Brass Rainbow [Paperback]

Michael Collins (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 187 pages
• Publisher: Playboy Mass Market Paperbacks (May 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0867210168
• ISBN-13: 978-0867210163
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,802,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes the Brass Ring Really is Only Made of Brass, January 23, 2004

By 

Vesta Irene (the Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brass Rainbow (Paperback)

When I agreed to review a book written by Mr. Collins's wife Gayle, I didn't know he was married to her, as they write under different names. I did a Google search on her and found out who her husband was and was intrigued. Mr. Collins has long been a favorite of my husband's. Ken has been reading him since the '60s, never missing a book, losing a day when each one came out. I've read many of them myself, and now we're re-reading them. Murder is still murder and a good mystery is as good a read now as it ever was.

THE BRASS RAINBOW opens with fat and slovenly Sammy Weiss trying to buy an alibi from Dan Fortune, one-armed private eye with a C-note. Fortune can't be bought, Weiss leaves and later is accused of murder. Fortune doesn't believe he did it, but the cops do and are on his trail. Supposedly Weiss killed the scion of a wealthy family over a $25,000 gambling debt, but Fortune doesn't believe fat Sammy could have gotten himself into any game or games with that kind of stakes.

Mr. Collins gives us a vast and varied cast of characters to choose from as suspects and at times we're as confused as Fortune as he doggedly tries to clear Weiss. There's a gaggle of beautiful babes who flit in and out of the story to tempt Fortune and to lead him down a false trail or two. There's the beautiful gold digger who wants to marry into the wealthy family. There's the wealthy family who want to keep its secrets. There's a bad cop and a good cop. There's mobsters, good and bad. And there is Dan Fortune who has to sift through them all in the search for a killer in this five star book that is a fun read. You should track it down if you can, or maybe check your local library. You won't be sorry.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Collins is Now and Always has been One of the Best, October 25, 2005

By 

Zachary Hackett (Reno, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brass Rainbow (Paperback)

Sammy Weiss has been set up for a fall, played for a sucker, stuffed in a frame, but for squalid, fat Sammy, who always takes the easy way, who seeks the fast buck and believes the brass ring is right around the corner, the con had the ring of truth. When a two bit gambler asked him to collect a $25,000 gambling debt from wealthy Jonathan Radford III for a thousand dollar fee, Sammy believed the job was legit, because he wanted to believe it. He got in a fight with Radford, fled and went to Dan Fortune, one-armed P.I. to alibi him, but Fortune knows trouble when he sees it and he turns Sammy away.

Later Fortune wonders about Sammy and asks around out of curiosity, then finds out Radford had been murdered and the cops think Sammy did it. Fortune doesn't like Sammy for the crime. He doesn't particularly like Sammy either, but right is right, so he embarks on a quest to prove Sammy's innocence.

Collins knows how to plot a mystery, knows how to paint characters good and bad, knows how to hook a reader. He's been doing it for a long time, doing it well and it's often bothered me that he isn't more well known. If, like me, you've been reading him over the years, then you've seen the tremendous influence fast-talking, wise-cracking Dan Fortune has had on Private Eyes that have come later. You see some of him in Kinsey Millhone, Tom Magnum, V.I. Warshawaki and scores of other wisecrackers and you'll be seeing him in a scores of P.I.s whose authors are still toddling around, who have yet to pick up a pen, touch a keyboard or finger a mouse. Collins has given mystery writers and readers so much over the years and if you haven't read him yet, then you've been missing one heck of a writer who's been writing damn fine books for quite a while now.