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.

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King (Hard Case Crime)

Since September 2009 marks the fifth anniversary of Hard Case Crime, I will be reprinting my reviews of the first 40 books from my old (and now mostly defunct) Craig's Book Club site — 2 for the first 10 days, and 1 a day for the next 20. I hope you enjoy this refresher course in the variety of crime fiction that this fascinating publisher has to offer.

Author Stephen King's entry in the Hard Case Crime series of pulp novels hardly fits into the style of the previous books at all. And it's likely to be a divisive entry with its love-it-or-hate-it conclusion. It's not that The Colorado Kid is bad, per se; it just doesn't play fair.

The plot consists primarily of a conversation between two aging newspaper editors — on an island off the coast of King's beloved Maine — telling their young ingenue, Stephanie, about the mysterious appearance of a dead man, found by two high school sweethearts (one of whom is the current mayor) back in the spring of 1980. A reporter from the Boston Globe tried to get the information from them for his series of unexplained mysteries and failed.

The two editors (one of whom is improbably named David Bowie!) take turns passing on bits of information in a mystery style that ultimately goes nowhere. But King has bigger fish to fry (certainly different from the ones contained in the fish-and-chips platter the mystery man, nicknamed The Colorado Kid until his identity was discovered, did or did not eat that night at 5:30 p.m.).

Even though it will likely be the publisher's biggest seller by a long shot, purely based on the reputation of the author, The Colorado Kid is one of Hard Case Crime's lesser releases. It doesn't even compare well to the rest of King's work. Feeling a lot like a short story padded out to 180 pages, it is loaded with the sort of folksy ramblings that authors like to try to mimic, only these prove to be just so much cornstarch in the cocaine.

But it's hard to fault the Hard Case folk. After all, who would pass up the opportunity to publish a Stephen King novel? Not me, certainly — not even one with a plot as flimsy as this one (and one that doesn't even show its face for fifty-plus pages). No, you can't even say that the lack of editing is a problem, truly. This is simply a portrait of King at his most raw, with all his quirks present in sharp relief. That the fine cover painting (by Glen Orbik, also the artist of Hard Case Crime's Branded Woman) has little or nothing to do with the story, and is sexy for the sake of being sexy (not that that's a bad thing!) is simply part of the fun.

But, despite all my complaints about The Colorado Kid, I have to say that I kept turning the pages, and I was sucked (and suckered) all the way to the non-ending. King's flowing style is here in full force, and this is one that can be read in a single sitting. Fans of the author will no doubt flock to the bookstores to pick up this slim and engaging read (replete with King's signature Maine colloquialisms peppered throughout), but many will then (as King expects and encourages in his Afterword) subsequently write him nasty letters. Consider this mine.

The Max by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr (Hard Case Crime)

When we last left Max Fisher (a.k.a., "The M.A.X.", New York's baddest hip-hop drug dealer), at the end of Slide, he was being led off to jail. Ken Bruen and Jason Starr's third collaboration — not coincidentally titled The Max — picks up with Max trying to get his bearings as the new little fish bitch in a big pond. But Max still thinks like a CEO and knows how to play the game, and before too long, he is ruling the roost with the blacks, the Aryans, and the Latinos all thinking he's with them.

Enter Paula Segal, a midlist mystery writer just demoted to "cult" status ("She thought only those creepy noir guys got demoted to cult. She'd never even written a short story for Akashic"). She's looking to revive her career with a true-crime book about Max — and hoping that the Edgar Award she'll undoubtedly win for it will help her meet her latest crush, Laura Lippman.

Meanwhile, Max's ex-fiancée, Angela Petrakos, has just arrived in Greece (she's of Irish-Greek descent and already tried Ireland, where she just didn't feel quite as Irish as she does in the states) and hooked up with a Brit named Sebastian. Not only does he have that accent, but he also looks just like Lee Child! (Too bad his idol is Tom Ripley.)

Readers of Bruen and Starr's previous books are already aware how much fun they like to have with real authors in their stories. Chapter 3 alone contains a great deal of inside information about the workings of the crime genre that even partially knowledgable fans will get a kick out of. After the disappointment that was Slide, I'm happy to say that The Max is a return to form for the duo, though they still seem to prefer "extreme" storytelling for its own sake.

On the downside, for the most part Paula Segal is a wasted opportunity. After a very intriguing introductory chapter, she is never used to her fullest potential — even if she does quote Babe while pleasuring herself. The cover painting by Glen Orbik (Branded Woman, The Colorado Kid, Money Shot), however, is just the opposite. It is everything it wants to be. In fact, in some ways, it is even more successful in fulfilling its intentions than The Max is.

Despite the unevenness of the trilogy that began with Bust — and signs point to it not becoming a tetralogy — Ken Bruen and Jason Starr offer an original ride that is practically a genre unto itself. Here's hoping that these collaborations lead readers to the authors' separate works (though they write very different separately than they do together), or that they will decide to work together once again (and maybe give Paula her own book).