Tough Guy Lit: Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins

By Sean Tuohy

Max Allan Collins is the man who is keeping tough pulp fiction alive in America. The prolific author is the guardian of the classic pulp novel, and he keeps a watchful eye on the genre and cares for it tenderly. With the coming “Quarry,” a television series based on the author’s long-running book series, Collins is still very much alive and kicking.

Born and raised in Iowa, Collins fell in love with tough hardboiled crime fiction at an early age with the help of the great American writer Mickey Spillane. It is easy to spot Spillane's blunt and sparse style of writing in Collins’s own writing. After college, Collins began work on his two most long-running series. Quarry, the hard-nosed hit man with great wit, and Nolan, the aged robber trying to get out of the life. Collins’s most beloved character is Nate Heller, private detective. In these historic fiction novels, the great P.I. stumbles into cases that involve Al Capone, Orson Welles, and JFK.

When he had the time, Collins also worked on movie and television show tie-in books. In between all of this (we assume sleep is not a big thing for Mr. Collins), the author began work on his graphic novel Road to Perdition, which was turned into a film starring Tom Hanks.

Regardless if he is penning stories about hit men on the loose or cops trying to put away the bad guys, Collins is the voice of modern hardboiled crime fiction.

Enjoy some of our favorite Max Allan Collins covers!

To learn more about Max Allan Collins, visit his official website, like his Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter @MaxAllanCollins.

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Tough Guy Lit: Brett Halliday

By Sean Tuohy

Brett Halliday was the quintessential hardboiled hero: witty, tough, and wore an eye patch because he lost a fight to some unruly barbed wire. That’s one hell of a character, right?

Wait.

Halliday wasn’t fiction; he was a writer!

He was born Davis Dresser (I know, not nearly as tough) in 1904 in Chicago, but grew up mostly in Texas. As a boy he lost his eye after running into some barbed wire. We can only assume that the eye patch Halliday wore for the remainder of his life is what caused him to become such a badass. He already had the look so why not the lifestyle.

Halliday dropped out of high school, lied about his age, joined the U.S. Cavalry, and then, just for some more kicks, joined the Border Patrol.

Although he began writing late in life, he quickly made up for lost time. He published dozens of short stories in pulp fiction magazines before trying to sell his first novel in 1939. It was rejected 21 times before being accepted. Introduced Divided on Death, Halliday’s main character Michael Shayne was a tough, crime-solving private investigator. Unlike the standard PI novels at the time, Halliday’s books mixed black humor, sharp characters, and, best of all, an extremely well thought out plot.

Michael Shayne ended up being a major star, and Halliday would eventually publish a total of 77 novels, 300 short stories, a few films, and a comic book. The author loaned out his name to ghostwriters who took over the series in its later years.

Halliday still influences pop culture today. In 2005, the great Shane Black used part of the plot of Bodies Are Where You Find Them for his hit film “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” 

Halliday died in 1972, but we assume he’s taking revenge on the barbed wire that maimed him as a child Bryan Mills-style.

Enjoy some of our favorite Brett Halliday covers!

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Tough Guy Lit: John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee Series

By Sean Tuohy

Before “Miami Vice” brought Crockett and Tubbs to Miami there was another tough detective who called South Florida home. Travis McGee, the first detective of South Florida crime fiction, is a witty beach bum who lives on a houseboat (which he won in a card game) docked in Fort Lauderdale.

In the years before the Cocaine Cowboys and Flo Rida, South Florida was nothing more than a retirement heaven and beach getaway. John D. MacDonald, a former military spy, published Deep Blue Good-By in 1964 and made the area seem like a cool place to visit. He explored the beach of Fort Lauderdale, the swamps of the Everglades, and the rocky shoreline of the Keys.

McGee wasn’t a true detective, but a “salvage consultant” who would only work when he had to. McDonald gave McGee a deadly wit and brain unlike any other gumshoe in crime fiction. He also stands out because he wasn’t hardboiled. He works because his life style demands it.

McGee isn’t a bloodthirsty, gun-toting, mad dog trying to catch the bad guys. He’s just a smart fellow who enjoys entertaining women on his houseboat so much that he has to take cases to finance everything.

Simple.

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