Reading List
Max Allan Collins
Novelist and Comics Writer
Max Allan Collins wrote the graphic novel Road to Perdition, adapted into the Sam Mendes film, and has produced more than a hundred books besides, including the Nathan Heller historical detective series and the Dick Tracy newspaper strip for fifteen years. Mickey Spillane named him his literary executor, and Collins has completed a long run of Mike Hammer novels from Spillane’s unfinished manuscripts. He knows the private-eye canon as a working practitioner rather than a fan.
01
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
The Golden Spiders
by Rex Stout · 1953 · Fiction
“the master of combining the traditional mystery and its hard-boiled rival” — via Article
02
Amazon ↗
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
by Horace McCoy · 1948 · Fiction
“The literate, even brilliant Cotter is a compelling stylist, which makes his amoral actions all the more terrifying.” — via Article
03
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
The Postman Always Rings Twice
by James M. Cain · 1934 · Fiction
“Cain examines the lines between lust and love, and greed and murder, and does so while creating a lean prose style second to none.” — via Article
04
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
One Lonely Night
by Mickey Spillane · 1951 · Fiction
“Spillane and his private eye Mike Hammer are at their most outrageous here, the noir poetry at its most musical” — via Article
05
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
Farewell, My Lovely
by Raymond Chandler · 1940 · Fiction
“Much of what followed in the genre drew (and draws) upon this novel.” — via Article
06
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett · 1930 · Fiction
“This one is a crackling read, with prose as spare and well-minted as anything Hemingway ever did.” — via Article