The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Volume 3: Encore for Murder by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane

This third volume of The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer is the second to contain a "novel for radio" by Max Allan Collins (after 2010's Audie Award–nominated The Little Death). Collins continues to pore through the files of the late Mickey Spillane for gold nuggets, and this one, Encore for Murder, is expanded from a one-page outline.

Mike Hammer is hired to play bodyguard to ex-flame and former diva Rita Vance. Rita is taking a ride down nostalgia lane in the revival of her biggest success, playing George M. Cohan's wife in Mrs. Doodle Dandy.

But now she's receiving death threats, and she wants Mike and Velda to find out who is sending them. Mike's bodyguarding duties require Velda to do most of the footwork in this case, while he focuses on a more close-up investigation, so to speak. However, as always, things get a lot more complicated than they first appear.

Actor Stacy Keach once again takes the mantle and shows why he is Mike Hammer to many people. His line readings are effortless — all the right notes of righteous anger and sly humor seeming to slide out unbidden. Keach also executive produced this time around and, as he did with the previous outing, composed and performed the very noirish jazz score (with, of course, the exception of the Hammer "theme," Earle Hagen's "Harlem Nocturne") .

The terrific support from the The Little Death is back as well, with Michael Cornelison reprising his powerful turn as Pat Chambers and Franette Leibow serving up another three-dimensional Velda. Sometimes, in the novels, Velda seems a little hard to grasp, but Leibow makes you feel like you know her.

Collins himself also puts in a cameo appearance that just oozes creepiness, but it's in the writing that he really makes it count. Collins offers up some of his best work yet in Encore for Murder. On his blog, Collins noted that Stacy Keach "said I'd provided him with the best Hammer voiceover he'd ever got," and long-time fans along with new initiates will understand why: Collins really understands Hammer.

Max was a fan of Mickey's long before he was a writer, and it is this penetrating insight that gave Spillane the confidence to pass on his legacy. As Spillane reportedly told his wife Jane, "When I'm gone, there's going to be a treasure hunt around here. Take everything you find and give it to Max — he'll know what to do."

And here Collins again uses the audio format to its full potential, creating a fully realized "movie for the mind" that offers more than just simple escapism for two hours. Encore for Murder is yet one more fine addition to the Mike Hammer canon that shows not only was Max Allan Collins a good choice to carry on the legacy of Mickey Spillane, but also that no one could have done it better.

The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Volume 2: The Little Death by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (starring Stacy Keach and a full cast)

Stacy Keach reprises his most famous role as Mike Hammer, Mickey Spillane's most famous creation, in this second volume of The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. At the beginning of The Little Death — a "novel for radio" written by Max Allan Collins from the short story "The Night I Died" by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins — Hammer is nearing the end of his search for a reporter friend's killer. Hammer's getting older, but he's still more than capable of chasing a suspect across the rooftops of New York.

After that case is closed in Hammer's signature style, six months go by. Waiting for a client in Carmen Rich's casino, Hammer is interrupted by Helen Venn, mistress and silent partner of the late Marty Wellmann. Venn was there to meet Rich, who didn't show. Hammer escorts her out of the bar, between flying bullets, and she tells him her story: she's thought by Rich to have $10 million that Wellmann supposedly skimmed from Rich, and so she has a price on her head.

Later, Hammer gets a message from "the Captain," a legless, homeless war vet who's seen something important, but when Hammer arrives at the meeting place, the Captain has gone down with his ship. Now Mike's got two murders to solve (including Wellmann's), a gorgeous blonde to protect from syndicate scum, and a couple more murders to commit before he gets to the bottom of things.

The cast of The Little Death (whose title — la petite mort in French — refers to the belief that orgasm causes a loss of vital "life energy") includes Collins regular Michael Cornelison (Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life), and Collins himself is credited with two roles. Cornelison as Pat Chambers more than holds his own with Keach's Hammer, matching his verbal thrusts with equally skilled parries. Also strong is Franette Leibow's three-dimensional turn as Velda. Collins uses his skill with tough-guy patter to pepper the story with a selection of fun wisecracks and puns.

