylist. He brings his characters to life and allows them to develop as the story goes on. The book is full of great characters who you feel you want to know better.

As I read this book I couldn’t help but think that this story and these characters are perfect for a BBC mystery series. This is the kind of detective drama that so many of us have come to know and love over the years.  I read a lot of books. Usually over 150 per year. Some of the books are old friends, most are new. The majority of books that I have read I doubt that I will ever read again. Damian Boyd’s DI Nick Dixon novels fall into that rare category of books that I will definitely read and enjoy again and again over the years.  I look forward to more in this series. I suggest that you order this book right now. It is the perfect book to take with you on summer holiday. It is also the perfect book to curl up with in your favorite reading chair. In other words, it is just a great book. 

The Complete Crime Stories by James M. Cain

A man uses a tiger to try and murder his wife, a young code clerk falls for a beautiful bookie, a bank executive caught in a web of deceit. These are only a few of the exciting stories in this collection of Crime Fiction by the master James M. Cain.

James M. Cain has written some of the great crime novels of our time. Works like The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity still stand out as masterpieces of Crime fiction. These seventeen stories are a mixed bag. Cain is an excellent writer so there are no bad stories here. Some are better than others. Even though this is called Complete Crime Stories not all of the stories are crime stories, but they are all enjoyable. Cain had an amazing ability to pull you in to the story in just a few short words. There are some real gems here. One of my personal favorites is the classic “The Baby in the Icebox.”  In just a few short pages we have adultery, attempted murder, and tigers. Many of the stories have characters falling impossibly in love. Sometimes they have relationships falling completely apart.

Cain’s spare prose and often realistic look at human nature would make him one of the great influences on Elmore Leonard. The short story is one of the literary forms where American authors tend to shine the brightest. When reading these stories you can really see how Cain was a true master of the short story.

The Chase by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

Stolen art, an avaricious former government official, a lot of junk food, and loads of sexual tension. These are the main themes in The Chase the new novel in the Fox and O'Hare series by bestselling authors Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg. This time around the team have a new mission and a tight deadline. A valuable artifact is about to be returned to China from the Smithsonian Museum. There is only one problem: it is a fake. The real item had been stolen years earlier and instead of admitting the loss the government covered it up by displaying a forgery. Now Special Agent Kate O'Hare of the FBI has to team up again with her secret partner, international criminal Nick Fox. Their job is to find out who stole the item and retrieve it before the Smithsonian hands the fake over to the Chinese government.

Fox thinks he knows who stole the item so he hunts down an old "business" partner. That leads him to the identity of the person who now owns the artifact. That's where the real trouble begins. It is in the very private collection of Carter Grove, former White House Chief of Staff. Grove is retired from government service and now runs an international security firm. Grove loves two things: power and art. With the resources of his firm Grove can build and tear down governments in third world nations. His employees are cold blooded killers. With his resources Grove will be the most dangerous opponent that Fox and O'Hare have faced yet.

The Chase is a fun, cute novel. The plot seems to be secondary to the book. The story only seems to exist in order to form a loose narrative for the interaction between Fox and O'Hare. More importantly in this novel it exists to discuss two things: Kate O'Hare's complete lack of femininity and her crush on Nick Fox. Her lack of anything feminine is driven home time and again. In fact it becomes a rather tedious theme. She dresses poorly, she has a sparsely furnished apartment with a punching bag, and most of all there is her diet. Her diet is enough to make even the strongest stomach feel nauseous. The similarities to the Sandra Bullock film Miss Congeniality are unavoidable. On the other hand is her almost girlish crush on Nick Fox. When she is not eating some form of lousy food she is fantasizing about Fox. The contrast between the two sides of her character do not give her depth, they simply appear to be two different cardboard cutouts that are pasted together. This appears to be a fairly standard motif in "tough girl" literature and film.

