Posts Tagged: Mickey Spillane

Max Allan Collins: Talkin’ About SHAFT

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I bought Ernest Tidyman’s novel Shaft in 1970 at Iowa Book & Supply in Iowa City, on my way to class at the University of Iowa. I bought the first edition hardcover primarily because its black private eye hero was described in the jacket copy as making “Mike Hammer look like a sissy.” When the film Shaft came out in 1971, Barb and I were there. We were perhaps unlikely fans of blaxploitation movies (then in their earliest stages), but we went to scads of the things, from Cotton Comes to Harlem to Coffy, from Slaughter to Super Fly. For us, Shaft topped them all, due to the perfect marriage of the opening Isaac Hayes theme, Richard Roundtree’s charismatic performance, and... more

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Max Allan Collins: The Grandmaster Speaketh

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According to Otto Penzler, the Grand Master Speaketh too long, actually, in accepting his “Edgar” at the banquet last Thursday at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York. I told Otto that maybe I should have dropped the thank you that I gave him for publishing the Mike Hammer short story collection recently. The banquet found me dressed in my James Bond Halloween costume. I was in great company – not only my wife Barb, but my agent Dominick Abel, Barbara Allan’s editor Michaela Hamilton (whose guests we were), Lee Goldberg and Joel Goldman of Brash Books, and Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime, among others. We had ringside seats, and were right there to helplessly watch M.C. Jeffrey... more

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Max Allan Collins to the Max

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Max Allan Collins, the insanely prolific author of the November Brash release Road to Perdition: The New, Expanded Novel,  has so much going on in his brilliant literary, film and television careers, that it boggles the mind.  On the TV front alone, his Quarry novels are becoming a Cinemax series in September and Wild Dog, a comic book character he co-created, will be appearing in CW's Arrow. Here's a recent interview he did with author Ed Gorman about his writing career... Tell us about your current novel.  There are a couple of things that will become available soon. One is the complete version of the ROAD TO PERDITION novel. It was written in 2002 to accompany the release of... more

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The Killer Opening Line: Every Great Book Needs One

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Constructing the page-turning novel is one great attention grabbing opening line followed by another great sentence, forming a great attention grabbing opening paragraph, followed by series of great paragraphs, forming an outstanding first chapter, succeeded by several great can’t-stop-reading Chapters leading to an engrossing plot peopled by living, breathing, interesting characters in dire situations who forge ahead courageously against all odds to an “Oh my God” hold-your-breath climax and resolved by a satisfying ending leaving the reader emotionally drained and ready to buy your next book. Thus, you have completed the great American novel. Sound easy? In the immortal words... more

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