By Max Allan
Collins
These are the
latter two acts in a trilogy that, at least at this time, bookends Collins’
most voluminous body of work, the Nathan
Heller Mysteries, which began in the 1980s with “The Frank Nitti Trilogy”
(set in the 1930s-1940s) and end, at least for now, with “The JFK Trilogy” (set in
the early 1960s). The opening tale of
the latter-day trilogy was, of course, Bye
Bye, Baby (2011). Interestingly, the time displacement
between historical setting and publication era has remained about fifty years,
although the 1980s-2010s interim has seen publication of various other tales,
both novels and short stories, set in more randomly ordered eras between the
1930s and the 1950s…. Collins has been
spinning tales in the long career of Chicago detective Nate Heller for an
equally long time; I’ve not been reading them nearly so long, only discovering
them about a decade ago. But I have
thoroughly enjoyed the entirety of the series (well, except for one novel which
inexplicably has remained unread on my bookshelf for several years – for some
reason the opening of Damned in Paradise
just hasn’t grabbed me the few times I have attempted starting it).
