NO TIME TO SPY: 1 – COME SPY WITH ME - Book review

This, the first book in the trilogy No Time to Spy by Max Allan Collins & Matthew V Clemens (published by Rough Edges Press, 2021) is highly enjoyable. The authors are after my own heart with their playing with words – both book titles and chapter headings. Some chapter headings: Harbour Frights, Dominican Dominoes, The Brother-in-Lawford, and Sand Storm, for example)

The action of all three books spans from 1959 to late 1963. The central conceit is splendid: John Sand is a recently retired MI6 agent, now married to Stacey. His real-life exploits have been written as fiction by a friend and former colleague not a million miles removed from Ian Fleming. ‘Though retirement had been forced upon him by his colleague’s novels – and because Sand’s body carried more lead in it than a crate of number two pencils – he relished his new freedom.’ (p13)

Unfortunately, the past tends to raise its ugly head in the guise of an old enemy, Raven, who attempts to kill not only Sand but his wife! It is possible the attempt is connected to a secret mission the US President wants Sand to undertake – go and protect Castro from a planned assassination!

Apart from the local colour, the authors also inject the Rat Pack into the story – capturing the voice and mannerisms of Sinatra et al (yes, including Peter Lawford). The period is well-realised, as are the references: ‘Wearing a smile on a face on loan from Troy Donahue, the blond boy said…’ (p105)

There are several amusing scenes, plenty of wit and suspense, a dash or two of sex, glamorous settings, and the kind of fast-paced action we’ve come to expect in the life of a famous spy. ‘Sand let go of the assassin, a corpse now, and let him sink like the stone he’d had for a heart.’ (No spoiler page number here).

I look forward to savouring the other two books: Live Fast, Spy Hard and To Live and Spy in Berlin.

The admirable Michael Crichton’s writing teeth

Long before he wrote Jurassic Park, before he created the ground-breaking TV series ER, Michael Crichton was an honours student at Harvard Medical School – and wrote paperback suspense novels on the side, under the top-secret pen name “John Lange.” In effect, Crichton cut his writing teeth on these works, and you can already detect the familiar hallmark Crichton mix of crime and science in these early titles.

Lange wrote eight books between 1966 and 1972… and then vanished. The books became unavailable for decades; pulp collectors would sometimes pay hundreds of dollars for used copies. [His breakout novel was The Andromeda Strain under his own name (1969); then followed The Terminal Man (72), The Great Train Robbery (75), Eaters of the Dead (76), Congo (80), Sphere (87) and Jurassic Park (90) and so on; he became one of those authors whose every book seemed to be turned into a movie.]

Then, forty years after “John Lange” was conceived, Michael Crichton chose Hard Case Crime to bring him back, personally re-editing two of the Lange books, even writing new chapters for one of them (Zero Cool) – all still under the cloak of the Lange identity. This project was interrupted by the author’s unexpected death from cancer in 2008, just months after the second revived Lange novel hit bookstores.

Now Hard Case Crime announces it will bring all of John Lange’s work back into print for the first time in decades – and the first time ever under the Michael Crichton name. Due for release this month (October 2013), featuring gorgeous painted cover art by Gregory Manchess and Glen Orbik, the eight John Lange novels are:

Odds On (1966): The perfect heist, planned by computer, in a luxury hotel off the coast of Spain.

Scratch One (1967): On the French Riviera, a case of mistaken identity could cost an American lawyer his life when a group of international assassins confuse him for the secret agent sent to take them down.

 

Easy Go (1968): Can an Egyptologist and his band of thieves find a lost tomb buried for centuries in the desert – and get away with its treasure?

 

Zero Cool (1969): An American doctor vacationing in Europe gets caught between rival criminal gangs who both demand his help to find a legendary gem. [Note the paperback the lady's reading - it's Grave Descend, see below...]

 

 

The Venom Business (1970): An expert on venomous snakes and smuggler of rare artefacts accepts an assignment working as a bodyguard to a man everyone wants dead.

 

Drug of Choice (1970): Bio-engineers at a secret island resort promise pleasures beyond imagination – but what’s the secret behind the strange drug they’ve created?

 

Grave Descend (1970): A diver in Jamaica, hired to search the wreck of a sunken yacht, uncovers secrets deeper and darker than the waters in which the ship rests.