The cardboard cutout characters abound in the book. There is Nick Fox, the international thief, who is also brilliant, and cunning, and, most of all, beautiful. The rest of the team are fun if predictable. There is Willie, the Driver. She loves to drive anything with an engine. Cars, boats, planes, it doesn't matter. Give her an instruction manual and she can fly an unfamiliar plane with no trouble. Of course her large, surgically modified bust is also an important character in the story. It makes an appearance when an easy distraction is needed. There is Boyd Campbell, the actor who only lives for his art. More than once his new career in commercials is interrupted for the good of the team. Poor Boyd doesn't appear to have much a future. No one seems interested in the deep emotional depth he keeps trying to bring to mouthwash and pancake commercials. Then there is our villain, Carter Grove. He is rich and ruthless. Not only is he a thinly veiled member of the Bush team, but he is also rich. How can a villain be more predictable, or two dimensional.

All of those criticisms aside the novel is actually fun to read.  It is a light hearted take on what has become a very serious genre. In many ways the Fox and O'Hare novels are more like a television series. If you demand that your books be full of dark, brooding characters and intense scenes of violence and sex then you might want to pass this novel by. If you want a light, enjoyable book and enjoy fun television shows like Rizzoli and Isles or Burn Notice then you should enjoy this book as well. I know that I did.

Blood Royal by Eric Jager

It was a cold November night in 1407. In Paris, the Duke of Orleans, younger brother of the King and the regent of France, was returning to his lodgings after dining with the queen. He was suddenly attacked by a group of armed men. They pulled him from his horse and hacked him to death. The group of armed, masked men then made their way through the streets terrifying any one who dared to look out of the doors or windows. Then simply vanished. The subsequent investigation and discovery of the person responsible for this action would affect the next twenty-five years of French history.

Louis of Orleans was an unpopular figure. His brother, Charles VI, suffered from recurring bouts of madness. Louis had been appointed regent to act when Charles was indisposed. Louis used his position to raid the national treasury for his own gain. He was a notorious womanizer who routinely seduced the wives of other nobles. He was also in a type of cold war with his cousin John, the Duke of Burgundy.

 In charge of the investigation of the murder was Guillaume de Tignonville, the provost of Paris. de Tignonville soon discovered the culprit. The man who ordered the assassination was none other than his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy. This revelation would plunge France into civil unrest for the next twenty five years. Henry V of England would use this unrest to invade France. The Burgundians would help the English in the war against the French crown.

This is a fascinating story about a turbulent time in French history. Jager does an excellent job of piecing this story together. The French aristocracy, particularly the royal line, comes across as one big dysfunctional mess. It’s the kind of story one would expect to see on an HBO original series. Illicit affairs, madness, opulent balls, murder, and mayhem. Against this story of the highborn Jager deftly weaves the stories of those less know to history. He gives us the story of the honest de Tignonville. A man whose integrity worked against him in the end. Readers of Shakespeare will recognize this figure and recall that he recaptured his honor by dying at the Battle of Agincourt.

We also get a glimpse of the justice system of medieval France. The public gibbets, the ways in which nobles and the clergy could escape justice. We also see the lives of normal Parisians. The beginning of the book gives us a glimpse into the lives of the men and women who lived and worked in the area where the assassination occurred. Dr. Jager’s writing is quite good. As a professor of literature at UCLA he is very knowledgeable about the period. He never falls into the trap that catches so many professional historians. He doesn’t beat the audience to death with obscure information and theories that add nothing to the narrative and only serve to impress the writer and other academics. This book is very scholarly and the material is well sourced. It is also well written and enjoyable to read.

I can highly recommend this book to lovers of history and to anyone who loves a good crime drama as well. 

Graveyard of Memories by Barry Eisler

A young man with no roots. A CIA agent manipulating government officials. A handicapped girl. Organized crime. These are the elements that make up Graveyard of Memories, the new John Rain thriller from Barry Eisler. This novel takes us back to the start of Rain’s career as an assassin. At the start of the novel John is a half Japanese, half American veteran of the war in Vietnam. He has returned to Japan, the land of his birth. He is working as a bad man for the CIA. He makes regular cash drops to a contact. He is told nothing and asks no questions. 

