Christmas Crime: Antiques Flee Market: a Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery by Barbara Allan (Barbara Collins and Max Allan Collins)

Following her divorce, Brandy Borne moved back in with her mother, Vivian, in her hometown of Serenity. Much to her chagrin, the first thing they did together was attend a mother-daughter meeting of the local Red Hat Club. (Mystery readers all, the local branch has been named The Red-Hatted League.) Vivian couldn't go with Brandy's much-older sister Peggy Sue (they were both named after popular songs of their day) because Peggy Sue was already a member.

Before her arrival, Peg informed Brandy that Vivian sold off most of her prized possessions to an antique dealer while on a "drug holiday" from her bipolar meds. When the antique dealer was found dead — and both Brandy and Vivian admitted to running over the body in their car — it was up to the Borne girls to sift through the other suspects (the dealer was known for taking advantage of citizens) and find the real killer. This story was told in the first "Trash 'n' Treasures" book, Antiques Roadkill.

Since then, they've become amateur sleuths of a sort, investigating murders in their formerly quiet little Midwestern hometown and generally causing havoc of one sort or another while getting in the way of genuine police investigation. The second book in the series, Antiques Maul, is Halloween-themed. It concerns Brandy's trying to keep Vivian out of trouble by opening a booth at the local antiques mall, then finding a woman dead, presumably by her pit bull.

The third book in the series is Antiques Flee Market. Now it's Christmastime, and a former "conquest" of Vivian's (a "mercy mission" during wartime) has been found dead in his nursing-home bed.

Along for the search this time is the victim's British, Goth granddaughter, Chaz, an ex-con with less than savory friends and a delightfully Cockney way of speaking. Meanwhile, Brandy is troubled by an anonymous note that suggests Vivian is not her real mother, and Vivian is excited by news that she is no longer bipolar but merely schizo-affective (which is actually bipolar with psychotic tendencies).

Antiques Flee Market shows a marked improvement over the first book in the series, which I was actually unable to finish (I skipped the followup). The prose here is smoother, with very little sign of one author taking over for the other. The Collinses work well together as "Barbara Allan," and even the humor — which definitely felt inserted into Antiques Roadkill — is much more seamlessly integrated, making for a genuinely funny read (as opposed to simply a joke-filled one).

Fans of co-author Max Allan Collins will appreciate a couple of touches that must have come from him: namely a Mike Hammer reference and the fact that the antique this time around is a rare edition of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the "sleuth" Collins used for his Disaster series book The Pearl Harbor Murders). But all in all, "Barbara Allan" is really coming into her own, and the Trash 'n' Treasures series has to be the quirkiest cozy series on the market.

In fact, in many ways, the Collinses seem to be turning the classic tropes of the cozy subgenre on their ear. After all, the Bornes aren't independently wealthy; their dog is diabetic, blind, and named after raw fish; they're highly dependent on psychiatric medications just for their daily functioning (with disastrously funny results if, for example, they get their pill boxes confused); and their antiques are solely low-rent, flea-market fare (Mother is not averse to Dumpster diving) that clearly falls under the heading of the series' inspiration, the adage "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

In short, unlike most escapist fiction protagonists, the Bornes do not have a life to which it is likely the reader will aspire (except perhaps for those readers who should be, but aren't already, on psych meds). It more closely resembles horror fiction in that the events make you feel better about your own life.

Of course, I could be off on my facts a bit there, given that I wouldn't even have heard of this series if it weren't co-written by one of my favorite authors. But Antiques Flee Market actually turned out to be quite a fun read. Each chapter ends with an (often tongue-in-cheek) antique-buying tip, and the couple have a delightfully wicked sense of humor (dig that soap-opera-derived cliffhanger ending!). I'm already looking forward to reading the fourth book in the series, Antiques Bizarre.

