The blurb on the front
cover, for once, says it all. 'November 1963, and they're going to
kill JFK...in Chicago'
It's been thirty years
since the first Nate Heller novel, but in an afterword Max Allan
Collins says he'd always intended to have Heller 'delve into' the JFK
assassination. But before he can deal with Dallas, Collins first
realised that the abortive attempt on Kennedy, who was supposed to
attend the Army-Air Force football game at Soldier Field in Chicago,
gave a natural point of entry for Heller—whose long time connection
to the mob was established in his early days as a PI in Chicago. As
was his relationship to Jake Rubenstein (aka Jack Ruby).
Collins had set the
scene neatly in some of the 13 earlier Heller novels, establishing
his connections with the Kennedys, Jimmy Hoffa, and mobsters like
Johnny Roselli—making Heller the perfect go-between for Operation
Mongoose, the CIA/Mafia plot to kill Fidel Castro, which for better
or worse is tied into the JFK killing. And in Target Lancer,
Collins blends in real characters with fictional stand-ins and
composites. The result is a very believable fictionalisation of a
story told by a black Secret Service agent, Abraham Bolden, who spent
years in jail as a result. If you've followed Irresistible Targets
you'll know the Chicago plot was an important part of James Douglass'
JFK: And The Unspeakable (see the review here), and it was one
of Max's sources. The Chicago plot is instructive, and chilling, in
that it was a virtual carbon-copy of the shooting in Dallas.
But he's turned it into
a good story, full of confrontations that seem to ask repeatedly
exactly on which side of the street Heller wants to stand. This has
always been the most interesting part of his character, the ambiguity
which Collins has built into him, which has enabled him to move in
and out of so many key crimes in the past century. Many key beds as
well, and Sally Rand, another of Nate's old Chicago friends, makes
another welcome appearance here. It's a different kind of
confrontation—but I really like the way this story moves through a
series of scenes which speak of controlled violence, and then a
couple of set pieces which bring real violence to the fore. This
Heller would make an easy transition to the screen and I'd love to
see that, not just because it appears Max and I are on the same page
in terms of the JFK killing.
Target Lancer by Max
Allan Collins
Forge $7.99 ISBN
9780765361479
Note: This review will also appear at Crime Time (www.crimetime.co.uk)
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