Chicago, September 1964. Beatlemania sweeps the nation, the Vietnam War looms, and the Warren Commission prepares to blame a ” lone-nut” assassin for the killing of President John F. Kennedy. But as the post-Camelot era begins, a suspicious outbreak of suicides, accidental deaths, and outright murders decimates assassination witnesses. When Nathan Heller and his son are nearly run down on a city street, the private detective wonders if he himself might be a loose end. . . . Soon a faked suicide linked to President Johnson’ s corrupt cronies takes Heller to Texas, where celebrity columnist Flo Kilgore implores him to explore that growing list of dead witnesses. With the blessing of Bobby Kennedy– former US attorney general, now running for Senator from New York– Heller and Flo investigate the increasing wave of violence that seems to emanate from the notorious Mac Wallace, rumored to be LBJ’ s personal hatchet man. Fifty years after JFK’ s tragic death, Collins’ s rigorous research for Ask Not raises new questions about the most controversial assassination of our time.

The mob couldn’t kill him, the cops couldn’t catch him, and even time wouldn’t slow him down.

His name’s Nolan … a shrewd, restless tough guy with a talent for theft. With a lifetime of heists under his belt and a bullet in his side, he’s ready to retire. And the Mafia’s eager to help him along … permanently. They think he’s got a debt to pay–with his life. But after all these years, they might be willing to settle for 100 grand instead.

Nolan’s got to pull a bank job to try to save his ass. Trouble is, the only people willing to help him are a kid whose idea of danger comes out of comic books, a punk as green as the grass he smokes, and a sweet young thing who gets her kicks playing one man off another … and another …

It’s a desperate gamble–for the highest stakes–and Nolan’s down to his last chip …

It’s the early 1950’s. Ju McCarthy is campaigning to rid America of the Red Menace. Nate Heller is doing legwork for the senator, though the Chicago detective is disheartened by McCarthy’s witch-hunting tactics. He’s made friends with a young staffer, Bobby Kennedy, while trading barbs with a potential enemy, the attorney Roy Cohn, who rubs Heller the wrong way. Not the least of which for successfully prosecuting the so-called Atomic Bomb spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. When famous mystery writer Dashiell Hammett comes to Heller representing a group of showbiz and literary leftists who are engaged in a last minute attempt to save the Rosenbergs, Heller decides to take on the case. Heller will have to play both sides to do this, and when McCarthy also tasks Heller to find out what the CIA has on him, Heller reluctantly agrees. His main lead is an army scientist working for the C.I.A. who admits to Heller that he’s been having misgivings about the work he’s doing and elliptically referring to the Cold War making World War II look like a tea party. And then the scientist gus missing.

The mob couldn’t kill him, the cops couldn’t catch him, and even time wouldn’t slow him down. Playing dirty isn’t Nolan’s style … until he’s taken to the cleaners.

Nolan was still alive; his wounds healed and his money was safe–all $800,000 of it. It was Nolan’s birthday and he was sitting happy.

Until Planner was killed. Planner was an eccentric antique dealer; Planner had the $800,000 in his safe. But now he was dead and the money was gone.

Caught up in the sizzling crossfire of double-dealing, danger, and death, Nolan was up against the “Family” again. There was only one way out … Blood Money!

Do No Harm is the latest mystery in the Nathan Heller series by New York Times bestselling author Max Allan Collins.

It’s 1954 and Heller takes on the Sam Sheppard case–a young doctor is startled from sleep and discovers his wife
brutally murdered. He claims that a mysterious intruder killed his wife. But all the evidence points to a disturbed
husband who has grown tired of married life and yearned to be free at all costs. Sheppard is swiftly convicted and sent
to rot in prison.

Just how firm was the evidence … and was it tampered with to fit a convenient narrative to settle scores and
push political agendas? Nathan’s old friend Elliot Ness calls in a favor and as Nathan digs into the case he becomes
convinced of Sheppard’s innocence. But Nate can’t prove it and has to let the case drop.

The road to justice is sometimes a long one. Heller’s given another chance years later and this time he’s determined
to free the man … even if it brings his own death a bit closer.

In the spirit of Devil in the White City comes a true detective tale of the highest standard: the haunting story of Eliot Ness’s forgotten final case-his years-long hunt for “The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” a serial killer who terrorized Cleveland through the Great Depression, and tormented Ness to his dying breath.