Everything falls apart when a group of punks jump him. As a cocky young agent he decides to take them on. In the fight he drops one of the punks hard on the pavement and kills him. The police don’t care, but there is a hitch. The punk he killed was the nephew of a powerful Yakuza boss. After an attempt on his life, Rain decides that the only way to stay in Japan is if the yakuza boss is dead. So he asks his handler for information needed to track the boss down. His handler agrees, but only if Rain will first kill a government official and make it look like an accident. Rain agrees and carries out his first hit.

Everything seems to go well as he embarks on his personal mission. Too well. Now he is suspicious of every one around him. To make matters more complicated he falls for Sayaka, a young Korean girl in a wheelchair. This young woman will introduce him to one of the passions that will define his later life: jazz music.

This book will set the stage for the man that Rain will become. At the beginning of the book he is a raw and untrained. As the story progresses he realizes that he must learn to pay attention or die. Eisler does an excellent job in developing his character. At the start he is young, arrogant, and not the most likable character. As the story progresses he grows quickly.

One of the most impressive parts of the book is Rain’s relationship with Sayaka. Eisler’s treatment of the difficulties facing a wheelchair bound young woman is moving and powerful. The young John Rain may be a bit of a blundering doofus at times, but the tenderness and passion he shows towards Sayaka help to both grow the character and our liking for the character. It is fascinating to watch this character kill several people with alarming skill and confidence, then to turn into a bumbling fool when trying to interact with this young woman. 

This is a very enjoyable novel. The story is based around real life events. The CIA was heavily involved in “financing” Japanese politics in the 1960s and the 1970s. Eisler was meticulous in his research about Tokyo in 1972, the year this novel takes place. He makes the city come alive for those of us who know little of the city or the culture. Most importantly the characters are fascinating and well written. All of the research, steamy sex scenes, and great action would not mean a thing if it wasn’t for the characters. Do yourself a favor. Get this book and get ready to have a good time.  This was my first Rain novel, but I can guarantee you that it will not be my last. 

The Deal by Adam Gittlin

Jonah Gray is a rising star in the world of New York Real Estate brokers. High dollar deals, women, booze, and drugs dominate his life. Then the opportunity of a lifetime comes his way. An old friend who owns a multi-billion dollar Russian oil company contacts him. It seems that his friend has decided to diversify his holdings and wants to invest in real estate. This is a huge deal There is only one hitch. The deal has to take place in three weeks. Jonah and the other associates at the small firm where he works go after this deal with everything they’ve got.

Then, without warning, everything starts to fall apart. He is used to juggling his job and his lifestyle, but when he meets a girl who seems to good to be true the lifestyle comes crashing in on him. On top of that he is unwittingly dragged into a heist. Now, as he scrambles to keep his life from falling apart and to make this deal happens he learns that you have to be careful who you trust and that everything that he knows is true may be built on lies.

The Deal is a fast paced, interesting novel. I have to be honest and say that I didn’t like the book very much at first. The story is told as a first person narrative. When the book begins Jonah Gray is a dope snorting, weed smoking, alcoholic, womanizer whose repulsive personality is only matched by his excessive ego. So when you have an immoral narcissist as your narrator the story can get old quick. I pushed on through and I found myself enjoying the story. There are a lot of plot twists and turns. At one point they can seem almost absurd when you look at them from the outside, But it works very well in the novel.

The author, Adam Gittlin, works in the world of commerical real estate so the parts of the novel dealing with that world are very informative. The characters are not very sympathetic at first, but that just gives Gittlin a lot of room to develop these characters. He does this very well. By the end of the book you find yourself interested in Jonah Gray. The Deal is full of surprises and plot twists. Overall it is a very good book. I recommend the book to anyone who enjoys a good thriller. The next Gray novel is scheduled to release in March. I look forward to reading it.

