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

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, whose lady friend, Helen Venn, turns to the P.I. 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, or anyway, so Rich claims.

When a hitman shows up at retired gunman Quarry's refuge, who is the target? Is it Quarry? Or is the assassin on a different mission - and if so, can Quarry foil it for revenge and profit? This audiobook is fourth in the classic hard-boiled Quarry Series from the 1970's.

Tough, cynical, and clever, Nathan Heller has been called "the perfect private eye", the best investigator that Chicago (where "lightning" means gunfire) has to offer. Created by New York Times best-selling novelist and Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins, the classic PI comes vibrantly to life in this collection of 13 stories, all based on real cases of the 1930s and '40s.

It's the early 1950s. 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.

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.

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?

Winter, 1969. After a hit-and-run accident nearly kills her mother, Velda learns her father is not who she thought he is. Seeking to uncover her true heritage, Velda and Mike Hammer travel to sunny Dreamland Park, where retired law enforcement officers keep an eye on notorious criminals held under the Witness Protection Act. Just as Velda and Mike’s search leads to a dead end, a brutal attempt on their lives and a missing fortune in mob money leads them to a deadly midnight confrontation in a cemetery where secrets are buried and open graves await.

In July 1943, Nate Heller flies to Nassau where multimillionaire Sir Harry Oakes wants dirt dug up on Count De Marigny, the playboy who has married Harry’s beautiful, underage daughter, Nancy. But the investigation has barely begun when Sir Harry turns up dead in bed - burned to death in a real-life locked-room mystery - and Heller is soon working for Nancy, whose husband faces murder charges. Chicago P.I. Heller is on his most intriguing - and dangerous - mission yet in this devilishly clever thriller filled with surprising twists....

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 return, the government is none too happy with Hammer. Russia is insisting upon his extradition, and various government agencies are following him. A question dogs our hero: Why him? Why does Russia want him back, and why was he singled out to accompany the senator to Russia in the first place?

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.

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.

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....

Crime fiction readers know Quarry - the ruthless killer for hire from Max Allan Collins' acclaimed novels - but where did Quarry's story start? For first time ever, the best-selling 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.

Mike Hammer steals a ride on a train upstate to Killington. But he is welcomed by a nasty surprise: he is accused by police of raping and murdering a young woman near the freight yards. Roughed up by the cops and facing a murder charge, Hammer's future looks bleak. Only a beautiful blonde, Melba Charles - daughter of powerful Senator Charles - might possibly save him...if he pays the price. From a brittle, brown manuscript, the first Mike Hammer novel - begun by Mickey Spillane in the mid-40s and completed 70 years later by Max Allan Collins - is a gift to mystery fans on the noir master's 100th birthday.

A killer blizzard sweeping across the Southwest threatens the livelihoods of everyone in the town of Trinidad. But it's two gunshots that fell Sheriff Caleb York's unlucky deputy. York knows it was a case of mistaken identity. The bullets were meant for him. It's the first nasty step in a plan rustled up by former Quantrill's Raider Luke "Burn 'Em" Burnham - eliminate the law, corral a team to rob a bank in booming Las Vegas, New Mexico, then lay low. Then they get wind of one little hitch: not only is York still alive, but he's gunning for justice - and revenge.

In 1935, Nate Heller is hired to escort Amelia Earhart on a speaking tour because of numerous cut-and-paste death threats against her life. Heller suspects the threats are a stunt by Earhart's publicity-hungry husband, and the detective’s growing closeness to the bisexual aviatrix leads to a steamy affair. Two years later, when Earhart embarks on her flight around the world - and mysteriously disappears over the South Pacific - Uncle Sam enlists Heller in a clandestine search of Japanese waters for the popular Earhart....

Legendary editor, Maxim Jakubowski, delivers another chilling anthology collecting stories of cold-blooded murder, revenge and crimes-gone-wrong from the best of the best in crime fiction. Spine-chilling and gripping, these tales will grip you with their devious narrators and crafty twists.

Caleb York has made up his mind and packed his bags. He'll be on the next stage, bound for San Diego and a new life as a Pinkerton man. But before Caleb can say a proper good-bye to his sweetheart, Willa, a peaceful morning erupts into blazing gunfire. Someone has to bring law and order to the wild little town of Trinidad, even as a band of outlaw brothers rides the vengeance trail and a new cattle baron sets his sights on more land...and on Willa, too. Looks like Caleb will be staying on for a while.

When retired hitman Quarry turns down a million bucks to murder a presidential candidate, he becomes a "loose end" that the conspirators need to tie off. With his peaceful life in ruins, Quarry launches his own campaign - for vengeance. This audiobook is the fifth book in Max Allan Collins's cult classic Quarry Series. They don't come harder-boiled than Quarry.

Quarry doesn't kill just anybody these days. He restricts himself to targeting other hitmen, availing his marked-for-death clients of two services: eliminating the killers sent after them, and finding out who hired them…and then removing that problem as well. So far he's rid of the world of nobody who would be missed. But this time he finds himself zeroing in on the grieving family of a missing cheerleader. Does the hitman's hitman have the wrong quarry in his sights?