“A careening read that’s full of surprises. … Collins and Schwartz deliver a nimble, taut tale. More importantly, they offer a portrait of a complex crime fighter who believed in science and reason at a time when most officers smacked suspects around with a blackjack, a portrait set against a backdrop of ethnic and class collisions, labor unrest, and political intrigue. Catnip for true-crime buffs.” —Kirkus Reviews

In 1934, the nation’s most legendary crime-fighter-fresh from taking on the greatest gangster in American history-arrived in Cleveland, a corrupt and dangerous town about to host a world’s fair. It was to be his coronation, as well as the city’s. Instead, terror descended, as headless bodies started turning up. The young detective, already battling the mob and crooked cops, found his drive to transform American policing subverted by a menace largely unknown to law enforcement: a serial murderer.

Eliot Ness’s greatest case had begun.

Now, Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz-the acclaimed writing team behind Scarface and the Untouchable-uncover this lost crime epic, delivering a gripping and unforgettable nonfiction account based on decades of groundbreaking research.

Ness had risen to fame in 1931 for leading the “Untouchables,” which helped put Chicago’s Al Capone behind bars. As Cleveland’s public safety director, in charge of the police and fire departments, Ness offered a radical new vision for better law enforcement. Crime-ridden and devastated by the Depression, Cleveland was preparing for a star-turn itself: in 1936, it would host the “Great Lakes Exposition,” which would be visited by seven million people. Late in the summer of 1934, however, pieces of a woman’s body began washing up on the Lake Erie shore-first her ribs, then part of her backbone, then the lower half of her torso. The body count soon grew to five, then ten, then more, all dismembered in gruesome ways.

As Ness zeroed in on a suspect-a doctor tied to a prominent political family?powerful forces thwarted his quest for justice. In this battle between a flawed hero and a twisted monster-by turns horror story, political drama, and detective thriller?Collins and Schwartz find an American tragedy, classic in structure, epic in scope.

Fancy Anders returns in Fancy Anders for the Boys, the second of three thrilling mysteries by Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins.

Hollywood, 1942. Hedonistic socialite turned undercover detective and poster girl for the war effort, Fancy Anders is back to solve another case. The Hollywood Canteen has just opened as a refuge and nightclub to give enlisted men some nights they will never forget as they prepare to head into war. With Hollywood elite cooking food and tending bar, with beautiful young actresses and starlets serving as hostesses and dance partners, the Canteen is a wonderland indeed. But when a young hostess dies in a car accident, the entire club—and possibly the entire American military service—is in jeopardy.

Lieutenant Rick Hindler, recently divorced, informs Fancy that the dead girl in question is actually the daughter of a member of the German-American Bund and that her crash may not have been an accident—and it might not be the end of their troubles.

Fancy, along with her pals from Amalgamated Aircraft, goes undercover as a hostess to find the potential plot to undermine the war effort. Surrounded by Hollywood royalty and young soldiers, Fancy must use all her discretion and powers of detection to ensure the legitimacy of the Canteen and the safety of her country.

The enhanced audiobook production features ambient sound effects and period music.

Fancy Anders goes undercover at an aircraft plant to solve the murder of Rosie the Riveter in the first of three thrilling mysteries by Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins.

Fall 1942. When her Hollywood private detective daddy is called back to uniform, Fancy Anders is issued orders of her own–answer the phone, make referrals, and keep the place dusted. But the twenty-four-year-old Barnard grad–whose hobbies include shooting, flying, and jujitsu–isn’t having any.

At Amalgamated Aircraft, a young female worker chosen to pose for patriotic photos and posters has met with a suspicious “accidental death.” Fancy takes the victim’s place on the swing shift, fitting in well with co-workers very much not from high society circles. With the occasional reluctant help of LAPD homicide cop Rick Hinder, Fancy takes a hammer to the head of a saboteur, sniffs out an enemy within, and sets out to prevent an assassination attempt on President Roosevelt, scheduled to tour the plant and greet the women who work long, hard hours for the war effort.

Portraying the times vividly with his usual historical accuracy, Mystery Writers of America grandmaster Max Allan Collins creates a compelling new series protagonist both indelibly of her time, and far ahead of it.

The enhanced audiobook production features ambient sound effects and period music.

Making a score and settling one at the same time is a rare opportunity, enough to bring Nolan out of criminal retirement … but he didn’t count on the hillbillies or the skyjacker …

Nolan is a pro, a veteran of mob vendettas and decades of high-tension heists. All he wants in his advancing middle age is his slice of the American pie–a way to make capitalism pay without having to drag guns into it. But a bullet-scarred life does not come without its bad karma, and Nolan–and his young cohort Jon, whose own dream is to confine the violence to the comics he draws–often find themselves facing old enemies and new temptations.

