5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Namely, jes' fine, May 11, 2008
Max Allan Collins is the most prolific writer since, and possibly including, Isaac Asimov. Unlike Asimov, whom I knew slightly and admired immensely, Collins is actually a good writer as well as idea man. This latest (as of this writing) episode, the second in the series featuring Jack Starr and his sexy step mom Maggie , is an oddity on any number of delightful levels. A spoof of the production of the musical "Li'l Abner" (here called "Tall Paul") it fascinates in that only Collins would think there are enough people who remember the comic strip, let alone the Johnny Mercer/Gene DePaul musical. For those that do, however, the none-too-subtle portrait of the players involved (including Edie Adams, Ernie Kovacs, Peter Palmer, etc.-we will pause briefly while the vast majority out there say:"WHO????" ) is a hoot. If Collins' history is a wee bit shaky (both "The Pajama Game" & "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" were produced in 1954, not the 1953 of the story's setting), his style and sense of humor are impeccable. Buy this! Oh, and as an aside, demand Prime Crime bring Collins' other work for them back into print!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Scandal in the funny pages, August 5, 2008
Manhattan, 1953 -- Rehearsals are underway toward the opening night of the musical Tall Paul, based on the popular comic strip of the same name by Hal Rapp. Rapp's ex-employer (and chief rival), Mug O'Malley creator Sam Fizer, has threatened to sue, saying Rapp's characters were originally created by Fizer when Rapp was working under him on the O'Malley strip. To make matters worse, Fizer's estranged wife has been hired for a role in the musical.
On Halloween night, shortly after a party at Rapp's apartment, Fizer is found dead in his own room -- an apparent suicide but with painfully obvious signs pointing to Rapp as a murderer. Rapp asks Jack and Maggie Starr for help. Maggie runs the Starr Newspaper Syndication Company, and her stepson Jack is a private investigator "with one client: the Starr Syndicate." (Maggie is a former ecdysiast only 10 years Jack's senior -- a situation that is a constant source of Oedipal-incest jokes at Jack's expense.)
Rapp has offered his new strip, Lean Jean, to the Starrs, so they are very invested in keeping him out of jail -- especially since it looks like he is being framed. Jack takes on the case, hoping to remove the frame from Rapp before Captain Pat Chandler can nail it on tight.
Though Strip for Murder has some basis in history, author Max Allan Collins plays around with the facts here more than with his other historical-mystery novels, which usually hew closely to the facts with just a fictional character thrown in.
In fact, in this case, even the main participants' names have been fictionalized right along with the timeline of events and the characters' relationships, though their real-life counterparts can easily be discovered with a little research. Collins gives them names that aren't obvious caricatures, but realistic names in the style of the real ones. (Even the fictional characters in the musical get this treatment, like turning Daisy Mae into Sunflower Sue.)
Artist Terry Beatty, Collins's collaborator on various comic projects, including Ms. Tree, serves up era-appropriate comics-style drawings at the beginning of each chapter, and also adds a cute feature illustrating the motives, means, and opportunities of all the suspects just prior to the denouement.
Beatty's illustrations do a lot to keep the reader immersed in the world of comics, because once you've seen his renderings of the characters, it's impossible to imagine them any other way. Even with his work isn't on the page, it's still there in the mind's eye. So, though Collins likely had real humans in mind when he created these characters, I had Beatty's renderings in mine while reading Strip for Murder, which gave it a surprising "graphic novel" quality uncommon in a prose volume.
The characters are as two-dimensional as the illustrations -- but that may be intentional given the milieu (Collins did write Dick Tracy for 15 years, and his lengthy experience provides fodder for some very welcome comics-business in-jokes). What's important is that Strip for Murder gives a remarkable snapshot of Manhattan in the 1950s and a mystery solution that is as surprising as it is satisfying.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Misfire, August 6, 2008
The shadow of an elephant hovers over this featherweight whodunit, and by the time the author addresses it (rather defensively) in an afterword, it's far too late to purge the smell. Basing fiction on real and well-known events and people is a time-honored tradition- but it's not an unbridled license to smear. As the author's disclaimer states (after explicitly naming his victims): "Aspects of both men's personalities and lives have been exaggerated, and other traits invented...to suit the purposes of this murder mystery." O.K., dead men can't sue for libel. But the bottom line is that these exaggerations and inventions are tasteless and- despite Collins' later claim to admire his targets- unmistakably mean-spirited.
O.K., enough of that, and on to the merits. As a fan of both the subject matter (comic strips) and the genre (detective novels), I think I'm in a good position to comment.
This is standard-issue from a well-worn genre; the author follows all the conventions (and cliches) beat for beat, with the elements that would normally be left to creativity simply flown in from Wikipedia and the yellowed pages of ancient Hollywood Confidential magazines. The narrator wants to be Archie Goodwin, but isn't; the dialogue and description tries at times to be Chandler's or Spillane's, but isn't. At times, the main character self-consciously kids himself (or is kidded) on these points.
There simply isn't enough invention or inspiration added to make a palatable hash out of this re-hash. As the crime story should be advancing and developing, we go from one undisguised celebrity of the past to another, and the wallow in stale gossip is more distracting than engaging. An additional corpse appears simply because the convention calls for one, and the wrap-up arrives not because any climax has been achieved but simply because the regurgitation has been exhausted and we're at the designated page-count.
All of that is is not meant to say that this book is dull or tiresome. It's competent, and the subject matter is interesting. But if you know the real (and tragic) story, there are no surprises at all, and if you don't, this is a very bad place to start. One chapter is ironically titled "Must You Embarrass The Dead, Jack?" The reader is left with this same question.
Very readable; one star docked for unnecessary tackiness.
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