Customer Reviews

Deadly Beloved (Hard Case Crime)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Max Collins has written a lot of interesting books with broad based appeal. This is a Max Collins book with a narrow appeal, which will delight his fan base, but leave many of his other readers scratching their heads about what the fuss was about.

As some of the other reviewers detail, this is about a very tough female P.I. Its genesis is from a graphic novel about Ms. Tree. So, that narrows down quite a bit where this book ought to go and if you like the premise, this book is for you.

To his credit, the narrative moves back and forth in time and how Collins does this turns out to be an essential part of the story, and it is well done indeed. He certainly channels the Spillane of 'My Gun is Quick' or 'I, The Jury' quite well.

However, one never really quite gets away from the fact this spawned from a graphic novel. Many of the villains and semi-villains are more cardboard cut-outs than any sort of real character. Ms. Tree is certainly well wrought as the distaff side of Mike Hammer, but the motivations of almost all the other characters are never spoken to. They're foils for the plot.

I'm a big fan of the hard Case Crime series. I have no problem with them publishing a work like this, but I agree with one of the the other reviewers, these books are usually better than this.

BTW, Max Collins has done a wonderful series of books about a private eye named Nate Heller who gets involved in all sorts of famous historical events and people. I HIGHLY recommend those books. Save this one for if you're still hungry for more after going through them.

In Chicago the case looks obvious. An angry cuckolded wife Marcy Addwatter kills her executive husband and his hooker girlfriend when she catches them together in a motel room. Although they have some doubts, the evidence is overwhelming so the police arrest Marcy charging her with the two homicides.

Private investigator Ms. Michael Tree looks into the twin killings of the account manager and his afternoon fling. She obviously rejects the outraged wife motive that the police push; besides which the case reminds her of her own personal history. She begins an inquiry and soon finds people wanting to end her investigation as several attempts on her life occur. As Mike keeps digging, she begins to uncover a conspiracy that increasingly looks like a frame with Marcy as the fall gal.

Ms. Tree still has it as she makes the transition from graphic comic books to novel with an ease. The story line is fast-paced and somehow contains the graphic in your face perspective that the comic book had yet also reads like a powerful whodunit novel. Max Allan Collins is at his best with the terrific Ms. Michael who kicks butt in any format.

Harriet Klausner

Ms. Tree started out as a comic book series back in 1981. Conceived by writer Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty, she began the longest ever career for a lady private investigator in the comics field. She also set some milestones in the publishing world. Much has been said of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone and Sara Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski. I've read both those series, as well as Linda Barnes's excellent Carlotta Carlyle books, and can honestly say that none of them have ever been as cold-bloodedly ruthless as Ms. Tree.

Of course the name is a tongue-in-cheek joke, but the lady's work isn't. Ms. Tree was written by Collins as a tribute to his friend and mentor Mickey Spillane, who penned the tales of Mike Hammer, who was about as hard nails as tough has ever been.

I read all the comics that came out about the character, beginning with the release by Eclipse Comics and finishing up with the run at DC Comics. Those haven't been re-released, but hopefully they won't be long in coming now that interest has once more been stirred.

DEADLY BELOVED is a new novel about Ms. Tree. In fact, it is the first - and thus far - only novel about the character. But longtime readers who remember the stories are going to get a feeling a déjà vu. Collins and Beatty recently got an option for Ms. Tree as a television movie, with the intention of potentially adding more movies to the initial one.

The book has been published by Hard Case Crime, a line of novels produced by Charles Ardai that is about 50% new material and 50% books that have been out of print as much as fifty years. All of the books are crime novels, and all of the covers offer noir stylings that make my heart beat faster. I can remember reading some of those books back when I was a kid and got them at the secondhand stores.

DEADLY BELOVED is a blindingly fast read. Clocking in at a little under 200 pages, Collins spins his story quickly, dipping in and out of two plotlines that he dovetails neatly back into one cohesive whole. The action is intense, the dialogue gripping and constant, and the feeling of the city around Ms. Tree and her colleagues feels true.

For me, this was a pleasant walk down memory lane with a few interesting twists and turns thrown in for good measure. I generally like all of Collins's novels, and have re-read several of them over the years. I loved his Mallory series as well as his Nate Heller books.

If you haven't met Ms. Tree before, this is the perfect place to do so. The book is lean and mean, and the character steps right off the first page and into your face. And if you have read about her before in one of the comics or graphic novels, it's probably been too long. Pick this one up, put your feet up, and prepare to spend a couple hours in total tough gal noir bliss.