Red Hook by Gabriel Cohen

Red Hook

Gabriel Cohen

Open Road Integrated Media

Release Date: February 4, 2014

If you like well written crime novels the let me suggest that you pick up Red Hook by Gabriel Cohen. This is the first novel featuring Cohen’s detective Jack Leighter. Leighter is a top notch detective working for a special branch in Brooklyn. He is not assigned to an actual precinct, but instead works crimes throughout Brooklyn. He draws a case with a young murdered Dominican. There isn’t much to go on. The young man had a wife and two kids, a full time job, and now enemies. Everyone seemed to like him, but someone worked him over, stabbed him, and tried to hide the body in a canal

Leighter has very little to go on, but he just can’t let the case go. It isn’t that he has a lot to do with his life. He has been divorced for fifteen years and is unable to maintain any stable relationship. He barely speaks to his son. The one constant in his life is the job. Leighter is a complex character and as he investigates the case his own life begins to unravel at the seams. 

Red Hook is well written and spends as much time developing the character of Jack Leighter as it does on the actual case itself. You find yourself drawn into the character and you want to learn more about him. In many ways the book is about the end of an era. Leighter grew up in the working class community of Red Hook during the fifties and the sixties. He was the son of a Russian immigrant who came to the US and found would as a longshoreman. That neighborhood was killed when city planners decided to build a highway through the middle of the community. They uprooted shops and houses, and others had to move because of the noise. Now the area of his childhood is run down and killed with drugs and violence. Leighter must come to grips with the demons in his own past before he can move on and create stable relationships. Like Red Hook he has been scared by the world. The only question is will he be able to turn his own life around before it is too late.

Red Hook is a well written and enjoyable crime novel. The characters are intriguing and at the end you will look forward to reading the next Jack Leighter novel.

Bad Guys by Anthony Bruno

Title: Bad Guys

Author: Anthony Bruno

Publisher: Diversion Books

Release Date: January 28, 2014

Agent Mike Tozzi is tired of the bad guys getting away with murder. It seems that justice is not blind, unless you have connections, then it can’t see a thing. So he decides to even out the scales. Tozzi is tracking down the ones that got away. At the top of his list is the unknown man who murdered three undercover FBI agents and sent their severed heads back to the office. He has two problems. First, no one knows, or will say who the killer is or who he works for. Second, his old partner, Cuthbert Gibbons, has been brought out of retirement to bring him in.

Gibbons is a throwback to an earlier age. He still remembers the days when FBI agents hit the streets and did leg work. He spends his spare time catching up on his reading. His favorite subject is the history of Rome. It doesn’t take long for him to track down his old partner. Tozzi is able to persuade Gibbons to join him in his hunt for the killer. Against these two detectives is a shadowy underworld figure. No one seems to know the identity of the person who is pulling the strings since the leaders of some of the biggest crime families have 

This book is full of twists and turns and a lot of action. The story takes place in the mid-80s. The time of movies like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. It has all of the classic elements. It’s a buddy story, it’s a cop story, it’s an action story. At the heart is the search for justice in a changing world. The old FBI of Hoover is giving way to a new agency full of career men who look to computers. The world of organized crime is changing as well. Old loyalties and alliances give way to upstarts who don’t like getting their hands dirty and don’t want to come up in the organization the old way.

This book is fast paced, well written, and a lot of fun. If you enjoy classic action stories then this book is for you. One of the great things about the digital age is that great books like these can be brought back in to print. I enjoyed this and look forward to reading the others in the series. 

Lost City by Jay Stringer

Title: Lost City

Author: Jay Stringer

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Pages: 314 Pages

Release Date: January 14, 2014

Eoin Miller’s day was going pretty well until he got the call from his boss. At first it seemed straight forward. A stoned john got rough with one of the hookers and she knifed him. Simple fix. Except Eoin knew the john and he wasn’t the violent type. Then another murder happens. Before long Eoin is in a race against time to protect himself and the crime family he works for. He uses the skills he learned when he was a cop to piece things together. The only question is can he get the answer before it is too late.

