Triple Play: A Nathan Heller Casebook (A Nathan Heller Novel)

I had previously read and reviewed Collins's "Chicago Lightning" which was a larger volume of Nate Heller detective stories. They weren't terrible, though not as great as Hammett or Chandler of course. "Triple Play" provides three more stories that again are just OK.

The first story is also the longest. It's 1947 and Heller has recently returned to Chicago from a stint in the Marines, where he was discharged after Guadalcanal. He gets a call from a man named Bob Keenan who says his six-year-old daughter has been kidnapped.

Soon though Heller finds out the girl is dead. There's a note left in lipstick saying "Stop Me Before I Kill Again." This is the signature of the infamous Lipstick Killer.

From there Heller goes out to find the Lipstick Killer. As often seems to be the case in these Nate Heller stories, it's pretty easy to find the killer. Except there's a twist: he may not have done it alone! Then another twist: he may not have done it at all! Then another twist and another twist. Oy, I'm starting to feel like a pretzel. I kept wondering why the story hadn't wrapped up yet and then another twist would be revealed. It did get kind of annoying, to the point where I sighed and said, "Could we just end this thing, please?"

The second story features something that annoyed me with the previous Heller anthology: shameless namedropping. In this case it's a big one: Marilyn Monroe. Heller gets assigned by famed screenwriter Ben Hecht (one of Hitchcock's favorite collaborators) to bodyguard Marilyn to a charity poetry thing. Monroe has nothing to do with the actual story. Instead, it's about the murder of a poet friend of Hecht's who's down on his luck.

Like pretty much every other Marilyn Monroe thing out there from "Candle in the Wind" to the recent movie starring Michelle Williams as the movie star, Marilyn is described as beautiful and a deeper and more tortured soul than we might have thought. Which as I said has pretty much become a cliche. Can anyone come up with something else to say about her?

The case is wrapped up pretty easily, this time without any twists.

The final story again involves some name-dropping, though they aren't familiar names unless you're a baseball fan. In 1951 Cleveland Browns owner Bill Veeck came out with a great publicity stunt when he hired a midget named Eddie to pinch hit. At only 3-foot-6, Eddie had no strike zone to speak of and was walked on four straight pitches. Soon after that game baseball banned midgets from participating.

Anyway, years later Eddie turns up dead and Veeck asks Heller to look into it. And again it's wrapped up pretty easily.

I guess in the final analysis the stories are interesting, but I hate all the namedropping and I'd really like it to be more of a challenge to find out who did it. Though not by just piling on one twist after another at the end. I mean come on, make it harder to find the guy in the first place. Chicago is a big city; it shouldn't be so easy to find one person.

Anyway, if you're into old-fashioned private detective novels these aren't bad. They aren't great either.

That is all.

Nathan Heller is the Forrest Gump of private investigators. If there was major crime from the 1930s to the 1960s, he was involved. All of his cases have been chronicled in novels, from the Lindberg baby kidnapping to Marylin Monroe's suicide/murder. In this collection of one novella and two short stories, Heller is involved in some minor cases, including the Lipstick Killer of the late 1940s. The second is based on true events, the murder of beatnik poet Maxwell Bodenheim. This story is good because of the appearance of Marilyn Monroe. The final story involves the death of midget Eddie Gadeal, the famous midget that Bill Veeck sent to bat in the 1950s.

These stories are entertaining, but not really worth buying. They are all reprints, so nothing original hear. Still, it is nice to have the stories available that would be next to impossible to find otherwise.

Had a fine time reading these three shorter Heller tales, more than a short story, less than a novel.

DYING IN THE POST-WAR WORLD finds Heller with preobelms in his marriage, getting A-1 going again after a stretch during WWII, and smack in the middle of "The Lipstick Killer" case.

KISSES OF DEATH starts with Heller's first meeting Marilyn Monroe, working as her bodyguard(nice duty), and eventually looking into the murders of poet,novelist Maxwell Bodenheim and his young wife.

In STRIKE ZONE, Heller looks into the death of Eddie Gaedel, the midget he brought to bat in a 1951 major league game as a publicity stunt. Eddie's mother believed it murder despite police claims he died in his sleep.

A fine set of tales and that easy style of writing Collins has.

This three story collection of old fashioned detective stories is out of my wheelhouse but is certainly enjoyable and readable. The author throws in plenty of cultural references and notables along with nods to famous and infamous true murder mysteries of the era to keep all three stories moving at the speed of a .38 bullet heading towards a mob thug. Even if you aren't familiar with the cases and people mentioned (I'm somewhat of a crime nerd) the author gives a great forward which explains the genre and the basis for the short stories.

I'm supposing the main character, a former cop turned private eye named Nathan Heller, is a stereotype, but he's engaging enough. The stories rocket along with plenty of tension and humor and a little violence to hold them together. The latter is not too graphic, but graphic enough to elicit a grimace or two from me.

A good poolside read for anyone wanting to step back in time a bit and enjoy some name dropping with their hard drinking and thugs.

Triple Play brings back into print three Heller short novels previously published which I have not read before. Collins is an expert at these stories and Heller is an everlasting character who is always welcome in the library. There is an excellent discussion by Collins about the demise of the short story, pulp magazines, etc. These novellas were considered too short for a full novel and they are fine reads on their own.

The three novelettes that comprise this book have all been collected before, but those previous case books can be hard track down now.

Fun little book... during the course of the three stories here, you'll learn about some fascinating but lesser known historical, literary, and sports figures and the notable events surrounding them, all while enjoying some decent crime stories. The protagonist in all three stories is P.I. Nate Heller, who author Collins usually features in novels. Collins' Heller stories always feature real-life crimes with lingering questions, questions that Heller ultimately puts to rest. The Heller novels tend to involve cases that everyone has heard about, while the shorter pieces (like the three collected here) usually focus on true but not quite as famous cases.

A quick aside: Though the author himself realizes that having Heller at the center of so many famous investigations (including, to date, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, and the Kennedy assassination) is a bit far-fetched, when you're actually reading the stories, it's surprisingly east to suspend disbelief. Heller is a P.I. to the stars, after all. So, if you enjoy this book's little dose of the Heller formula, you'll probably enjoy the novels, too.

All three stories here are good, with my favorites being the one about the dwarf baseball player (I never realized that professional baseball once flirted with the gimmickry of pro wrestling) and the smelly, shabby Greenwich Village poet who amazingly counts Marilyn Monroe as a fan. The serial killer story isn't bad, either-- I just enjoyed the offbeat premises of the other stories more. Anyway, if you think you'd enjoy stories that deliver both well-crafted fiction and a well-crafted "true crime" vibe, give "Triple Play" a look.

Always been a big fan of Collins from his Dick Tracy days as well as Road to Perdition. Unfortunately, besides these short stories, I have only read the first Nathan Heller book, True Detective. However, one does not need to be too familiar with the previous volumes to enjoy these short stories scattered throughout Heller's career. Looking for some short crime noir type adventures? This volume will be your friend. :)

If you are a fan of noir novels like "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Big Sleep", you'll love this. Nathan Heller reminds me a lot of the old-time private eye from the black and white movies, and Collins' writing style is very reminiscent of that. With three novellas, it's easy to fly through this book quickly and not get bored as each story moves along quickly.

Collins is a great author. The Nathan Heller series are terrific. Nothing like a great book on a cold winter day.