Binary (1972): A terrorist mastermind and a federal agent wage a battle of wits and of nerve when the villain plots to unleash poison gas on San Diego, killing a million people… including the President of the United States.

 

“Michael was one of the most imaginative and talented suspense writers who ever lived,” said Hard Case Crime founder and editor Charles Ardai, who worked closely with Crichton on editing the Lange books. “These early novels show his ingenuity and creativity at full blast and they read like a rocket. I defy anyone who picks up one of these books to put it down unfinished.”

The books are also being offered in e-book editions (without the Manchess and Orbik cover art) by Open Road Integrated Media.

 
About Hard Case Crime
Hard Case Crime has been nominated for or won numerous honours since its inception in 2004, including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Anthony, the Barry, and the Spinetingler Award. Big author names such as Stephen King, Lawrence Block, Donald E. Westlake, Arthur Conan Doyle, Harlan Ellison, James M. Cain, Ken Bruen, John Farris, Robert Silverberg, Robert Bloch, Cornell Woolrich, David Gaddis, Alan Guthrie, and David Dodge rub shoulders with new authors in the ever-growing Hard Case Crime line-up. The series’ books have been adapted for television and film, with two features currently in development at Universal Pictures, a TV pilot based on Max Allan Collins’ Quarry novels in production for Cinemax, and the TV series Haven going into its fourth season this fall on SyFy. Hard Case Crime is published through a collaboration between Winterfall LLC and Titan Publishing Group. http://www.hardcasecrime.com

About Titan Publishing Group

Titan Publishing Group is an independently owned publishing company, established in 1981, comprising three divisions: Titan Books, Titan Magazines/Comics and Titan Merchandise. Titan Books, nominated as Independent Publisher of the Year 2011, has a rapidly growing fiction list encompassing original fiction and reissues, primarily in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, horror, steampunk and crime. Recent crime and thriller acquisitions include Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins’ all-new Mike Hammer novels, the Matt Helm series by Donald Hamilton, and the entire backlist of the Queen of Spy Writers, Helen MacInnes. Titan Books also has an extensive line of media- and pop culture-related non-fiction, graphic novels, and art and music books. The company is based at offices in London, but operates worldwide, with sales and distribution in the U.S. and Canada being handled by Random House. http://www.titanbooks.com

Writing Guide-01

WRITING THE PRIVATE EYE NOVEL
Edited by Robert J Randisi
(Writer’s Diget Books, hardback)

For a number of years I’ve wanted to write a private eye novel so I bought this book when it was new – 1997. There hasn’t been a new edition since, but really there’s little call for one. Virtually everything said in these pages still holds true. This won’t tell you how to write a mystery and few specifics are covered, but its advice will certainly prove useful and probably save a lot of time for anyone embarking on a PI novel. And, if you want to go down those mean streets, the recommendation is go for a series character. To do that, start building his or her backstory before you write the first book; that includes friends, relations and the neighbourhood. Sound advice for any novel, actually, but for a series character it’s almost essential.

Founder of the Private Eye Writers of America and creator of the Shamus Award, Robert J Randisi has gathered together a number of accomplished authors to offer their nuggets of writerly wisdom.

Lawrence Block advocates gripping the reader at the outset, never letting go till the end. He quotes Mickey Spillane, who said, ‘The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.’ We all know that beginnings are important; but don’t neglect the end – don’t rush it, don’t over-explain and don’t leave the reader disappointed. Intriguingly, Block says that his literary apprenticeship began with writing soft-core sex novels, which taught him to avoid sections of novel that were liable to lose the reader’s attention: keep the action going.

Loren D Estleman spells it out. ‘Suspension of disbelief is a high-wire act, requiring enough plausibility on one end of the balance pole to counter the pull of audacious invention on the other.’ He advises beginners to beware of proven authors who might ‘break the rules’; they can afford to, they have a fan base, followers. Beginners should stick with what works. For example, avoid soliloquies and clunking lengthy expositions at the end. He concludes that your book should ‘keep the reader tied up until the last knot is unravelled, then make them want to be tied up all over again.’

