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Title: Deadly Beloved (Hard Case Crime)
ISBN: 0843957786
Author:
Max Allan Collins
Publicate Date: 2007-11-27
Publish: 2007-11-27
List Price: $6.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.26
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.18
Amazon Merchant Price: $5.92
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Hard-Bitten Heroine with a Softer Side
Ms. Michael Tree is a tough, yet believable heroine base on Mikey Spillane's Velda. This is an outstanding example of a mistakenly derided genre. The characters aren't as one-dimensional as some other reviewers have claimed; this is a modernized crime noir novel, not War and Peace. The language is also what readers expect from Hard Case Crime. This novel delivers the goods.
I'm impressed by the unusual plot device with Ms.Tree on the psychiatrist's couch and the action moving back and forth between her remembered experience and the present. Also impressive is the author's mastery of the female first person point of view replete with fashion references.
Even though I loved and am certainly recommending the novel, I'm deducting 1 star for the ending. It seems too phoney and contrived. Maybe the author was trying to stay with old-fashioned cliches, but I didn't like it in this fresh take on an old branch of literature.
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2: Ms. Tree as told by Max Allan Collins is always great
I started reading Ms. Tree during her comic days at DC. That got me searching for back issues from her previous adventures in earlier comics published by Renegade, First, Eclipse, and Aardvark-Vanaheim.
Fresh stories in book form are welcome. This one retells the origin of Ms. Tree with some changes, but it works out great. And in a Hard Case Crime version, you get a much more adult version of Ms. Tree where language and actions can expand beyond the limits of Comics. She has always been tough in all her incarnations but now we get the a more real life version.
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3: Ms. Tree Returns With a Vengeance!
I've been a fan of Max Allan Collins's writing for more than years than I can remember and Ms. Tree was, I thought, one of his best creations. So it was treat to see her appear in novel form for the first time.
Essentially a female Mike Hammer, Tree is as tough as they come. In this novel, something of an origin tale, she ups the ante big time. Within the framework of the traditional film noir flashback concept, she tells us her tale of woe. Which is really a tale Whoa! Her husband and P.I. partner murdered on their wedding day, a woman accused of murdering her husband and his lover and a colorful cast of characters... Deadly Beloved is an engaging read.
Twists and turns abound and Collins handles them well. A slight comic (as in comic books) touch is added to one method of murder which is only fitting as the character of Ms. Tree began as a comic series.
But even with the great plot, it's Tree herself that makes this book a winner. She is tough, smart, capable and can take whatever the world is dishing out. And Collins paints her just right so she seems real.
This is a great book. Simple as that.
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4: Terrific prose debut for Ms. Tree
Any new Max Allan Collins novel is cause for celebration, especially one from Hard Case Crime, because they are revisiting his best characters from his earlier days. First, they reprinted the first two novels Collins ever published (featuring professional thief Nolan) in Two for the Money. The next year saw the telling of his professional hitman Quarry's "final" story in The Last Quarry, which was based in part on the short film "A Matter of Principal" (available in the DVD set Max Allan Collins's Black Box).
His latest, Deadly Beloved, features yet another celebrated return, that of Ms. Michael Tree. What most people don't know is that Collins (along with artist Terry Beatty) is responsible for the longest-running private investigator comic book series. That it featured a female P.I. was even more ground-breaking, as Ms. Tree originated in 1980, before Sara Paretsky or Sue Grafton came to fame with their girl gumshoes.
Deadly Beloved is the first all-prose novel to star Ms. Michael Tree, and it features cover art by Beatty in a nice combination of the usual Hard Case Crime motif and Beatty's own comic style (Ms. Tree's features have been softened considerably, for one thing). Ms. Tree has appeared in short stories -- most notably "Inconvenience Store," which was adapted into the indie film Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market with Collins himself directing (it is also available in the Black Box DVD set) -- but this is her first long-form appearance.
Comics have been a large part of Collins's career: he wrote the daily Dick Tracy strip for fifteen years, and even Road to Perdition started out as a graphic novel. This is simply a warning for those who may be put off by the comic book-style character names in Deadly Beloved. They aren't quite Chester Gould-quality puns, but they're close. (If the Ms. Tree/mystery pun doesn't make you groan, you'll probably be fine.)
Past fans of the character and her adventures will notice immediately that a good portion of the backstory that originally served as the impetus for Ms. Tree's exploits has been changed to suit this brand-new story, the murder of a philandering accountant by his jealous wife. But those coming to Deadly Beloved with little foreknowledge are in for a surprise: Ms. Tree is a hard-boiled woman with a heart as dark as any male private eye they've come into contact with before. Not the shy, retiring type, she has no compunctions against putting a bullet into anyone who gets in her way. Fans of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series (Collins is a highly vocal fan) will find a kindred soul in Ms. Tree.
The only real downside in Deadly Beloved is in the way the story is told. Its visually related origins are very apparent, especially in the use of the "telling her story to her therapist" conceit, which is usually only successful in comics or movies. Collins makes it work for the most part, but the jumping back and forth from the actual story to the "outer" conversation was jarring. Still, Collins has included some of his leanest prose yet in Deadly Beloved -- I guess writing for those little boxes has made him an expert at picking his words carefully for the greatest impact -- and I look forward to more adventures from both Collins and Tree.
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5: For hard core pulp and graphic novel fans only
Max Collins has written a lot of interesting books with broad based appeal. This is a Max Collins book with a narrow appeal, which will delight his fan base, but leave many of his other readers scratching their heads about what the fuss was about.
As some of the other reviewers detail, this is about a very tough female P.I. Its genesis is from a graphic novel about Ms. Tree. So, that narrows down quite a bit where this book ought to go and if you like the premise, this book is for you.
To his credit, the narrative moves back and forth in time and how Collins does this turns out to be an essential part of the story, and it is well done indeed. He certainly channels the Spillane of 'My Gun is Quick' or 'I, The Jury' quite well.
However, one never really quite gets away from the fact this spawned from a graphic novel. Many of the villains and semi-villains are more cardboard cut-outs than any sort of real character. Ms. Tree is certainly well wrought as the distaff side of Mike Hammer, but the motivations of almost all the other characters are never spoken to. They're foils for the plot.
I'm a big fan of the hard Case Crime series. I have no problem with them publishing a work like this, but I agree with one of the the other reviewers, these books are usually better than this.
BTW, Max Collins has done a wonderful series of books about a private eye named Nate Heller who gets involved in all sorts of famous historical events and people. I HIGHLY recommend those books. Save this one for if you're still hungry for more after going through them.
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