Neon Mirage, Max Allan Collins
Neon Mirage, Max Allan Collins
List: $35.99 | Sale: $25.20
Club: $17.99

Neon Mirage

Author: Max Allan Collins

Narrator: Dan John Miller

Unabridged: 8 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 11/08/2011


Synopsis

In 1946 Chicago, Nathan Heller—president of the flourishing A-1 Detective Agency—is hired to protect racing-wire gambling chief James Ragen, who is nonetheless shot down on the streets of Chicago. Not one to take such an affront sitting down, Nate goes after the killer, but he’s in for the biggest surprise of his career.Demonstrating once again that he is the master of true-crime fiction, Max Allan Collins’ story of the birth of Las Vegas—and the dirty deeds that floated all around it—is a masterpiece of modern noir. Heller follows the trail as it leads to Hollywood and Las Vegas, specifically to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, but when he proves Siegel’s innocence, Heller and the suave gangster wind up friends…and rivals for the love of Nate’s life. Bugsy hires Heller as security chief of the under-construction Flamingo hotel, where mob bag woman Virginia Hill is a dangerous, if glamorous, distraction. It all comes to a boil with a shocking mob assassination in Beverly Hills that sends Heller into a fever-dream ride of vengeance.

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 Johnny on September 21, 2018

Neon Mirage is, as most of Max Allan Collins’ thrillers featuring Nate Heller, intriguing historical fiction—judged improbable by some, but meticulously researched enough to offering an interesting hypothesis on how events “went down.” Sometimes, I am drawn to his novels by the historical situation.......more

Goodreads review by Art on February 01, 2014

Three of my favorites genres intersect in the Nate Heller series: mystery, historical fiction and a touch of alternate history. The series makes its way from Prohibition Chicago (with Ness, Capone and Nitti) to the JFK assassination. It's clever, well-written and grounded in fact. This time around,......more

Goodreads review by Mark on March 19, 2023

The fourth in Max Allan Collins’ Nate Heller series…Collins and his family are diligent in their research into their forays into historical fiction and they are spit on here in “Neon Mirage,” the story of the rise of Bugsy Siegel’s desert dream for Las Vegas…The mobster history, as well the tone and......more

Goodreads review by Charlie on May 21, 2019

More of a historical than a PI or mystery novel, but it keeps you guessing as to the inevitable once you figure out the setup. I'm unclear about the resolution of the story and the significance of a major historical figure who I don't recall being present to that point.......more

It's been less than two months since I finished Collins' "Nitti trilogy." I didn't stay away long from following the further adventures of Nate Heller, P.I. Why? Because Collins is a writer who has all the skills and knows how to use them, even in what is probably the longest running noir tribute to......more