There are enough familiar tough-guy private-eye tropes floating around in The Little Death to fill a P.I.-fiction instruction manual, but since a lot of what may now be seen as cliches originated with Mike Hammer, they become part of the appeal. The ending will hardly be a surprise to anyone familiar with the genre (though Spillane and Collins jump us through a number of plausible hoops in the meantime), but that doesn't take away from the wonderful use of the audio format.

In addition to the high-quality writing and acting, the events are underscored by noirish jazz compositions written and performed by Stacy Keach himself. The realistic sound effects — you can even hear Hammer swallow his beer (and his bouncing bedsprings!), including a gunshot that fills the room with its explosion — round out this "movie for the mind" and put Mike Hammer in a fully realized world that will be revisited over and over again. The Little Death is a terrific addition to the Mike Hammer canon.

Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life directed by Max Allan Collins (starring Michael Cornelison)

Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life (2007). Screenplay by Max Allan Collins from his Edgar Allan Poe Award–nominated play of the same name.

On May 16, 1957, the last night of his life, Eliot Ness receives a call from Oscar Fraley (his co-author or ghostwriter on The Untouchables, depending on whom you believe) about the galleys of the "upcoming" book. When the phone call is over, he begins telling his life story.

If there's a single author I would call the expert on Eliot Ness, it would be Max Allan Collins. Collins has been researching and writing fiction featuring Ness since the 1980s (longer if you consider that Dick Tracy, the daily comic strip Collins wrote from 1977 to 1992, was inspired by Ness): he has appeared in four novels as the main characters (The Dark City, etc., chronicling his time as Cleveland Safety Director), at least three novels in Collins's Nathan Heller series, Road to Perdition and its sequel Road to Purgatory, and probably a few others I have yet to encounter (I've only been a fan since 2004).

My point is, Collins has been putting historically accurate (and character-appropriate) words in Ness's mouth for 25 years, so who better to write Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, a one-man show starring the man most famous for sending Al "Snorky" Capone to Alcatraz?

In fact, when I read that Collins was going to write a career retrospective of Ness, the only surprise was that it was going to be on the stage, an area I believe was new to the novelist and independent-film director. (But since a short film was produced to raise money for the project, it was only a matter of time before it would return to the screen.) Mounted in the Des Moines Playhouse in August 2005, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life was reportedly shot during the week, using the theater set, while the play itself was performed for audiences on weekends.

Relative unknown Michael Cornelison, an experienced stage and film actor who has appeared in several Collins-directed features and short films (see The Black Box Collection) inhabits Ness fully, never allowing a single doubt to creep in the viewer's mind that this is in fact the man telling his own story. Collins's conversational script also helps with the illusion. And, also acting as director, Collins keeps this potentially "stagy" venture visually interesting.

Two quibbles: the electric piano and theremin in the score by Mark A. Johnson are sometimes distracting, as is Ness's continual removing and replacing of his coat and hat, especially early on. Cornelison moves from set to set depending on the story he's telling, and — while this keeps the atmosphere of each portion authentic — I sometimes wanted him to just sit still and talk for a change. An individual with a good story to tell is endlessly fascinating, and after a while, I got so involved in the story that I didn't notice the motion anymore.

The combination of historical accuracy, Collins's roll-off-the-tongue prose, and Cornelison's engaging personality and character immersion make Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life a story that begs to be told again and again. I can even imagine listening to it while doing something else, just to be able to listen to the sheer wealth of information again. (Someone should consider releasing the audio track by itself; it would be great for commuters.)

Collins always packs his DVDs with extras, and Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life continues the tradition. Included is a feature-length commentary with Collins, Cornelison, and Dingeldein where they display just how much in love with this project they were. Also here are a deleted scene, a behind-the-scenes photo slideshow, and — most interesting of all — a new short film noir called "An Inconsequential Matter" (also with commentary) that is currently making the festival rounds. The story starts out similar to Sleuth but turns into something else entirely and is a good opportunity for viewers new to Cornelison to see him in a different role.