Chicago Lightning: The Collected Nathan Heller Short Stories (Nate Heller) [Kindle Edition]

Max Allan Collins (Author)

Book Description

Tough, cynical, and clever, Nathan Heller has been called "the perfect private eye", the best investigator that Chicago (where 'lightning' means gunfire) has to offer. In this engaging collection of thirteen stories, Heller encounters gangsters and petty crooks, noble doctors and quacks, loving wives and wanton women, and even the occasional honest cop. All of the stories are based on real cases of the 1930s and '40s, meticulously researched by award-winning writer and Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins. Heller's adventures feature some of the biggest names in twentieth-century American crime history: Eliot Ness, Frank Nitti, Mickey Cohen, and Jack Ruby, just to name a few. Whether he is investigating a union shooting, going toe-to-toe with the female leader of a vicious hold-up crew, or playing a homeless man to pose as bait for an insurance racket, Heller's humorous, wryly cynical tone, and knack for keen social observation make for a cracking good read.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Q&A with Max Allan Collins

Question: Chicago Lightning is a story collection about private detective Nate Heller. It's a rich collection, yet the stories number only 13--meaning that since 1984 (when the first Heller book, True Detective, came out), you've published only one short story for every novel.

Max Allan Collins: That wasn't intentional. I'm not a prolific short-story writer. I'm a novelist at heart, and these stories are all fairly long; little novels. Each one is a commitment--a lot of research goes into them. Like the novels, they're based on real cases.

Q: The stories mostly deal with little-known crimes, whereas the novels deal with some of the major mysteries of the 20th century: the Lindbergh kidnapping in Stolen Away, the Huey Long assassination in Blood and Thunder. Why look into these smaller, more obscure cases?

MAC: Well, that's the fun of it, isn't it? It shows Nate Heller in a different light. These are in fact the kind of cases that might have walked into a private eye's office in Chicago in the 1930s and '40s. And they're "small" only in the sense that they aren't well known. Some very famous names do appear--Eliot Ness is in two stories--and some of the gangsters are famous (or infamous, anyway). Frank Nitti and Mickey Cohen, for example.

Q: How did you find these lesser-known cases?

MAC: My longtime research associate, George Hagenauer, and I mostly scour vintage true-crime magazines. Then we do newspaper research and sometimes even visit the locations. What I like about these stories is that they tap into the roots of the classic noir detective, who began in pulps like Black Mask and in stories by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The whole idea of Nate Heller is to put the private detective back in the historical context he grew out of--and into real-life cases.

Q: What's the meaning of the title Chicago Lightning? Not all the stories are set in Chicago.

MAC: No, they aren't, but Nate Heller is a Chicago guy through and through. "Chicago lightning" means "gunfire" in Prohibition-era slang. Mike Hammer has New York, Philip Marlowe has L.A., Spenser has Boston, but Nate Heller long ago laid claim to mid-20th-century Chicago. And Chicago is the great crime capital of the U.S.A. Maybe the world.

Q: In some ways, Nate Heller is a typical private eye of the old school: tough and brave, with an eye for the ladies. But he doesn't always play by the Raymond Chandler "mean streets" code. He sometimes quits cases, takes bribes, sleeps around.

MAC: I've gone to some lengths to make Heller human, and to make him a specific human. Doing the classic private eye can put a writer in a narrative straightjacket--a lot of writers of this kind of story obey all of Chandler's "rules," not understanding that he meant those rules for himself and his Philip Marlowe character. I want Heller to be a real man: flesh-and-blood, flawed, but still able to maintain a certain shabby dignity.

Q: Will there be more Nathan Heller short stories?

MAC: I can't say. That will depend on whether or not George and I come across some other intriguing cases for Heller to look into. There will be a second collection, Triple Play, that gathers three short Heller novels. It comes out next April. One of the stories, "Kisses of Death," describes the circumstances of Heller's meeting Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s.

Q: What's next for Nate Heller?

MAC: In addition to Triple Play, there will be a novel, Target Lancer, that has to do with the Kennedy assassination. After Nate's nearly 10-year hiatus, I'm hoping to get back to a Heller novel a year for a while. Having all the Nate Heller series back in print is very gratifying. Many readers don't want to get involved with a series if the other books aren't available.

On the other hand, the Heller novels can be read in just about any order--I didn't write them in strict chronological order. The stories in Chicago Lightning are arranged by the year when the events take place, not the year when I wrote the stories. For people who haven't read any of the books, Chicago Lightning provides a really good sampling. With the novels, it's probably a good idea to read True Detective, True Crime, and The Million-Dollar Wound first. That's the Frank Nitti trilogy that started the saga.

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From the Back Cover

Tough, cynical, and clever, Nathan Heller has been called “the perfect private eye,” the best investigator that Chicago (where 'lightning' means gunfire) has to offer. Created by New York Times bestselling novelist and Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins, the classic PI comes vibrantly to life in this collection of 13 stories, all based on real cases of the 1930s and '40s. In “The Blonde Tigress,” Heller encounters a vicious hold-up crew with a brutal female leader, while in “Scrap” he investigates a union shooting that has national implications. In “The Perfect Crime,” he goes Hollywood to protect the lovely Thelma Todd, with tragic results. The private eye finds himself tangling with notorious mobster Mickey Cohen in “A Shoot-out on Sunset” and with Al Capone’s successor, Frank Nitti, in “Screwball.” Heller’s friendship with Eliot Ness finds the two men working together in both “The Strawberry Teardrop,” in which Heller encounters America’s first serial killer, and “Natural Death, Inc.” Heller tackles each case with his trademark cynicism and humor, digging into the grimy underbelly of 20th-century America to uncover the truth at any cost.

