Why does Heller tell us the brand names of his clothing all of the time? Did those companies pay the author to have them constantly repeated? Weird… And why are there so many names dropped in book two? Designer labels for book one, famous names for book two. The shift button must have been working overtime when this tale was typed out!

Book One is titled “Kansas City Shuffle”, in October of 1953. Book Two is five years later, and titled “St. Louis Blues”. Both are about the real life kidnapping of Bobby Greenlease, just a fictionalized account of it, based on facts. The first book is the kidnapping itself, and the second is Heller following the missing ransom money. It's a good story, and despite all of the proper noun name dropping, a decent read. I had never heard of this kidnapping before, so this was a new case for me! ( )

None better than MAC the king of historical mystery fiction! ( )

The Big Bundle is another must-read winner from Hard Case Crime. It’s a book that intrigues, confuses and puzzles you, but then leaves you completely satisfied, if shaking your head. It’s convoluted, complex, complicated – and utterly compelling. The dialogue, wordplay and locations are authentic and stunning, making you feel as if you are right in the middle of a classic noir movie. Our hero, former detective from Chicago and now private eye to the stars Nathan Heller, isn’t all that much of a hero, but he has a way about him and you can’t turn away. His world is dark and dangerous, with an edgy surprise always just around the corner and a connection to the underworld. Most of the people he knows aren’t very nice, including the politicians and government officials. When the story starts Nate has been hired to find a millionaire businessman’s son, an investigation that takes him across the country and reveals connections that would never have been imagined. A few years later he is again hired by that millionaire businessman, this time to find out who was behind the kidnapping. Same bad people, same connections, same danger.

I had never read a Nathan Heller story before, something I will remedy shortly. Excellent isn’t a good enough word. The Big Bundle is a mystery that goes on and twists around and comes back around. It just rolled along, so smooth, so well-plotted, so expertly written, I couldn’t wait to find out how it ended, but I didn’t want it to end. You get little inklings and all the hints are there for you, but you can’t quite get your arms around the mystery, the crime. But when it’s laid out for you it makes perfect sense. Real people and real history are seamlessly woven into the story, so much so that you might just stop and wonder if Nick Heller was a real guy you somehow forgot about from your history books. And even if the story is dark, the descriptions of people, places and things were vivid and often funny: laugh-out-loud funny, subtly funny, ironically funny.

I always want to read whatever new book Hard Case Crime publishes, and after finishing The Big Bundle I realized I wanted to read everything Max Allan Collins has written to date. Might take a while but definitely worth the time! He is a new-to-me author, which seemed amazing because after visiting his website I know I’ve watched or listened to or read so many things he created or had a hand in. There is a bonus “I Owe Them One” section listing the true life references for this story and it is as fascinating as the book itself.

I was sent a free book and am voluntarily leaving this honest review. I cannot recommend it highly enough and all opinions are my own. ( )