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Max Allan Collins Angel in Black
Signet 0451205170 / 9780451205179 PAPERBACK Good
0451205170 Editorial Reviews n nFrom Publishers Weekly nThe 1947 Black Dahlia case provides the basis for Shamus Award winner Collins's latest intriguing blend of fiction and real-life mystery featuring his well-connected Chicago P.I., Nathan Heller (Majic Man; Flying Blind). Newly married and in L.A. to publicize his partnership with a California-based P.I., Heller and a reporter are the first to discover the severed, mutilated body of Elizabeth Short. It just so happens Heller knew her they'd dated briefly in Chicago and she'd called just the night before, claiming she was pregnant. If made public, this connection would not only threaten Heller's marriage and business but make him a suspect. The authorities are treating this as a sex crime, but Heller thinks the mob is sending a message to informers. The case also recalls the grisly Kingsbury Run murders (which Collins explored in his 1988 Eliot Ness novel, Butcher's Dozen). In his quest to catch the killer, Heller brings in Ness and hobnobs with gangsters and movie stars, including Orson Welles, who hints at his own possible involvement. The characters, historical and fictional, come delightfully to life; the victim, too, turns out to be tragically complex, at once deceitful, na‹ve and endearing. Collins paints a web of interconnections in a tightly woven plot and posits a radical solution to a crime that still resonates in literature and movies. n nCopyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. n nFrom Booklist nNathan Heller, founder and president of Chicago's A-1 Detective Agency, is in Los Angeles in 1947 to forge a partnership with Fred Bradbury, an ex-Chicago cop running a small detective business. Nate is also on a honeymoon with his new bride, Peggy, who has visions of Hollywood stardom. Heller is schmoozing with a Herald-Examiner reporter when the scribe picks up a possible homicide alert on his police-band radio. That's how Heller finds himself on the scene of what will become L.A.s' most famous officially unsolved murder: the Black Dahlia case. The victim is a beautiful young women who was tortured, raped, drained of fluids, cut in two, and dumped in a vacant lot. The victim is initially unknown to the cops, but not to Heller. She's Elizabeth Short, with whom Heller had a recent affair before marrying Peggy. A couple days earlier Short contacted Heller with news of her pregnancy--by him. If the cops knew, Heller would be their top suspect, so while he assists in the investigation, he also covers up his relationship with the victim. But Heller also has a theory about the crime: that it was not strictly a sex crime but a Mob-orchestrated execution staged to send a message. The Nate Heller historical crime novels consistently mesmerize with their carefully researched period detail--noir meets the History Channel--and their unique, alternative solutions to famous crimes. Collins' take on the Black Dahlia may be less brooding and less experimental than James Ellroy's version (The Blue Dahlia, 1987), but it's also more entertaining and will appeal to a wider audience of mainstream historical mystery fans. Wes Lukowsky nCopyright ? American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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2.00 EUR
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Max Allan Collins Flying Blind: A Novel of Amelia Earhart (Nathan Heller Mystery Series)
Signet 0451192621 / 9780451192622 PAPERBACK Very Good
0451192621 Editorial Reviews n nAmazon.com Review n"Now it was the next morning and the gas was in the plane. The tall, slender woman I'd lusted after the night before was standing next to me on the tarmac, near her ship, buckling a tan helmet under her chin, flashing me that gap-toothed grin she hid from photographers...." The woman, of course, is Amelia Earhart, and the man describing her is Nate Heller, ex-Chicago cop and private detective to the rich and famous. One of the most original characters in the historical mystery area, Max Allan Collins's Heller has jousted with Al Capone, helped out Clarence Darrow, and probed the killing of Huey Long--taking all his cases very personally. But a bad experience with a sadistic Charles Lindbergh has left him leery of flying, and it will take all of Earhart's charm to get him into a plane from St. Louis to Albuquerque, and then to Los Angeles. It's 1935, and Heller has been hired by Amelia's husband (the conniving publisher G.P. Putnam) to both guard her body and search out possible lovers on a book tour. A warm relationship grows up between the flyer and the detective, and when Earhart disappears a few years later, an overage Heller enlists in the Marines to search for her on the island of Saipan. The story is framed by scenes of a retired Nate in 1970 being persuaded to revisit Saipan by a persistent Earhart researcher, and the conclusions that Collins offers about her fate are as convincing as they are moving and exciting. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. n nFrom Publishers Weekly nBlending solid research with reasoned speculation and adding fictional enhancements has proven to be a highly successful formula for eight Nate Heller mysteries, which have explored fascinating events like the Lindbergh kidnapping (Stolen Away, 1991) and the assassination of Huey Long (Blood and Thunder, 1995). In 1970, Chicago-based PI Heller is enjoying semi-retirement in Florida when he's approached by a wealthy Texan interested in making yet another attempt to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. This narrative reveals the truth about the disappearance of the world's most famous aviatrix as only Heller knows it, having been hired in 1935 by Earhart's husband, G.P. Putnam, to provide security for one of Earhart's triumphant appearances (this one at Marshall Field's to launch a new line of clothing she had designed). Heller, who became friends with Earhart, agrees to help the curious Texan, and the result is an entertaining and provocative look at Earhart's career and personal life and the "true" story of her ill-fated round-the-world flight in 1937. As usual, Collins provides a final chapter that provides a useful bibliography of source materials and other credits. nCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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2.00 EUR
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