Who is Nate Heller? Well, Collins would have us believe that he is a fictional figure, but anyone who has read any of the Nate Heller books and seen the detail and historical scope of Heller’s life knows better. Heller has been around. He is a private eye who exists in a historical context, hobnobbing with Frank Nitti and Eliot Ness, bodyguarding the century’s most amazing bombshells, including Marilyn, solving the Lindbergh kidnapping, shedding light on what really must have happened on the grassy knoll.

In “Kisses of Death,” Collins presents the reader with an assortment of short stories or novelletes involving Nathan Heller in all kinds of situations. It is a terrific collection and only suffers in comparison to the full-length Heller novels which build a world of such detail and historical fact that it is hard to imagine Heller was not involved in all these situations with all these people.
Here, we are provided with the novellete, “Kisses of Death,” the story of the Bodenheim murders, in which Heller first meets Marilyn Monroe, providing a glimpse into later full-length novels about Marilyn, “Bye, Bye, Baby” and “Bombshell” (not a Heller book). Meeting Marilyn, Heller “felt like a school boy, tongue thick, hands awkward, . . . .” The descriptions given of her are terrific: “her complexion luminously, palely perfect, a glorious collaboration between God and Max Factor.” This story shows all sides of Marilyn, from the movie star to the vulnerable, poetry-loving, literature-idolizing girl who eventually married Arthur Miller, to the girl who goes on a blind date with a ballplayer she never heard of, to the ever-present aroma of her “Chanel Number Five.” When she steps out of the elevator, she is “a vision of twentieth-century womanhood.”

Another great story in this collection is “The Perfect Crime,” which recounts the mystery of Thelma Todd’s death. She was apparently the Monroe of an earlier generation of silent film stars. Again, the descriptions that Collins gives really flavor this story. For instance, as Heller drives down the Pacific Coast Highway, the yachts looked like child’s toys and he felt as if he could reach out for one, “pluck, and examine it, sniff it maybe, like King Kong checking out Fay Wray’s lingerie.” As for Ms. Todd herself, “She was a big blonde woman with more curves than the highway out front and just the right number of hills and valleys.” When he meets her, Heller thinks “she was so pretty you didn’t know where to look next, and felt like there was maybe something wrong with looking anywhere.” Although the Monroe story takes place in Chicago and New York, this story is classic Hollywood, old Hollywood when movie stars were really stars.

But, this volume is not just about Heller hobnobbing with the stars. Here, we also have him hunting criminals with Eliot Ness in “Natural Death, Inc,” doing favors for Frank Nitti in “Screwball,” and getting shot at while palling around with hood Mickey Cohen in “Shoot-Out on Sunset.” This is a Mickey Cohen, who is flanked on either side by Johnny Stampanato and hook-nosed Frank Niccoli. Mickey himself is described as having “thinning black hair” that was “combed close to his egg-shelled skull” and it is said that the “pint-sized gangster resembled a bull terrier.”

From gangsters to movie stars to crimestoppers, here is a taste of Nathan Heller’s imaginary life that is a worthwhile read for both those who are unfamiliar with Heller, just wanting to dip their toes in, and those who are busy gobbling up the lengthy novels about his adventures. Well done. ( )