Ed Gorman advocates that writers should read – anything and everything. But especially as much as possible in your chosen genre. Choose four or five favourite books and analyse their chapters, characters, motivation etc and before long the mysteries won’t be that mysterious. That’s what many writing guides do, actually, they relieve prospective authors from wading through entire volumes doing their own research: the offer up the nuggets in digestible form. But even so, writers have to apply themselves rigorously and simply write and write and write.

Female private eyes are discussed, and writing a first person narrative from the perspective of the opposite sex. The setting of a PI novel can become a character in the series in its own right; so you need to know as much as possible about the chosen environment where the action takes place.

Max Allan Collins contributes twice – which isn’t surprising since he’s been nominated and won the Shamus Award more than once. His first foray discusses historical PI fiction, citing his award winning Nathan Heller novels which cover the early decades of last century. Needless to say, this kind of approach entails considerable research. Mr Collins’s second item is about writing private eye comic books. The market isn’t so great, but if you have a visual as well as a dramatic sense, then this may be worth investigating. You could check out Mr Collins’s Ms Tree graphic novels.

Writing the PI short story is covered too. This is quite difficult as the PI tale invariably relies on character and atmosphere, both of which eat up precious words. The writer of this section, Christine Matthews, quotes Stephen Vincent Benet: ‘A sort story is something that can be read in an hour and remembered for a lifetime.’ She also mentions the latest trend (1997) is Church lady mysteries. (It was about that time when I first thought up my Sister Rose character (Pain Wears No Mask), so that’s intriguing!

John Lutz emphasises the four main elements of fiction – character, setting, situation and theme. Whatever the fiction. Though in most good PI fiction, character dominates.

And of course there are crossover possibilities, mixing and matching more than one genre with your PI tale. They can work, and have the advantage of perhaps appealing to two distinct sets of genre readers.

An encouraging book if you’re inclined to write a private eye story. One of many useful books from Writer’s Digest Books. Check out their Howdunit Series for details about everything from poisons to weapons.

Genre Fiction Review: Ms Tree

DEADLY BELOVED
Max Allan Collins

Hard Case Crime

Way back in 1980 the versatile and prolific Max Allan Collins created a comic book character called Ms Tree – a play on words: Miz Tree/mystery – illustrated by Terry Beatty. Even the book’s title is a play on words. Over the years the character has survived and even been optioned for film but this is the first Ms Tree novel.

Followers of the comics will note that there are differences; this is in fact a reworking of the ‘origin’ story for Ms Tree. From the beginning, it’s obvious this is going to be an intriguing ride. Michael (her father wanted a boy) is undergoing a session with her shrink, Dr Cassel and this is the framework for the first person narrative. Ms Tree is feisty, in-your-face, sexy and hurting. A year back her PI husband of one day was murdered. She killed the perp and took over the detective agency in his stead. While not the first female PI, she’s certainly been a strong influence on subsequent authors as she pushed the boundaries of what could be tackled by a PI, including abortion, homophobia, devil worship, incest, child pornography and date rape.

Ms Tree is asked by Homicide detective Rafe Valer to look into a no-brainer homicide. Why is that? Seems an open-and-shut case – the wife was found with the smoking gun and her husband’s bullet-riddled body was in bed with that of a hooker. Inevitably, her investigation drags up old issues, the possible involvement of the Muerta organized crime family, seemingly unconnected deaths and, before she knows it, Ms Tree is rethinking the murder of her husband Mike…

Max Collins has been round the block and it’s clear he knows how to write. Non-fiction, comics (Batman), comic strips (Dick Tracy), graphic novels (The Road to Perdition), novelisations (NYPD Blue, CSI), novels (The Last Quarry) to touch on a few.

This story flows deceptively effortlessly. Ms Tree is believable, likeable and fun. There are many slick one-liners. For example, ‘Rap sheet thicker than a Stephen King.’ There’s irony, too: the doctor began his autopsy, ‘which seemed overkill, considering the cause of death just might be the three bullet wounds…’

Deadly Beloved has everything that pulp fiction should be: fast and furious, great characters, with page-turning prose yet laced with morality, compassion, humanity and plenty of action. Sure, it ain’t great literature, but it delivers everything you want from the genre, hence the high score (5 stars). More please.

The cover of course is painted by Terry Beatty.