Heist-man Nolan is enjoying his retirement from crime, running his own restaurant, when the president of a bank he robbed two years ago shows up with a blackmail demand. All Nolan has to do is rob the bank again–and play patsy to a sexy girlfriend’s murder scheme.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Just when Nolan’s looking for a way out of his dead-end job, trouble comes knocking, and he’s back in business. Someone harboring an old grudge has just picked off Joey DiPreta, a crooked businessman with ties to the mob, and the guy’s family is out to get whoever’s responsible. So is Nolan’s family–in Chicago–and they offer him big bucks and a piece of a swank hotel if he’ll protect their interests.

Only this time Nolan’s gotten into more than he bargained for. The hit man turns out to be a Vietnam vet convinced he’s launched a holy war against vice and corruption–and the son of one of Nolan’s friends. The melodramatic bastard’s got hard evidence of graft in high places, and he’s set himself up as some kind of avenging angel. His master plan calls for more hits, and there’s no telling when he’ll stop.

Meanwhile, Nolan’s pal Jon is courting disaster in a motel room, and a couple of innocents are kidnapped as a ploy to lure the hit man into the open. Somehow Nolan’s got to untangle the whole mess–and see that no one gets hurt. But with both sides out for blood, there’s no room for heroes, and he’ll have to be damned careful–and lucky–not to get nailed in the crossfire.

During a brutal winter in rural Virginia, women are inexplicably vanishing. The only clues to the bizarre disappearances are the grotesque human remains that are turning up in snow banks along the highway. And a disgraced priest has begun to experience strange and disturbing visions connected to a terrible secret. But are the images haunting a fallen man of God to be trusted … or are they the deadly lies of a twisted mind?

It is a case right out of the X-Files. But the FBI suspended its investigations into the paranormal years ago. Ex-agents Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully are the best team for the job, but they have no desire to revisit the past. The truth about these horrific crimes is out there, and only Mulder and Scully can uncover it.

A Mike Hammer Novel

Mike Hammer hits his seventy-fifth anniversary hard, after the disappearance of Velda, in this brand new case between Kiss Me, Deadly and The Girl Hunters, based on an unproduced screenplay from Mickey Spillane’s archives.

Mike Hammer is on the case, this time hunting the murderer of his old friend and bootlegger-turned-legit-businessman Packy Paragon. Already torn up by the disappearance of Velda, his beloved secretary, Mike Hammer carves a brutal path for vengeance. Drinking heavily, his relationships fraying, his behavior self-destructive, Hammer has to track down Paragon’s black book, with the names of every corrupt official in town. With deception everywhere, and a whole host of reasons to want the ledger, Hammer has to pull himself together and solve the case before all hell breaks loose.

Celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Mike Hammer, and including five brand new short stories, hear the lost story of Velda’s disappearance after Kiss Me, Deadly. A thrilling ride for fans new and old.

Featuring five short stories–two featuring Mike Hammer–each introduced as to their histories and places in the Hammer-verse.

Quarry, star of thirteen previous novels, a comic book, a collection of short stories, and the acclaimed Cinemax TV series, returns in an all-new assignment that takes the hitman’s hitman into uncharted territory, when he finds out that–for the first time–someone has taken out a hit on him. And is the mysterious killer assigned to hit the hitman someone from Quarry’s past? Maybe even a past lover?

Check out more of Max Allan Collins’ Quarry Series from Skyboat, including The First Quarry, The Last Quarry, Quarry’s Choice, Quarry in the Middle, Quarry’s Ex, Quarry in the Black, and Quarry’s Climax.

Nolan must rob every store in a mall in one night—or his girlfriend dies.

Nolan and Jon have put their lives of crime behind them—but when a cruel adversary from their past resurfaces, they’re forced back into the heist game with a brutal ultimatum: pull off an insanely ambitious overnight robbery or Nolan’s kidnapped lover won’t live to see the morning.

Appearing in bookstores for the first time in thirty-five years (originally published under the title Spree) and on audio for the first time, Mad Money is Nolan’s biggest and deadliest job.

Where does a hit man draw the line?