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Product Details

• File Size: 636 KB
• Print Length: 399 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1612180914
• Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (October 4, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0054LXX36
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,447 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #25 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Anthologies

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars awesome collection November 15, 2011

By Bamboozlepig

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been a huge fan of Max Allan Collins' Nate Heller series since I discovered "True Detective" in junior high, and this short story compilation is a wonderful addition to his Heller novels. Collins is one of the few authors that keeps the "true" hardboiled private eye genre alive for fans of Hammett and Spillane, Chandler and Ross Macdonald, and in re-reading his series this year so that my memory was refreshed when "Bye Bye Baby" was released this summer, I fell in love with his work all over again. Max seamlessly weaves his fictional character in with historical figures and events, putting Nate Heller right in the middle of the action as it goes down, and there is never a dull moment in any of his work. The writing is always crisp and the dialogue is always sharp, and the characters, both fictional and real life, are always well-drawn and interesting to meet. The historical detail is amazing and I've enjoyed how Nate has "solved" some of the most famous unsolved crimes of our times. The short stories in the "Chicago Lightning" collection are a treat to read, especially the Thelma Todd story, "Perfect Crime", and "Kaddish For The Kid". I definitely recommend ALL of the Nate Heller novels, they're a wonderfully exciting read that will keep you turning the pages loooong after your bedtime, and Collins' crisp prose and historical details, along with the fast-paced action and amazing characters does the hardboiled genre justice...I'm glad I met Nate Heller all those years ago, and I'm even happier to see him return for more adventure, because it's been one HELLUVA thrill ride to enjoy!

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One in a line of American originals November 11, 2011

By Glynn Young VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Tough guy private eye stories aren't as popular as they used to be. They arced in the public mind in the 1930s and 1940s. Mickey Spillane kept them alive in the 1950s. But so much of the genre seemed to move to the police procedurals of Ed McBain and Joseph Wambaugh a little after that.

And then there is Max Allan Collins, who's steadfastly ignored trends and fashions and published the Nate Heller private eye stories and novels since the early 1980s. And while few of us might ever know a person like Nate Heller, there were people like him - Dashiell Hammett was a Pinkerton operative before he turned writer, for example - and he is a representative of an American original.

In "Chicago Lightning," Collins brings together thirteen stories published over the past 30 years that have two primary things in common. They are based on true stories, and they are great reads.

Real personalities walk these stories alongside fictional characters - lawmen like Eliot Ness, gangsters like Frank Nitti (Al Capone's successor in Chicago). And even some of the fictional characters are based on real people.

The stories themselves are fascinating, and I had to keep reminding myself that I read stories in 2011 that were written in the 1980s and 1990s about events in the 1930s and 1940s. It's to Collins' credit that the reader is able to easily move back in time and see the era so clearly.

And the stories are quite a selection of crimes: a young man yearning to be a private detective dies during a stakeout of a department store; the "Blonde Tigress" is arrested for robbery and murder but the woman in question may or may not be the killer; a young wife is found murdered in the basement of a wealthy family's mansion; a movie star hires Heller but finds herself the victim of "the perfect crime;" a doctor goes missing; a woman suspects her husband of infidelity; a serial killer is loose in Cleveland; and more.

While many of the stories are set in Depression-era Chicago, with its crooked politicians and police on the take, Collins includes Cleveland, Los Angeles and Miami as additional settings for Heller's cases. And the settings and atmospheres are important - whether it's the seedy side of town or the in-places of the Sunset Strip in L.A., the author convincingly tells the story of that particular place at that particular time.

"Chicago Lightning" (the name given to machine-gun fire) is a solid collection of hardboiled private eye stories, and earns a well deserved place in a long tradition of tough-guy hero stories.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Never heard of Nate Heller? Here's a review for you! November 9, 2011

By DDC VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I had never heard of Max Collins' character Nate Heller (or Max Collins, for that matter) before getting this book. Fortunately, the stories don't rely on prior knowledge of the character and introduce you to Nate gently. In short, Nate is a fictional character running around in a bunch of true crime stories. It works brilliantly!

Without any disrespect to other noir authors, what I really loved about Nate is that he was so much more realistic and human than most fictional PIs. He isn't insanely tortured and he doesn't have abilities that make you wonder if he is a superhero in disguise; he is just a sharp guy willing to work the angles. He's morally ambiguous and navigates situations that have more shades of gray than a paint store. He is believable and you can relate to him. I really enjoyed following his exploits in this collection of stories.

Collins' writing deserves particular mention. His prose clean and crisp. It flows well and, although it isn't sparse, it is just clipped enough to really capture the noir vibe. He is extraordinarily readable.

The stories themselves are just long enough to be weighty but just short enough that you could easily read one right before going to bed. You can read one, enjoy it, and easily say "Just one more, then I'll turn out the light."

I highly recommend this book to fans of noir, true crime, or detective novels.

More About the Author

Max Allan Collins is a New York Times bestselling author of original mysteries, a Shamus award winner and an experienced author of movie adaptions and tie-in novels. His graphic novel ROAD TO PERDITION was made into a major motion picture by Tom Hanks's production company, Playtone.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#30 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery

#69 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

#96 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#30 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery

#69 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

#96 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery