Since he first appeared on the literary scene in True Detective, hardboiled Chicago PI Nathan Heller has tackled some of the toughest cases the Windy City has to offer. Now the gumshoe returns in Triple Play: A Nathan Heller Casebook, a gripping collection based on real cases of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s.In Dying in the Post-War World, Heller returns from combat to find his marriage a shambles and himself square in the middle of the notorious Lipstick Killer case of 1946. Kisses of Death follows the PI into the 1950s, when he is hired to guard Marilyn Monroe. The famous starlet’s intellectual pursuits eventually lead to Greenwich Village and the grisly murder of an early beatnik. And in Strike Zone, Heller is hired by baseball boss Bill Veeck to investigate the 1961 murder of a famous pinch hitter whose private life will pull Nate into a dangerous new world of little people and big sins.Heller’s trademark cynicism and knack for keen social observation are on full display in this trio of short novels, offering a gritty insider’s look at some of the twentieth century’s most shocking crimes.

Product Description: In the mob-choked Chicago of 1932, private detective Nathan Heller may be willing to risk his life to earn a Depression dollar, but he never sacrifices his sardonic wit. Now, author Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition) reissues the contemporary classic that introduces the wise-cracking Nathan Heller in all his guts and glory...read more

Product Description: Marilyn Monroe, the ultimate goddess of the silver screen, is at the peak of her popularity, internationally famous, universally admired by women and desired by men. But she’s also famously insecure and temperamental and is being pilloried in the press for delaying the production of Something’s Got to Give...read more

Product Description: In July 1943, Nate Heller flies to Nassau where multimillionaire Sir Harry Oakes wants dirt dug up on Count De Marigny, the playboy who has married Harry’s beautiful, underage daughter, Nancy. But the investigation has barely begun when Sir Harry turns up dead in bed ― burned to death in a real-life locked-room mystery ― and Heller is soon working for Nancy, whose husband faces murder charges...read more

1963. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is a lightning rod for public opinion. The handsome, youthful leader, who is prepared to take America into a brighter future, earns love from cheering crowds. But those who oppose his political agenda ― including some who consider themselves betrayed by the Kennedy clan ― dare to think the unthinkable: kill an American president. Nathan Heller is Chicago’s most celebrated private detective, hobnobbing with Hugh Hefner, getting written up in Life magazine, enjoying the fruits of a long career that began in a one-room office and now is a coast-to-coast agency. When he does a small favor for a friend ― who handles PR for the Teamsters ― Heller runs into an old West Side mob crony, a small-time hustler named Jack Ruby. And when that friend is found dead, warning signals start to flash. Suddenly Jimmy Hoffa wants to talk to Nate . . . and so does Hoffa’s arch enemy, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Back in ’61, Heller acted as the reluctant matchmaker in the ungodly marriage between the Mob and the CIA that created the ill-fated, JFK-sanctioned plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Now JFK is coming to Chicago and Cuban assassins have been reported in the Windy City. RFK appoints Heller as a “consultant” to the local Secret Service, knowing that Nate understands why conspirators might well target the man code-named “Lancer.” It’s a big job for a PI. But with a murder to avenge and a mystery to solve, Heller’s up for the challenge. Rigorously researched, fleshing out a little-known but vital piece of the JFK assassination puzzle, Target Lancer is charged with the electric suspense of real events, and is far more truth than fiction.

Los Angeles. The City of Angels. The perfect place for a honeymoon…and the worst possible time for a murder. Vacationing private investigator Nate Heller finds himself a suspect in the LAPD’s investigation of the notorious Black Dahlia murder case. Problem is the butchered starlet, Elizabeth Short, is an old Chicago flame of Heller’s — and only the P.I. himself knows she was blackmailing him for abortion money. Classic noir at its finest blended to extraordinary effect with historical facts, Max Allan Collins’ Angel in Black crackles with tight plotting and razor-sharp dialogue. With the help of a world-weary, alcoholic Eliot Ness, Heller links the murder to a notorious Cleveland serial killer...while doing his best to stay out of jail and salvage his already troubled new marriage. Along the way he encounters Chicago boxer Barney Ross, fellow suspect Orson Welles, and zany gangster Mickey Cohen. “The characters, historical and fictional, come delightfully to life... Collins paints a web of interconnections in a tightly woven plot and posits a radical solution to a crime that still resonates in literature and movies.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Product Description: In 1931, Nate Heller—on a leave of absence from the Chicago P.D.—goes to Hawaii to work as an investigator for family friend Clarence Darrow. One of five Honolulu natives accused of the rape of recent bride Thalia Massie has been murdered; facing murder charges are Thalia’s naval officer husband and her socialite mother...read more