With a controversial presidential election just weeks away, Quarry is hired to carry out a rare political assignment: kill the Reverend Raymond Wesley Lloyd, a passionate civil rights crusader and campaigner for the underdog candidate. But when a hate group out of Ferguson, Missouri, turns out to be gunning for the same target, Quarry starts to wonder just who it is he’s working for.

The longest-running series from Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition, the Quarry novels tell the story of a paid assassin with a rebellious streak and an unlikely taste for justice. Once a Marine sniper, Quarry found a new home stateside with a group of contract killers. But some men aren’t made for taking orders–and when Quarry strikes off on his own, God help the man on the other side of his nine millimeter.

First there was The Last Quarry, then there was The First Quarry–now look who’s caught in the middle.

The enigmatic hit man Quarry–star of seven celebrated novels and an award-winning feature film (The Last Lullaby)–is back in this violent, steamy tale of warring crime families. When two godfathers set out to bump each other off, guess who winds up with both contracts …

The hitman hero of the acclaimed series Quarry on Cinemax returns for his final act. By Quarry’s creator, the award-winning author of Road to Perdition!QUARRY’S VIOLENT PAST COMES LOOKING FOR HIM The professional hitman known as Quarry–star of the Cinemax TV miniseries of the same name–has put killing behind him. But after a beautiful writer of true-crime bestsellers drops by to announce he’s the subject of her next book, killers descend to give him some of his own deadly medicine, forcing Quarry to journey into his bloody past to find the answers–and settle old scores. Quarry’s Blood brings the hitman’s decades-long saga right up to the present day as MWA Grand Master Max Allan Collins explores the startling final act of Quarry’s professional career.

Quarry is a pro in the murder business. When the mysterious man he works for becomes a target himself, Quarry is sent south to remove a traitor in the ranks. But in this wide-open city–with sin everywhere and betrayal around every corner–Quarry must make the most dangerous choice of his deadly career: who to kill?

Memphis, 1975. “Raunchy” doesn’t begin to describe Max Climer’s magazine, Climax, or his all-hours strip club, or his planned video empire. And evangelists, feminists, and local watchdog groups all want him out of business. But someone wants more than that, and has hired a killer to end Max’s career permanently. Only another hit man–the ruthless professional known as Quarry–can keep Climer from becoming a casualty in the Sexual Revolution.

Even the enigmatic hit man called Quarry had to start somewhere. And for him that was the day he returned stateside from Nam to find his young wife cheating. He’d killed plenty overseas, so killing her lover was no big deal. And when he was recruited to use his skills as a contract killer, that transition was easy, too. He survived in this jungle as he had in that other one–by expecting trouble.

What he didn’t expect was ever running into his ex again …

A THRILLING MAGNUM OPUS ON AMERICA’S GREAT CRIME EPIC

A Mystery Writers of America “Grand Master”–author of the gangster classic Road to Perdition, long-time Dick Tracy writer, and multiple Shamus Award winner–teams with an acclaimed rising young historian, in this riveting, myth-shattering dual portrait of Al Capone, America’s most notorious gangster, and Eliot Ness, the legendary Prohibition agent whose extraordinary investigative work crippled his organization. Written with novelistic pacing and underpinned by groundbreaking research, Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz’s Scarface and the Untouchable delivers–at last–the definitive account of the “Battle for Chicago,” the iconic struggle between the mythic yet real combatants who have captivated the world for 90 years.

Return of a femme fatale.

Beautiful, homicidal Julie has one lethal solution for every problem. And now Nolan and his sometime sidekick Jon have gotten on Julie’s “problem” list. If a pair of out-of-town hitmen can’t do the job, Julie will do it herself.

The first new Nolan novel in thirty-three years from one of the masters of the genre, Max Allan Collins, award-winning author of Road to Perdition.

The onetime world-class thief Nolan–now happily gone straight with his own restaurant/nightclub–whisks his longtime lover Sherry off to Vegas for a trip to a wedding chapel and a honeymoon stay. But an eye-in-the-sky security cam at a casino spots Nolan, whose past catches up with him when he’s thought to be casing the joint. An old “friend” sees Nolan as the perfect patsy for a scheme to heist the weekly skim haul, and when the former thief’s young frequent accomplice, Jon–a musician in the casino’s house band–finds the couple mysteriously, suspiciously missing, it’s up to Nolan’s Best Man to keep wedding bells from tolling a funeral march.

From legendary noir novelist Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, a short story in which world-famous private eye Mike Hammer repays a debt to a dying police chief, proving loyalty can be as deadly as deception.

