About the Authors
BARBARA ALLAN
is a joint pseudonym of husband-and-wife mystery writers Barbara and Max Allan Collins.
BARBARA COLLINS is a highly respected short story writer in the mystery field, with appearances in over a dozen top anthologies, including Murder Most Delicious, Women on the Edge, Deadly Housewives, and the bestselling Cat Crimes series. She was the co-editor of (and a contributor to) the bestselling anthology Lethal Ladies, and her stories were selected for inclusion in the first three volumes of The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories.
Two acclaimed hardcover collections of her work have been published—Too Many Tomcats and (with her husband) Murder—His and Hers. The Collins’s first novel together, the Baby Boomer thriller Regeneration, was a paperback bestseller; their second collaborative novel, Bombshell—in which Marilyn Monroe saves the world from World War III—was published in hardcover to excellent reviews.
Barbara has been the production manager and / or line producer on various independent film projects emanating from the production company she and her husband jointly run.
MAX ALLAN COLLINS has been hailed as “the Renaissance man of mystery fiction.” He has earned an unprecedented sixteen Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations for his Nathan Heller historical thrillers, True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1991). The first Heller novel in ten years, Bye Bye, Baby, was published in 2011. His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie / TV tie-in novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Saving Private Ryan and the Scribe Award-winning American Gangster.
His graphic novel Road to Perdition, considered a classic of the form, is the basis of the Academy Award-winning film. Max’s other comics credits include the “Dick Tracy” syndicated strip; his own “Ms. Tree”; “Batman”; and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” based on the hit TV series, for which he has also written six video games and ten bestselling novels.
An acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker in the Midwest, he wrote and directed the Lifetime movie Mommy (1996) and three other features; his produced screenplays include the 1995 HBO World Premiere The Expert and The Last Lullaby (2008). His documentary Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane (1998 / updated 2011) appears on the Criterion Collection discs of acclaimed film noir, Kiss Me Deadly.
Max’s most recent novels include No One Will Hear You (written with Matthew V. Clemens) and Lady, Go Die! (completing an unfinished Mike Hammer novel from the late Mickey Spillane’s files).
“BARBARA ALLAN” live(s) in Muscatine, Iowa, their Serenity-esque hometown. Son Nathan graduated with honors in Japanese and computer science at the University of Iowa and works as a translator of Japanese to English, with credits ranging from video games to novels.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2012 by Max Allan Collins and Barbara Collins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011944938
ISBN: 978-0-7582-7952-1
Antiques Disposal Page 21