It good to see Ms Tree again. Collins updated the Character for the present day. The story is from the old Ms Tree comics back in the early 80's. If You read those stories (I have) it be all too familar to have any effect for the surpise ending with her shrink. Those who have not are in for a treat.
I heard rumors of putting Ms Tree comics in trade paperbacks. If so, get them, I only hope they reprint the letters pages from those issues.
A quote at the time said those who love or hate the comic, all agree Ms Tree has the most lively letters pages.
I only give this 3 stars since I'm familar with the source material.

Ms. Michael Tree is a tough, yet believable heroine base on Mikey Spillane's Velda. This is an outstanding example of a mistakenly derided genre. The characters aren't as one-dimensional as some other reviewers have claimed; this is a modernized crime noir novel, not War and Peace. The language is also what readers expect from Hard Case Crime. This novel delivers the goods.

I'm impressed by the unusual plot device with Ms.Tree on the psychiatrist's couch and the action moving back and forth between her remembered experience and the present. Also impressive is the author's mastery of the female first person point of view replete with fashion references.

Even though I loved and am certainly recommending the novel, I'm deducting 1 star for the ending. It seems too phoney and contrived. Maybe the author was trying to stay with old-fashioned cliches, but I didn't like it in this fresh take on an old branch of literature.

Any new Max Allan Collins novel is cause for celebration, especially one from Hard Case Crime, because they are revisiting his best characters from his earlier days. First, they reprinted the first two novels Collins ever published (featuring professional thief Nolan) in Two for the Money. The next year saw the telling of his professional hitman Quarry's "final" story in The Last Quarry, which was based in part on the short film "A Matter of Principal" (available in the DVD set Max Allan Collins's Black Box).

His latest, Deadly Beloved, features yet another celebrated return, that of Ms. Michael Tree. What most people don't know is that Collins (along with artist Terry Beatty) is responsible for the longest-running private investigator comic book series. That it featured a female P.I. was even more ground-breaking, as Ms. Tree originated in 1980, before Sara Paretsky or Sue Grafton came to fame with their girl gumshoes.

Deadly Beloved is the first all-prose novel to star Ms. Michael Tree, and it features cover art by Beatty in a nice combination of the usual Hard Case Crime motif and Beatty's own comic style (Ms. Tree's features have been softened considerably, for one thing). Ms. Tree has appeared in short stories -- most notably "Inconvenience Store," which was adapted into the indie film Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market with Collins himself directing (it is also available in the Black Box DVD set) -- but this is her first long-form appearance.

Comics have been a large part of Collins's career: he wrote the daily Dick Tracy strip for fifteen years, and even Road to Perdition started out as a graphic novel. This is simply a warning for those who may be put off by the comic book-style character names in Deadly Beloved. They aren't quite Chester Gould-quality puns, but they're close. (If the Ms. Tree/mystery pun doesn't make you groan, you'll probably be fine.)

Past fans of the character and her adventures will notice immediately that a good portion of the backstory that originally served as the impetus for Ms. Tree's exploits has been changed to suit this brand-new story, the murder of a philandering accountant by his jealous wife. But those coming to Deadly Beloved with little foreknowledge are in for a surprise: Ms. Tree is a hard-boiled woman with a heart as dark as any male private eye they've come into contact with before. Not the shy, retiring type, she has no compunctions against putting a bullet into anyone who gets in her way. Fans of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series (Collins is a highly vocal fan) will find a kindred soul in Ms. Tree.

The only real downside in Deadly Beloved is in the way the story is told. Its visually related origins are very apparent, especially in the use of the "telling her story to her therapist" conceit, which is usually only successful in comics or movies. Collins makes it work for the most part, but the jumping back and forth from the actual story to the "outer" conversation was jarring. Still, Collins has included some of his leanest prose yet in Deadly Beloved -- I guess writing for those little boxes has made him an expert at picking his words carefully for the greatest impact -- and I look forward to more adventures from both Collins and Tree.

(2 & 1/2 stars) As the cover of Deadly Beloved states, it is "the First Ever Ms. Tree Novel," following various comic books, graphic novels and a few short stories. I have not read any of the other Ms. Tree stuff nor any of Collins' other works, but I hope Deadly Beloved is not the best he can do*. It's a fairly weak modern-noir detective thriller, with relatively uninteresting characters, a choppy plot, and a lack of true noir "atmosphere." Maybe the Ms. Tree series works better in the comic book format, but in prose format the story just seems to move along in a clunky way, with too much flashing back and forth in time. The main and secondary characters are often just sketches rather than fully fleshed out. Perhaps having read the comics would have helped. There is also one major plot device that badly fails the logic test. I can't explain it in detail without giving too much away, but it has to do with how one of the killers is unmasked, figuratively. He just observes passively as more and more of his secrets are revealed, being put in ever greater jeopardy - without acting until the very end. It just doesn't make sense.