A legendary and retired police chief lies in a New York hospital bed, visited by two strangers: the first is ex-cop-turned-PI Mike Hammer, whose life was saved more than once by the old man. To the detective, the chief gives a mysterious key. The second visitor murders the chief, mere days before he would have died from natural causes. Someone is trying to tie up loose ends, and Mike Hammer is the only one with the evidence and calculation to ferret him or her out.

“So Long, Chief” by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books’s Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the biggest names in mystery from the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and listen to them all!

Beginning in 1947 with I, the Jury, and continuing with his next six novels, Mickey Spillane quickly amassed a readership in the tens of millions, becoming the bestselling novelist in the history of American publishing. Surrounded by controversy for the overt violence and suggestive sexual content of his iconic Mike Hammer private eye novels, Spillane was loathed by critics but beloved by his readers.
There is, however, more to Spillane’s life than the books. He also starred as Hammer in a movie, was a circus performer, worked with the FBI in capturing a notorious criminal, and starred in Miller Light beer commercials that were so popular they ran for a quarter of a century.
Max Allan Collins became Spillane’s friend and collaborator, continuing the Mike Hammer series for years after the author’s death, building upon unfinished manuscripts the writer left behind. Now, with coauthor James Traylor, Collins has produced the first comprehensive and authoritative profile of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. It is a must-listen for any fan of the author-or of the generations of crime writers that were influenced by his work.

Nathan Heller, star of MWA Grandmaster Max Allan Collins’ most acclaimed series of novels (more than 1 million copies sold to date!), comes to Hard Case Crime for the first time in an all-new thriller drawn from the pages of history. A millionaire’s
son is kidnapped and private eye Heller is called in to help. But when half of the record $600,000 ransom goes missing, Heller must wade through a morass of deception and depravity to blow the lid off a notorious crime whose
consequences reach into the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., where Bobby Kennedy works tirelessly to take down crooked union boss Jimmy Hoffa. …

Crime fiction readers know Quarry–the ruthless killer for hire from Max Allan Collins’ acclaimed novels–but where did Quarry’s story start? For the first time ever, the bestselling author of Road to Perdition takes us back to the beginning, revealing the never-before-told story of Quarry’s first job: infiltrating a college campus and eliminating a professor whose affair with one of his beautiful young students is the least of his sins.

The ruthless professional killer known as Quarry long ago disappeared into a well-earned retirement. But now a media magnate has lured the restless hit man into tackling one last lucrative assignment. The target is an unlikely one–why, Quarry wonders, would anyone want a beautiful young librarian dead? And why in hell does he care?

On the thirtieth anniversary of the enigmatic assassin’s first appearance, bestselling author Max Allan Collins brings him back for a dark and deadly mission, where the last quarry may turn out to be Quarry himself.

This fully dramatized audio adventure with sound effects and music is a follow-up toThe New Adventures of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Vol. 1, which was a finalist for the prestigious Audie(r) Award in 2009.

Private eye Mike Hammer is no stranger to murder, but this time he has two to untangle: the killing of the Captain, a legless, homeless panhandler, dismissed by the police as “minor,” and the slaying of gambling kingpin Marty Wellman. Marty’s lady friend, Helen Venn, turns to the PI for help when the Mob fingers her for the next kill. Seems the new kingpin, Carmen Rich–with whom Hammer has a violent history–thinks Helen made off with ten mil in skim money courtesy of her late lover. But Mike Hammer knows a damsel in distress when he sees one and takes up Helen’s cause, igniting a series of hit attempts on his life by a small army of out-of-town shooters. Such minor distractions can’t prevent the toughest detective of them all from solving two murders and avenging a “little death” in a big way.

Mike Hammer, the toughest PI of all, draws a seemingly routine assignment–playing bodyguard to diva Rita Vance on the eve of her big Broadway comeback. But Rita is an old flame of Hammer’s, and when their romance is rekindled, the detective finds the actress facing death threats and himself the target of one hit man after another. When the actress disappears, the show must go on, which with Mike Hammer means swift, violent retaliation. While the cops and feds go down a false trail, Hammer seeks to make a rescue before Rita’s curtain comes down. But first he must make sense of a mystery that takes him from a Soho art gallery to a mountain lodge, from Little Italy to a waterfront confrontation that is way, way off Broadway.

Working from the plot for an unwritten novel found in the files of the late Mickey Spillane, Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition) has fashioned a compelling noir thriller that is vintage Mike Hammer all the way.