Kiss Her Goodbye by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Mike Hammer series)

Only a telephone call from his best friend, police captain Pat Chambers, could bring Mike Hammer back to New York. There was simply nothing for him there anymore. And his health's not so great, either, after that firefight that ended in the death of Sal Bonetti and left Hammer with numerous pains, in particular a "hot spot" behind his ribs. So, he's been relaxing and recuperating in Florida and not missing the city a bit.

When Pat tells Mike that their pal Inspector Bill Doolan killed himself, Mike is on his way. After the funeral, though, something nags at Hammer, and he begins to have doubts. Sure, Doolan had cancer, and maybe he would want to do away with himself before the disease made his every living moment hell, but it's just not Doolan's style. And yet maybe it could have been his wish, given how he was living his final years as a playboy, to go out in a flash.

But when the corpse of Ginnie Mathes turns up and Dulcie Thorpe is hit-and-run'd right beside Mike, Hammer knows that, as unofficial as he wanted this visit to be, he'll have to break out the .45 and the porkpie and do what he does best. Only this time without his girl Friday, Velda.

Kiss Her Goodbye is the third Mike Hammer novel finished by author Max Allan Collins from documents in the late Mickey Spillane's files. The first two were The Goliath Bone and The Big Bang (with the non-Hammer Dead Street before that).

Collins has really hit his stride with this one. He captures the disco era skillfully, yet assures that it doesn't feel old or out-of-date to modern readers — though that didn't keep a Bowery Boys reference from eliciting a grin. Kiss Her Goodbye also serves up a superlative mystery that kept me guessing, sometimes even more after a question was answered than before, delivering a couple of really great twists.

There are several more unfinished novels and other works remaining in the Spillane archives, but Kiss Her Goodbye is at this writing the last Hammer contracted for. I for one am glad to see Hammer in brand new adventures, and I know many of you are, too. So let's keep him there. What this means is that, if you want to see more, you need to speak up with your almighty dollars. Accolades and passionate discussion are all well and good, but the only way the publisher knows that these books are in demand is if they sell.

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 Big Bang by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Mike Hammer)

Mike Hammer went to Florida to recover from a stab wound from one of Junior Evello's boys — Junior is the nephew of Carl Evello from Kiss Me, Deadly — "that had opened my side like somebody wanted to slip in there and hide." On his first day back in Manhattan, he chances across hospital messenger Billy Blue being jumped by drug dealers who think he can get them easy access to the hospital's drug stash, and Hammer quickly dispatches the assailants with his signature brand of street justice.

It looks like Evello might be involved, but Hammer assures Homicide captain (and long-time friend) Pat Chambers that he has no interest in the case. Of course, when somebody tried to kill Mike, he gets interested fast. Now it's on.

The Big Bang is one of the handful of unfinished manuscripts Mickey Spillane entrusted to Max Allan Collins upon his death in 2006. Two others have been published previously: the non-Hammer Dead Street and the "last" Hammer novel chronologically, The Goliath Bone.

In addition to being about one-third complete, The Big Bang was also fully outlined and included the ending, which was one of Spillane's favorites. When the deadline for this book was approaching and it did not look like he could finish it, Spillane took the previously shelved "second" Hammer novel For Whom the Gods Would Destroy (he had written it after I, the Jury but quickly pounded out My Gun Is Quick as a followup instead), updated it with references to more recent cases, and sent that one in. It would be published under the title The Twisted Thing.

Spillane's and Collins's styles mesh well throughout The Big Bang, since Collins expanded Spillane's original one-third out to about one-half and then completed what was missing. Collins has somehow managed to produce a novel that is firmly grounded in the 1960s but does not feel dated. This is not an artifact, but a fully vital modern novel.

Collins stays mostly in the background, preferring to let his friend and mentor shine from beyond. Those who have followed Hammer through numerous adventures will appreciate it most, but The Big Bang can be enjoyed even by those relatively new to the detective.

One definite highlight is the climax, when Hammer unwittingly drops acid and sees his potential final moments with all the clarity of a warped record. ("Shotgun" by Junior Walker and the All-Stars gets a prominent role in the melee.)