1934 Chicago dazzles with fast action and calculating, cold-blooded meanness as private detective Nate Heller combs Chicago’s North Side looking for John Dillinger. But things take a turn for the strange when self-aggrandizing G-Man Melvin Purvis shoots down a Dillinger double in front of the Biograph Theater. Full of muscle and oozing Chicago’s tough-guy persona to the hilt, Max Allan Collins’ Nate Heller is the ultimate private investigator―in the ultimate P.I. town. Heller’s undercover search for a farmer’s-daughter-turned-gun-moll has him on the dusty Depression backroads of middle America, in the company of Ma Barker and her boys, Baby Face Nelson, Alvin Karpis, and a very-much-still-alive Dillinger―whose outlandish plan to kidnap J. Edgar Hoover in downtown Chicago is one Heller tries to foil. Including appearances by fan dancer Sally Rand, boxer Barney Ross, and Heller's “godfather,” Frank Nitti, True Crime is a relentless classic.

Product Description: In 1946 Chicago, Nathan Heller―president of the flourishing A-1 Detective Agency―is hired to protect racing-wire gambling chief James Ragen, who is nonetheless shot down on the streets of Chicago. Not one to take such an affront sitting down, Nate goes after the killer, but he’s in for the biggest surprise of his career...read more

Nate Heller, an honest young plainclothes cop on the corrupt Chicago police force, turns in his badge and becomes a private detective, only to find himself entangled with such varied characters as Al Capone and President Franklin Roosevelt

Long before November 22, 1963, Nathan Heller, "P.I. to the Stars," knows that a conspiracy is in the works. Several years earlier, Heller had been involved with the Kennedys, the Mob, and the CIA in the early stages of a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. Shortly after, Heller's Mafia contact is murdered. After being interrogated by gangsters and contacted by U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Heller realizes that he may be the one person who can prevent a devastating political assassination. Only he knows all the players; only he knows why a web of conspirators has targeted the man known to the Secret Service as "Lancer," John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Rigorously researched, Max Allan Collins's Target Lancer is far more truth than fiction.

Product Description: 1963. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is a lightning rod for public opinion. The handsome, youthful leader, who is prepared to take America into a brighter future, earns love from cheering crowds. But those who oppose his political agenda ― including some who consider themselves betrayed by the Kennedy clan ― dare to think the unthinkable: kill an American president...read more

Product Description: 1963. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is a lightning rod for public opinion. The handsome, youthful leader, who is prepared to take America into a brighter future, earns love from cheering crowds. But those who oppose his political agenda ― including some who consider themselves betrayed by the Kennedy clan ― dare to think the unthinkable: kill an American president...read more

Product Description: It's 1962, and Twentieth Century Fox is threatening to fire Marilyn Monroe. The blond goddess hires Nate Heller, private eye to the stars, to tap her phone so she will have a record of their calls in case they take her to court. When Heller starts listening, he uncovers far more than nasty conversations...read more

Product Description: Since he first appeared on the literary scene in True Detective, hardboiled Chicago PI Nathan Heller has tackled some of the toughest cases the Windy City has to offer. Now the gumshoe returns in Triple Play: A Nathan Heller Casebook, a gripping collection based on real cases of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s...read more

While the nation is gripped by the 'Red Scare,' Nathan Heller makes a trip to Roswell, New Mexico, to follow up his investigation into a series of bizarre reports on UFO landings. Reprint.

Product Description: On leave from the Chicago police department, Nate Heller goes to Hawaii to help family friend Clarence Darrow by investigating the rape and murder of a bride only to uncover a morass of bigotry, lies, and revenge.

In Los Angeles to help launch a West Coast branch of his detective agency, Chicago private detective Nathan Heller becomes caught up in the notorious Black Dahlia homicide when he discovers that the victim, Elizabeth Short, is a young woman whom he had known in Chicago and who had contacted him shortly before her death. Reprint.

Nathan Heller is hired to protect Amelia Earhart after she begins receiving threatening letters, but is unable to travel with her during her flights, thus after her mysterious disappearance, Nathan sets out to find out what happened to her. 15,000 first printing. Mystery Guild Alt.