Showing results by author "Max Allan Collins" in All Categories

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...

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 Award in 2009. Private eye Mike Hammer is no stranger to murder, but this time he has two to untangle...

In Depression-era Chicago, private eye Nathan Heller is caught between the Mob and City Hall in a battle for control of the 1933 World’s Fair while he attempts to find a lovely actress’ missing brother. Along the way, Heller meets an array of famed heroes and villains from Eliot Ness to Al Capone, climaxing with the detective dangling off a beam of the Fair’s sky tower.

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 at 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. 

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. 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?

Three days into the maiden voyage that would end in disaster, a passenger is found dead inside a locked cabin - the victim of a murder. Jacques Futrelle, author of the popular "Thinking Machine" mysteries, is asked to use his knowledge of criminology to conduct a quiet investigation. Adding to the delicate nature of the inquiry is a suspect list that reads like a Who's Who of high society - and every single one of them has a motive for murder.

When Mayor Cermak’s “Hoodlum Squad” brings Heller along on a raid with no instructions but to keep his mouth shut and his gun handy, he becomes an unwitting, unwilling part of a hit on Al Capone’s successor, Frank Nitti. As a result, Heller quits the force to become a private eye. His first job: head off a nation-shaking political assassination in Miami Beach. With the Chicago World’s Fair as a backdrop, Heller encounters a ragtag array of crooks and clients, including Al Capone, George Raft, “Dutch” Reagan, and FDR himself.

Legendary mystery writer Dashiell Hammett only wrote one novel about detective Sam Spade: The Maltese Falcon, the most famous private eye story ever told. But the case was never really solved—the priceless golden, bejeweled bird that men and women had been dying to possess turned out to be a fake.

Mike Hammer is summoned to a meeting with Jamie Winters, a United States senator from New York, and Jamie’s lovely, very smart wife, Nicole, considered by many to be the power behind the throne. Winters is being blackmailed, and Hammer is given a list of suspects who may be behind the threats...

1934 Chicago dazzles with fast action and calculating, cold-blooded meanness as private detective Nate Heller combs Chicago’s North Side looking for John Dillinger. But things take a turn for the strange when self-aggrandizing G-Man Melvin Purvis shoots down a Dillinger double in front of the Biograph Theater. Full of muscle and oozing Chicago’s tough-guy persona to the hilt, Max Allan Collins’ Nate Heller is the ultimate private investigator.

“The next time you pull a gun on me I put one between your eyes.” Private investigator Mike Hammer and the beautiful Velda go on vacation to a small beach town on Long Island after wrapping up the Williams case from I, the Jury. Walking along the boardwalk, they witness a brutal beating at...

The course of true love never did run smooth for PI Mike Hammer. His secretary and partner Velda has walked out on him without explanation, and Mike is just surfacing from a four-month bender. But then an old cop turns up murdered—a cop who once worked with Velda on the NYPD Vice Squad...

When private investigator Mike Hammer accompanies a conservative politician to Moscow on a fact-finding mission, he is arrested and imprisoned by the KGB on a bogus charge. He quickly escapes, creating an international incident by getting into a firefight with Russian agents. On his stateside...

In 1946 Chicago, Nathan Heller - president of the flourishing A-1 Detective Agency - is hired to protect racing-wire gambling chief James Ragen, who is nonetheless shot down on the streets of Chicago. Not one to take such an affront sitting down, Nate goes after the killer, but he’s in for the biggest surprise of his career. Demonstrating once again that he is the master of true-crime fiction, Max Allan Collins’ story of the birth of Las Vegas - and the dirty deeds that floated all around it - is a masterpiece of modern noir. Heller follows the trail as it leads to Hollywood and Las Vegas....

A failed attempt on his life by a contract killer gets Mike Hammer riled up. But it also lands him an unlikely job: security detail for a Hollywood producer having a party to honor his beautiful fiancée, a rising Broadway star. But it’s no walk in the park, as Hammer finds violence following...

March 1932. After the recently incarcerated Al Capone offers to negotiate the return of the kidnapped son of Charles Lindbergh, Nathan Heller of the Chicago P.D. is sent to Hopewell, New Jersey, as a police liaison. As a part of Lindbergh’s inner circle, Heller investigates crooks, cranks, socialites, and psychics in a frustrating, fruitless attempt to solve the case. Max Allan Collins makes the crime that captivated a nation the focal point of yet another fascinating and thoroughly spellbinding foray into his world of historical crime fiction.

New York Times best-selling author Max Allan Collins has won multiple Shamus Awards for his detective novels featuring Nathan Heller. The third book in his JFK trilogy, Ask Not finds Heller investigating a bizarre string of deaths among the witnesses to JFK’s assassination—and tracing blame to LBJ’s right-hand man.

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 and on audio for the first time, this is Nolan’s biggest and deadliest job.

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….

In 1942, Chicago P.I. Nate Heller and his childhood pal, boxer Barney Ross, join the Marines and see bloody action together at Guadalcanal. Upon his return to gangland Chicago, the shell-shocked Heller - more dangerous than ever - is thrust into the midst of an inter-gang war to depose Capone’s successor, Frank Nitti, whose minions are infiltrating Hollywood movie unions.