5 More Quick Questions with Max Allan Collins

In the second installment of 5 Quick Questions with Max Allan Collins, M.A.C. gives answers about his friend and collaborator Mickey Spillane. Of the many Spillane/Collins publications, two new ones to be aware of: (1) M.A.C. contributes an essay on Spillane’s One Lonely Night to Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads (2010; edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner), and (2) M.A.C.’s completion of Spillane’s unfinished manuscript for The Consummata (the sequel to Spillane’s 1967 novel The Delta Factor) will be published in October by Hard Case Crime.

1. What was the first Mickey Spillane novel that you read?

One Lonely Night. Changed my life. My world. The private eye as crazed avenger, the private eye writer as noir poet. It belongs on the short list of great P.I. novels with The Maltese Falcon and Farewell, My Lovely.

2. What do you most admire about Mickey Spillane as a writer?

The surrealistic, fever-dream world he creates in the first six Mike Hammer novels is a unique, compelling creation. I would also cite Hammer himself as a voice/character.

3. True or false: Mickey Spillane is America’s most underrated hardboiled novelist.

Probably true. I say “probably” because those who love him really love him. Some major players consider him hugely important—Otto Penzler for one, Ed Gorman for another. And hundreds of millions of readers.

4. Which is more challenging: co-writing a novel with a living co-author, or completing the work of a deceased author?

I find the process quite similar, because with both Barb Collins (my wife and collaborator on the Antiques novels) and Matthew V. Clemens (collaborator on the forthcoming No One Will Hear You), I work from their rough drafts. The back-and-forth comes at the plotting stage. With Mickey, I work from unfinished manuscripts, which I treat as rough draft, and sometimes notes. Obviously the Spillane collaboration is tricky, but I have been unwittingly training for that role since about 1960.

5. What is your favorite Mickey Spillane novel?

One Lonely Night. Hands down. But the first six Hammer novels combine to make an epic hardboiled fantasy.

Noirboiled Turkey

As a result of suffering through my first Lemmy Caution novel a few months back, I have developed a bemused interest in the career of British ersatz-hardboiled writer Peter Cheyney, such that I couldn’t resist the chance to purchase a Cheyney novel translated into Turkish. The title of the Turkish translation, Kanli Oyun, means Bloody Game, which bears no obvious connection to the original titles of any Peter Cheyney novels.

If you visit this series of cover galleries of Turkish translations of noirboiled novels, you will quickly discover that the standard practice of Turkish translators/publishers was to change titles. I am still trying to imagine which Mickey Spillane novels have been published in Turkey as Battle of the Giants, Murderer of the Full Moon, Guns Won’t Talk, The Revenge Claw, Teenager Hell, I’m Afraid of the Blondes, You’ll Spit Blood, Alive Target, Hands of Dark, and Murderer with Green Hand. I’m the Judge is obviously I, the Jury, but beyond this, I’m baffled.

So which Peter Cheyney novel do I have? This is the opening paragraph in Turkish:

Yasamak bazan ne kadar zevkli oluyor. Fakat ben su anda hayatin tadini alamayacak kadar efkârliydim. 1945 Martinda Pariste hemen bütün erkekler ekfârliydi. Bu efkârin da bir tek sebebi vardi: Yosmalar.

And this is the glorious translation that I get from Google Translate:

How much fun is going to live sometimes. But right now I get to enjoy life efkârliydim. Ekfârliydi in Paris in March 1945, almost all men. There was also the thoughts of a single reason: Yosmalar.

This may be gibberish, but it provides enough information for me to be sure that this is not a Peter Cheyney novel that I own. The Cheyney books I have eliminated are:

Can Ladies Kill?
Cocktails and the Killer
Dance Without Music
Dark Duet
Don’t Get Me Wrong
He Walked in Her Sleep
Poison Ivy
The Stars Are Dark
This Man Is Dangerous
Uneasy Terms
The Urgent Hangman
You Can Call It a Day
You Can’t Hit a Woman
You’d Be Surprised

Is there anybody out with the resources to eyeball a few more Peter Cheyney opening paragraphs? Any help figuring out which book this is will be much appreciated!

Book Review: Mickey Spillane, Dead Street (2007)

There are so many false notes in Dead Street that an explication of them all would be longer than the novel itself. Here is one of my favorites from early on: Our hero, ex-cop Jack Stang, has discovered that his fiancée, who supposedly died twenty years ago in an accident after being kidnapped by the mob, is actually alive. When Stang, a.k.a. "The Shooter," learns this remarkable news, he proclaims, "Somebody has got to pay for twenty lost years." Somebody has got to pay for all that lost time, Captain Stang? That's strange. Why didn't they have to pay back when you thought that all they had done was kill your fiancée? Grade: D-

Pulp Poem of the Week

The guy was dead

as hell.

Mickey Spillane

Vengeance Is Mine

1950