This novel is full of interesting and dark characters. The protagonist, Eoin Miller, is a half-Romani (Gypsy for those who don’t know the term they use for themselves) living in a modern world still loaded with prejudice against his father’s people. He was a police officer before he left the force and went to work for a crime family. The other characters are just as conflicted. Veronica Gaines runs the Gaines crime family, yet all the while she is trying to find a way to get the family free of its criminal enterprises. There is his ex-wife Laura. What is happening with their relationship? How does she fit in to all of this?

Lost City takes place in an area outside Birmingham, England. This is classic hard-boiled pulp fiction at its best. There is a surprise around every corner. Stringer keeps the reader guessing as to what will happen next. The pacing of the book is very quick. I found myself flying through the book. Now be warned, by its nature hard-boiled fiction has sex and violence. No one wears a white hat in this story.

Ever since Philip Marlow appeared in The Big Sleep hard-boiled detective stories have had a following. Years of reading these novels have taught me that while it is easy to write bad novels in this genre, it is very difficult to write good novels in this genre. Jay Stringer has managed to write a very good novel and I look forward to reading more Eoin Miller mysteries in the future.  This book is recommended for anyone who loves to sit down with a fast paced story full of twists and turns.

Target Lancer by Max Allan Collins

Thirty years ago Max Allan Collins introduced his private investigator Nathan Heller in the novel True Detective. In the course of that novel Heller witnesses the slaying of Mayor Cermak of Chicago who was shot down by a killer who claimed he was trying to kill President Roosevelt. Thus started the story of Nathan Heller. Over the last thirty years he has appeared in fourteen novels and over a dozen short stories. Now thirty years later in the character’s timeline he is wrapped up in another assassination plot. The plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in Chicago.

This time Heller is contacted by his old friend Bobby Kennedy. It is October 1963, and there is a strong likelihood that an attempt will be made on the president when he visits Chicago. Heller is wrapped up in this plot in more ways than one. Years earlier he had been the intermediary who hooked up the CIA with organized crime. The CIA wanted to kill Castro, but they needed deniability. The Mob wanted Castro dead as well, so Operation: Mongoose was launched. Unfortunately these attempts were laughably inept and everyone is getting worried.

On a bodyguard job Heller witnesses his client pass a payoff from Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa to an old childhood buddy of Heller’s, a man named Jake Rubenstein. Rubenstein had changed his name by that time to Jack Ruby. After his client is murdered Heller promises the widow that he will help track down the killer. So, while his agents try to locate a murderer, Heller is temporarily assigned to the Secret Service to prevent the assassination of the President.

Of course we all know that President Kennedy did not die in Chicago in November 1963. He died in Dallas. We also know that mobster Jack Ruby, with a sudden rush of patriotism shot down the man who killed Kennedy. While the story and some of the characters are fiction, Collins puts a lot of work into his novels. This research gives the stories an air of believability.  I was unaware of the story of the Chicago plot. Who was involved? We may never know, but Collins gives us a tight, tense narrative. If you enjoy fast paced, hardboiled detective writing then you should be reading the Nathan Heller novels. If you have not read any of these books then do what I did, take a chance. You won’t regret it.

The Nathan Heller books by Max Allan Collins

I just wanted to do a quick post about the Nathan Heller books by Max Allan Collins. I discovered these books last year. Amazon had a sale on one of the books. At $1.99 for the Kindle book I took a chance. I fell in love with Nathan Heller right away. When I saw more books on sale I snapped those up as well. I have now read through the entire series. I read several of the books last year, but gladly re-read them this year. They very enjoyable. Heller is a classic hardboiled detective. He has the mouth, the rules don't always matter to him. Despite what he claims though Heller is a very moral figure. His armor may be blemished, but he is still a knight who fights to right wrongs. Heller lives in a corrupt world. While he realizes it he manages to avoid getting himself dirtier than he has to. He always manages to interact with organized crime without becoming part of it.

All of the Heller cases involve famous crime stories. The characters that Heller encounters are quite a gallery. Elliot Ness, Al Capone, Mayor Cermak, Frank Nitti, Charles Lindbergh, Bobby Kennedy, and so many more. He also has a tendency to get involved with a lot of famous women. He may be the person other than Jack Kennedy who bedded both Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe. Of course he outdid even JFK in t hat regard. After all, Kennedy never bedded Amelia Earhart.

