Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime; Jack and Maggie Starr)

Manhattan, 1954—Comics are on trial, both in the court and in the media. Dr. Werner Frederick's best-selling book Ravage the Lambs offers a warning against — or, for some, a guide to — the "worst" of the full-color, graphic (both meanings apply here) publications allegedly warping the minds of America's youth.

A good deal of participants in the comics industry would like to see Dr. Frederick done away with. When he is subsequently murdered by strangulation, is his theory being proven correct?

Seduction of the Innocent is the third in the Jack and Maggie Starr trilogy of historical mysteries by author Max Allan Collins. The previous volumes, A Killing in Comics and Strip for Murder appeared in 2007 and 2008, respectively, but then the publisher chose not to continue with the series.

Lucky for us, Hard Case Crime saw fit to rectify that oversight, and now readers can once again follow the exploits of the Starrs, complete with brand-new art, including fourteen pages of illustrations from Terry Beatty (Ms. Tree) and a suitably lurid cover painting from Glen Orbik.

Maggie Starr runs the Starr Newspaper Syndication Company. Her stepson Jack is a private investigator whose only client is the Starr Syndicate. Jack's father, known primarily as "the major," willed the syndicate to his young wife upon his death, which Jack repeatedly says doesn't bother him. (Maggie is also a former ecdysiast only 10 years Jack's senior, a situation that is a source of Oedipal-incest jokes at Jack's expense.)

Like its predecessors, Seduction of the Innocent has some basis in history, but author Max Allan Collins emphasizes that truth was only the inspiration. He plays around with the facts here more than in, say, his Nathan Heller series. The Heller novels hew closely to the facts with just a fictional character or two thrown in for the sake of the story.

A primary difference between Seduction of the Innocent and history is that Fredric Wertham, the real-life counterpart of Dr. Werner Frederick (and the author of the original best-selling anti-comics screed from which this novel takes its name), died of old age, so Collins even had to invent a murder to solve.

This explains why the main participants' names are fictionalized right along with the timeline of events and the characters' relationships. Collins gives them names that aren't obvious caricatures, but realistic names in the style of the real ones.

Collins himself states that he "invite[s] readers — particularly comics fans — to enjoy the roman à clef aspects," but that Seduction of the Innocent "is a mystery in the Rex Stout or Ellery Queen tradition, with a dollop of Mickey Spillane." But readers who are interested in the period will quickly realize that Collins's usual in-depth research is still strongly at play here, as the surrounding events (including death threats that didn't happen) are all based on fact.

So, it's an interesting mix, and there were times that I was torn by whether to read Seduction of the Innocent as a slice of history or simply as a golden-age mystery. It's fun either way.

Strip for Murder by Max Allan Collins (a Jack and Maggie Starr mystery)

Manhattan, 1953 — Rehearsals are underway toward the opening night of the musical Tall Paul, based on the popular comic strip of the same name by Hal Rapp. Rapp's ex-employer (and chief rival), Mug O'Malley creator Sam Fizer, has threatened to sue, saying Rapp's characters were originally created by Fizer when Rapp was working under him on the O'Malley strip. To make matters worse, Fizer's estranged wife has been hired for a role in the musical.

On Halloween night, shortly after a party at Rapp's apartment, Fizer is found dead in his own room — an apparent suicide but with painfully obvious signs pointing to Rapp as a murderer. Rapp asks Jack and Maggie Starr for help. Maggie runs the Starr Newspaper Syndication Company, and her stepson Jack is a private investigator "with one client: the Starr Syndicate." (Maggie is a former ecdysiast only 10 years Jack's senior — a situation that is a constant source of Oedipal-incest jokes at Jack's expense.)

Rapp has offered his new strip, Lean Jean, to the Starrs, so they are very invested in keeping him out of jail — especially since it looks like he is being framed. Jack takes on the case, hoping to remove the frame from Rapp before Captain Pat Chandler can nail it on tight.

Though Strip for Murder has some basis in history, author Max Allan Collins plays around with the facts here more than with his other historical-mystery novels, which usually hew closely to the facts with just a fictional character thrown in.

In fact, in this case, even the main participants' names have been fictionalized right along with the timeline of events and the characters' relationships, though their real-life counterparts can easily be discovered with a little research. Collins gives them names that aren't obvious caricatures, but realistic names in the style of the real ones. (Even the fictional characters in the musical get this treatment, like turning Daisy Mae into Sunflower Sue.)

Artist Terry Beatty, Collins's collaborator on various comic projects, including Ms. Tree, serves up era-appropriate comics-style drawings at the beginning of each chapter, and also adds a cute feature illustrating the motives, means, and opportunities of all the suspects just prior to the denouement.

Beatty's illustrations do a lot to keep the reader immersed in the world of comics, because once you've seen his renderings of the characters, it's impossible to imagine them any other way. Even with his work isn't on the page, it's still there in the mind's eye. So, though Collins likely had real humans in mind when he created these characters, I had Beatty's renderings in mine while reading Strip for Murder, which gave it a surprising "graphic novel" quality uncommon in a prose volume.

The characters are as two-dimensional as the illustrations — but that may be intentional given the milieu (Collins did write Dick Tracy for 15 years, and his lengthy experience provides fodder for some very welcome comics-business in-jokes). What's important is that Strip for Murder gives a remarkable snapshot of Manhattan in the 1950s and a mystery solution that is as surprising as it is satisfying.