I've been a fan of the Hard Case line - in fact I subscribe - but this one was a disappointment. *My previous familiarity with Max Allan Collins was from the excellent film made from his graphic novel Road to Perdition. Perhaps that great movie gave me unrealistic expectations for Deadly Beloved, expectations the book came nowhere close to meeting.

I am an unabashed fan of hardboiled detective novels & pulp fiction, which confuses some of my friends who read more modern novels and rave about them. I've basically grown up on a diet of Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Donald Westlake, so you can say that when I pick up a pulp novel, I'm in familiar territory. Taking that into account, the books from Dorchester Publishing's Hard Case Crime imprint are like a warm blanket on a raw winter's day, and I've enjoyed every single one I've read...but I haven't enjoyed a pulp novel, let alone ANY book, as much as I liked "Deadly Beloved" by Max Allan Collins.

The novel features Collins' female private eye Ms. Michael Tree (her father wanted a boy), who is trying to deal with her late husband's murder, which occured on their wedding night. The action shifts to the present day, where Ms. Tree is assisting the Chicago P.D. on what should be an open-and-shut murder case, and several hours ahead, where Ms. Tree is in a psychiatrist's office, talking about her husband's murder, how they met, and her present dilemmas.

Just when you think none of this ties together, the strands that Collins weaves throughout the novel start meeting in unexpected places, and before you know it, you've got the answer to the puzzle--and so does Collins' heroine. The way this novel flowed just blew me away, and the prose had such style that I couldn't tell where one chapter ended and another began. Assisting the flow of the novel is the dialogue, which never dips into hyperbole and keeps both feet in Coolsville. Plus, there's Ms. Tree herself, a really awesome woman who is as tough as they come and always gets her man.

In the back of the book, Collins takes the time to explain the comic book origins of Ms. Tree and how he came up with the idea. He also goes on to describe all the various incarnations of Ms. Tree, whether it be books, comic books, television, or movies. The latter has yet to happen, but "Deadly Beloved" would definitley make the perfect hardboiled noir film for someone like The Cohen Brothers or Frank Miller. All we can do is hope, but for now I'll settle for the paperback novel, which I read and finished the same day I got it. Once you start reading this book and settle into Ms. Tree's universe, you won't be able to put it down, and it'll be an afternoon well spent.

Ms. Michael Tree is a graphic novel mainstay, but we meet her here in a 'normal' prose narrative. 'Normal', that is, if your sense of normal includes a hardcore, hardnosed, hardboiled lady detective who's as quick with a cutting witticism as she is with her 9mm automatic. Ms. Tree's husband has left the Chicago PD to start his own agency, but when he is murdered his wife (recruited away from the PD to join the agency) takes over the firm and investigates the possible connections between her husband's death and the murder of a client's husband (by the client).

The story is told in flashbacks as Michael (Ms. Michael, not her dead husband Michael) tells her psychiatrist (who, we learn, was also his) the events of the past as well as her suspicions concerning the present. The plot is tight, but this is a story that focuses on character, with setting coming in a distant third. In an interesting Afterword, Max Allan Collins talks about the similarities between the Ms. Tree series and the Mike Hammer series. Ms. Tree is based on Mickey's Velda and both novels share a PD-insider who is both sympathetic and helpful. That's where the similarities end. Ms. Tree is a memorable heroine in her own right. She loves to crack wise and she loves to pop caps. She does both expertly. With a capital E. Don't miss this superb paperback original from Hard Case Crime.

Max Allan Collins' popular comics detective Ms. Tree stars in her first novel, which is also a modern reboot/origin story for the character. It is also terrifically entertaining.

Michael (not Michelle) Tree's husband Mike is a year in the grave. She is now running the Tree detective agency. A high priced lawyer brings the agency a baffling case. The lawyer acknowledges that his client shot her husband and the call girl he was shacked up with, yet insists she is innocent.

This is a fun and faced pace tale. There isn't much depth to it, but it is expertly written. This is the sort of book that is designed to be read in one session. There is always forward momentum and twists and turns abound as Ms. Tree gets into scrapes with trailer trash, mafioso, hit men and various lowlifes.

This is no drawing room mystery as Ms. tree has a tendency to shoot first, ask questions and then shoot again. Don't expect to spot clues and see if you can solve the mystery before Ms. Tree does. This isn't that kind of story. The fun in this one is in following her down the rat hole and seeing where it leads.

The book is slick and fun, if ultimately forgettable. But I enjoyed this book for what it was and would love to see Max put out further Ms. Tree novels for Hard Case. And kudos for getting Terry Beatty (the artist for Ms. Tree's comic series) to do the cover.