As a kid I discovered classic Hollywood films like The Maltese Falcon. These films grabbed the imagination of a 13 year old boy. I have never lost that fascination. At times my interest waned. After all, good hardboiled fiction is very hard to write and not always easy to find. Discovering the Heller novels last year rekindled my interest in the genre. I recently celebrated my 39th birthday and love reading as much as I did as a kid. Authors like Max Allan Collins routinely remind me of why I love to read so much. If I have a choice between watching a movie or reading a good book, the movie will just have to wait. So thanks Max for all of the great books. Now it's time to check out your other series. Keep up the great work.

To read my reviews of the Heller books check out these links:

1. True Detective (Assassination attempt on Frank Nitti, the killing of Mayor Cermak)

2. True Crime (Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Barker Gang)

3. Million Dollar Wound (Guadalcanal, the Mob tries to take over Hollywood)

4. Neon Mirage (Bugsy Siegel)

5. Stolen Away (Lindbergh kidnapping)

6. Carnal Hours (Oakes murder)

7. Blood and Thunder (Huey Long)

8. Damned in Paradise (Clarence Darrow)

9. Flying Blind (Amelia Earhart)

10. Majic Man (Roswell)

11. Angel in Black (Black Dahlia case)

12. Chicago Confidential (Crime commission, Frank Sinatra, Joe McCarthy)

13. Bye Bye Baby (Marilyn Monroe)

14 Target Lancer (JFK Assassination)

Short Stories Collections:

Triple Play

Chicago Lightning

Chicago Lightning by Max Allan Collins

Chicago Lightning is the second collection of Nathan Heller short stories that Max Allan Collins has released through Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint. The first volume, Triple Play featured novellas and longer short stories. This volume covers the more standard sized short stories. This collection of thirteen stories fill in some gaps in the Heller cases. A few are cases that are referred to in the Heller novels.

Collins says that he prefers to write novels more than short stories, but you wouldn’t know that from the stories in this collection. Heller is at some of his finest. In “The Perfect Crime” he is bodyguard, and avenger of Thelma Todd. In
“The Strawberry Teardrop” he helps Elliot Ness track down, and then cover up the identity of the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. The novel Angel in Black is a sequel to this story. In “Scrap” Heller does a job for an old neighborhood friend named Jake Rubenstein. Rubenstein is a minor racketeer mixed up in a crooked union. We meet Rubenstein again in Collins’ novel Target Lancer. Of course most of us know Rubenstein by the name that he used when he moved to Dallas: Jack Ruby.

These are good stories and it is enjoyable to occasionally see Heller work on a case that doesn’t involve a famous character. The more I read the Heller novels I don’t know why someone hasn’t jumped on the chance to make these into a series. These short stories prove that Heller isn’t just a vehicle that Collins uses to talk about famous cases. Of course those of us who have read the books could readily attest to Heller’s likability. I for one would love to see Heller developed by a station like HBO or Showtime. Of course I would only like to see it if Collins were part of the project. Nothing would be worse than seeing these fun, well written stories messed up. Don’t wait for a TV deal. Get the Nathan Heller novels and story collections by Max Allan Collins and enjoy some really great hardboiled, noir fiction.

Bad Monkey by Carl Hiassen

Andrew Yancey is having a rough time. He is about to lose his job. It turns out that cavorting about with the wife of a rich and politically well doctor, then publicly assaulting the doctor in a fight is not the best way to keep your job in the Sheriff’s office. Even though he is about to by cashiered the Sheriff asks Yancey to do him a little favor. It seems that a human arm has turned up on the fishing line of a tourist. The Sheriff would like to pass the problem off to Miami. So he asks Yancey to take the arm up from the Keys to the city in the hopes that this case will go away. Miami doesn’t want the arm, the Sheriff doesn’t want the arm. Yancey thinks that there may be foul play. In the meantime Yancey is given a new job as a Health Inspector. Counting roaches and rat droppings is not why he went into law enforcement. So he keeps the arm in his freezer hoping to solve the crime and get reinstated.