But the ending of The Big Bang is just stunning, related to a huge shipment of heroin coming into the city (the "big bang" of the title — sorry physics fans, no beginning-of-the-universe theories discussed in these pages¹). It may in fact be one of the best of the series. Just don't try to skip ahead and read it because you won't understand its significance unless you've read the rest of the book. The whole thing is well orchestrated for maximum impact. It's a keeper and one that will likely go down as one of the more memorable.

At least one more of these Spillane/Collins collaborations (Kiss Her Goodbye) is already scheduled to be published. There are at least three more substantial manuscripts that could be completed: Complex 90 (a sequel to The Girl Hunters), Lady Go Die!, and King of the Weeds. However, whether these see their way into print depends, like all things in publishing, on how well these sell, so support them however you can (preferably with your wallet) and help Spillane's legacy continue well into the future.

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¹Try What's Next?: Dispatches from the Future of Science for that — specifically Sean Carroll's "Our Place in an Unnatural Universe."

The Twisted Thing by Mickey Spillane (included in The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume III)

For more of Friday's Forgotten Books, visit Pattinase.

14-year-old genius Rustin York is kidnapped and his father reflexively points the finger at the one ex-con in his employ. The ex-con calls Mike Hammer to help him out, and Hammer gets the guy released and rehired. The father is remorseful and asks Hammer to help find his son.

The Twisted Thing is the novel that author Mickey Spillane (who preferred being called a "writer" since he only did it for the money) sent to his publisher instead of finishing The Big Bang. It was actually his intended follow-up to I, the Jury and was originally titled For Whom the Gods Would Destroy. But when the public responded to the intensity of that book, he wrote the more similar My Gun Is Quick instead.

So, the "real" second Hammer novel sat unpublished for over a decade until the deadline for The Big Bang approached and that novel wasn't done. Spillane dusted off For Whom the Gods Would Destroy, added some references to cases Hammer had taken in the intervening time, changed the title, and turned it in instead, leaving readers without a true Hammer response to the late '60s until Max Allan Collins completed The Big Bang this year.

This novel has all the Spillane hallmarks: deep characterization, a fast plot, realistic dialogue (peppered generously with tough-guy slang), and a great deal of sensitivity shown through Hammer's treatment of Rustin York, boy genius. It also has the expected "surprise" ending (though honestly, anyone who doesn't see this one coming a mile away hasn't read enough Agatha Christie). So, though The Twisted Thing doesn't reach classic status, it still has a lot to offer Hammer fans.

Further reading:

Big Bang co-author Max Allan Collins's recommendation of The Twisted Thing on the The Rap Sheet's continuing series of The Book You Have to Read.

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.

Hardboiled P.I. Quote of the Day (from The Big Kill by Mickey Spillane)

Sometimes you come across a passage that is just the perfect example of a particular type of writing. That's what I thought when I read this sentence from the third paragraph of page one of The Big Kill by Mickey Spillane:

She saw me sitting there with my stool tipped back against the cigarette machine and change of a fin on the bar, decided I could afford a wet evening for two and walked over with her hips waving hello.

The Goliath Bone by Mickey Spillane with Max Allan Collins (Mike Hammer)

"Do we need an attorney, Mr. Hammer?"
"No," I said. "You need me."

Mike Hammer is back! Twelve years after his last appearance in print (1996's Black Alley), America's best-selling private detective adapts to a post-9/11 world, complete with Islamic terrorists on his tail.

The Goliath Bone is the 14th in the long-running series that has spanned over 60 years. Mickey Spillane was never what you would call a prolific writer. Probably because he didn't write because he had to write: he only wrote when he needed money. Thus, for there to be years, even decades, between books was not unexpected. In fact, the 12 years since the last entry doesn't seem quite so long when you consider the nearly 20 that passed between #11 (Survival ... Zero!, 1970) and #12 (The Killing Man, 1989).

A little backstory: After Spillane's death in 2006, his friend and sometime collaborator Max Allan Collins (still the most vocal supporter of Spillane's influence on the crime genre) was given the task of finishing some of the incomplete works found in Spillane's files, with the most excitement focusing on a handful of unfinished Mike Hammer novels.

