The Nolan series by Max Allan Collins, part I–Not Quite Parker review and guest post

One thing I haven’t done a terribly good job of is covering the various Parker pastiches, homages, tributes, and rip-offs. (I’ll try to do better, I swear!) Fortunately, in the case of Max Allan Collins’ Nolan novels, someone has stepped up to the plate to provide the coverage that I haven’t. That person is […]

Charles Kelly on Dan J. Marlowe

Just a quick link, really, prompted by Violent World of Parker supremo Trent, who drew my attention to an article at the Los Angeles Review of Books, which Trent tweeted about earlier (also linked by The Rap Sheet the other day). It’s a great piece on hard-boiled crime writer Dan J. Marlowe—the […]

Dan J. Marlowe and Earl Drake, 5: collecting the Man with Nobody’s Face, inc. bibliography

(NB: An expanded version of this post, with additional images, can be found on Existential Ennui.)

For Part 1, go here; for Part 2, here; for Part 3, here; and for Part 4, go here.

Dan J. Marlowe‘s final Earl Drake espionage adventure, Operation Counterpunch, appeared in 1976, by which point the […]

Dan J. Marlowe and Earl Drake, 4: the Richard Stark and Parker of spy fiction

(NB: This post also appears on Existential Ennui.)

For Part 1, go here; for Part 2, go here; for Part 3, go here.

Much as Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake had done in his eighth Parker novel, The Handle (Pocket Books, 1966), with the third Earl Drake thriller, Operation Fireball (1969), Dan J. […]

Dan J. Marlowe and Earl Drake, 3: Operation Fireball; from crime thrillers to spy thrillers

(NB: This post also appears on Existential Ennui.)

For Part 1, go here; for Part 2, go here.

The same year as the sophomore Earl Drake adventure, One Endless Hour, appeared, the third Drake outing also hit. And it was here that the template for the remainder of the series began to be established […]

Dan J. Marlowe and Earl Drake, 2: One Endless Hour (alias Operation Endless Hour)

(NB: This post also appears on Existential Ennui.)

For Part 1, go here.

Seven years after ruthless career criminal (and Parker parallel) Earl Drake made his debut in Dan J. Marlowe‘s violent, twisted The Name of the Game is Death (Gold Medal, 1962), Drake returned to print in a new full-length novel. […]

Dan J. Marlowe and Earl Drake, 1: The Name of the Game is Death (alias Operation Overkill)

(NB: This post also appears on Existential Ennui.)

In 1962, one of America’s leading genre publishers issued a paperback original by an author who’d only been a novelist a few years, but already had a handful of successful, critically praised crime works under his belt. Starring a violent career criminal who operates under various […]