This fun novel has a cast of zany characters and hilarious scenes. As Yancey tries to solve a crime that no one even thinks happened he is also waging a private war against a developer who is building a huge mansion next door to his home. He is getting to know a new girlfriend, a coroner, who has some interesting ideas about how to have a good time. He has an Oklahoma lawman asking questions about the married woman he was having an affair with. As if that wasn’t enough he also has to deal with a voodoo queen in the Bahamas who has a voracious appetite for men, a shady real estate deal, and a fisherman who just wants his land and his obnoxious pet monkey back.

While the characters are quite funny and even enjoyable at times they aren’t always very likable. After all the “hero” of our story is a cop who likes to get high and fool around with married women. The dialogue is fun and well written for the most part. The only real problem with the novel in the Bahamian patois. Writing in patois is difficult and reading it is even more difficult. I found it very hard to “hear” the dialect as I was reading. Perhaps that is just my own problem and others will find those passages easy to read. Don’t let this one quibble get in the way of reading the novel. I had a good time reading it and more than once attracted attention to myself by laughing out loud while I was reading it.

Bye Bye Baby by Max Allan Collins

Bye Bye Baby is another great novel in the Nathan Heller series by Max Allan Collins. When we first met Nathan Heller in True Detective it was the early 1930s. Through the years he has worked a lot of famous cases. Now he is on the scene with the lovely, vivacious Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn is an old friend and calls Nathan to help her with a little job. She wants her phone bugged. She is having a lot of trouble with her studio, Fox, and she wants to protect herself. Heller’s favor for a friend turns into much more. This book reads like a Who’s Who from the period. Heller deals with Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, Hugh Hefner, John and Robert Kennedy, and many others.

One of Collins’ strengths is his ability to throw lots of celebrities into a book without stretching too much credulity. Of course Heller has to bed Marilyn and at least two other women. This should surprise no one who has read the Heller novels. Heller falls into the category of men who have slept with both Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe. If the book is to be believed then he shares that honor with the Kennedy boys.

Bye Bye Baby is a sympathetic look at Monroe. She is truly a tragic figure and her treatment at the hands of the movie studios and the Kennedy brothers was shameful. Collins tries, and succeeds, to navigate his way in this book between the pro and anti Kennedy camps. Perhaps the most interesting thing of all is the real humanity of the characters. That is one of the trademarks of the Heller novels. The celebrities are not just here to catch our interest, they have a realness about them. So who killed Marilyn Monroe? Was it suicide, an accidental overdose, the Kennedys, or someone else. You will just have to get the book and find out.

Chicago Confidential by Max Allan Collins (Nathan Heller)

Nathan Heller is out in Hollywood putting in some time at the LA office. He is also spending some with his son. Recently divorced from his cheating wife he is also trying to avoid talking to a new crime commission that is looking for information on organized crime. Over the years Heller has had more dealings with the mob than he would like. Now people want to know what he knows. While in LA he takes on a client. A young college student claims that an old boyfriend won’t leave her alone. Heller helps her out. The young college student turns out to be none other than the the young busty (and with Heller lusty) Jayne Mansfield. Problems arise in the business and he returns to Chicago.

It seems that an old police colleague that he hired is using Heller’s equipment to spy on some of the big names in organized crime for the commission. Heller has to deal with this problem. He also has to deal with some of the mobsters to make sure that they know that he is not going to talk about anything that he knows. As if that wasn’t enough his old buddy Frank Sinatra asks him to call another old acquaintance, Senator Joe McCarthy, and tell the Senator that Sinatra is not a Communist. With all of this it is not going to be easy for Heller to get out of all of this in one piece.

More classic hard boiled noir from the wonderful Max Allan Collins. After a couple of week novels the series has really bounced back. Lots of mystery, smart aleck remarks, danger, gangsters, and gorgeous women who can’t wait to have sex with the main character. Great fun.