Chicago Lightning, Max Allan Collins
Chicago Lightning, Max Allan Collins
List: $14.99 | Sale: $10.50
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Chicago Lightning
The Collected Nathan Heller Short Stories

Author: Max Allan Collins

Narrator: Dan John Miller

Unabridged: 10 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 10/04/2011


Synopsis

Tough, cynical, and clever, Nathan Heller has been called “the perfect private eye,” the best investigator that Chicago (where ‘lightning’ means gunfire) has to offer. Created by New York Times bestselling novelist and Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins, the classic P.I. comes vibrantly to life in this collection of thirteen stories, all based on real cases of the 1930s and ‘40s. In “The Blonde Tigress,” Heller encounters a vicious hold-up crew with a brutal female leader, while in “Scrap” he investigates a union shooting that has national implications. In “The Perfect Crime” he goes Hollywood to protect the lovely Thelma Todd, with tragic results. The private eye finds himself tangling with notorious mobster Mickey Cohen in a “Shoot-out On Sunset” and with Al Capone’s successor, Frank Nitti, in “Screwball.” Heller’s friendship with Eliot Ness finds the two men working together in both “The Strawberry Teardrop,” in which Heller encounters America’s first serial killer, and “Natural Death, Inc.” Heller tackles each case with his trademark cynicism and humor, digging into the grimy underbelly of twentieth-century America to uncover the truth at any cost.

About Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins has earned fifteen Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations, winning for his Nathan Heller novels, True Detective and Stolen Away, and receiving the PWA life achievement award, the Eye. His graphic novel, Road to Perdition, which is the basis of the Academy Award–winning film starring Tom Hanks, was followed by two novels, Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise. His suspense series include Quarry, Nolan, Mallory, and Eliot Ness, and his numerous comics credits include the syndicated Dick Tracy and his own Ms. Tree. He has written and directed four feature films and two documentaries. His other produced screenplays include “The Expert,” an HBO World Premiere. His coffee-table book The History of Mystery received nominations for every major mystery award and Men’s Adventure Magazines won the Anthony Award. Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins. They have collaborated on seven novels and numerous short stories, and are currently writing the “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mysteries.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Glen on December 16, 2022

A collection of stories set in the 1930's and 40's about various real historical cases that Nathan Heller becomes involved in and solves. Pretty good. Even though there were many of them, they never really felt repetitive.......more

Collins offers a unique blend of true crime and hard-boiled detective. His P.I., Nate Heller, is based in Chicago during the 1930s and 1940s. The cases are as realistic as the settings and Collins gets it all right. The short story format makes for fast-paced action rather than character development......more

Goodreads review by Howard on August 12, 2024

Thirteen Nate Heller short stories,from Max Allan Collins. About half of these stories appeared in the earlier collection Dying in the post war World. All are fact based, and since many take place in Chicago, although before I was born, I always enjoy recognizing the accurately portrayed locations.......more

Goodreads review by Victor on March 08, 2012

I enjoyed these short, classic-style detective stories, but not as much as the original Nate Heller novel, True Detective. Like the novel, the stories are set in the 1930s and 1940s, mostly in Chicago. A few are set California, among the movie stars and mob figures of the day. The stories are sexier......more

Goodreads review by Rob on January 23, 2016

Max Allan Collins' CHICAGO LIGHTNING is a great collection of short stories surrounding the author's Private Eye hero, Nathan Heller. No stranger to crime drama (the author wrote the graphic novel ROAD TO PERDITION, which eventually became a movie starring Tom Hanks), Collins easily captures the moo......more