Though a standalone novel called Dead Street was published by Hard Case Crime under Spillane's sole byline, a Mike Hammer novel called The Goliath Bone was actually closer to completion when Spillane died. The job required Collins to do a combination of editing and writing throughout, getting his fingerprints, so to speak, all over the book.

Therefore, Collins's influence is felt throughout The Goliath Bone, where in Dead Street it was mainly in the final three chapters. Collins does a masterful job at matching Spillane's terse style, but his own more literary tendencies are likely to be noticed by a Collins devotee (such as myself).

The story is a little odd by usual Hammer standards. Two stepsibling grad students (the children of Nobel Prize candidates) possess a valuable artifact presumed to be the femur bone of Philistine giant Goliath ("that champ who went down for the count with an underdog's creek rock in his forehead") wrapped in brown paper. On their way down the subway stairs, someone tries to kill them, and Hammer (who just happened to be exiting a nearby bar when his Spidey-sense tingled) steps in just in time, making himself their bodyguard in the process.

Unfortunately, this new case comes at a very inconvenient time. Hammer and his long-time secretary/girlfriend Velda were just about to head off to Las Vegas and get married, and this puts that off for a little longer. But Velda knows who she's dealing with, and so doesn't put up much of a fuss, offering her own exemplary mental and armamentary services in addition.

No longer the lone wolf, Hammer is surrounded by the other characters for much of The Goliath Bone. The modern Mike Hammer is a man in love: he holds hands with Velda often and discusses the options with her, respecting her input. This is the Hammer of the 21st century, a man who doesn't live in the past, though he certainly talks about it a lot ("I was in all the papers").

Readers used to the tight pacing of the classic Spillane novels will notice instantly that The Goliath Bone has a great deal of talk in it. The exposition — including lengthy discussions on the history and origins of the bone, the intentions of the different factions concerned (handled with some degree of sensitivity), life in a post-9/11 world, and especially far too much of "here's what might happen and here's what we're going to do about it" — takes up over a third of the novel. But once it gets going, the book offers international intrigue on the level of Eric Ambler and John LeCarré.

More Hammer novels are slated for the next few years, but The Goliath Bone is meant to be the last chronologically in the Hammer "timeline" (much like Collins's own Quarry series "ended" with 2006's The Last Quarry, with The First Quarry coming two years later). With a final-chapter reference that ties back to I, the Jury, the series comes full circle in a satisfying way.

Classic Private Eye Novel Quote of the Day (from My Gun Is Quick by Mickey Spillane)

"When you sit at home comfortably folded up in a chair beside a fire, have you ever thought what goes on outside there? Probably not. You pick up a book and read about things and stuff, getting a vicarious kick from people and events that never happened. You're doing it now, getting ready to fill in a normal life with the details of someone else's experiences. Fun, isn't it? You read about life on the outside thinking about how maybe you'd like it to happen to you, or at least how you'd like to watch it. Even the old Romans did it, spiced their life with action when they sat in the Coliseum and watched wild animals rip a bunch of humans apart, reveling in the sight of blood and terror. They screamed for joy and slapped each other on the back when murderous claws tore into the live flesh of slaves and cheered when the kill was made. Oh, it's great to watch, all right. Life through a keyhole. But day after day goes by and nothing like that ever happens to you so you think that it's all in books and not in reality at all and that's that. Still good reading, though. Tomorrow night you'll find another book, forgetting what was in the last and live some more in your imagination. But remember this: there are things happening out there.... All you have to do is look for them. But I wouldn't if I were you because you won't like what you'll find.... They aren't nice things to see because they show people up for what they are. There isn't a Coliseum any more, but the city is a bigger bowl, and ... if you can kill first, no matter how and no matter who, you can live and return to the comfortable chair and the comfortable fire. But you have to be quick. And able. Or you'll be dead."

— from My Gun Is Quick by Mickey Spillane