BARBARA & MAX ALLAN COLLINS – Bombshell. Five Star, hardcover, 2004; trade paperback, 2005.

   Did you ever hear the story of how Marilyn Monroe saved Nikita Khrushchev’s life while he was making his famous visit to the US in 1959? Me neither, so either (a) it was hushed up really, really well, or (b) could it be? – in this, their latest venture into historical mystery fiction, the Collinses are completely making it all up.

   As a matter of fact, it was in September of that year when I left home for college for the first time, and given that as an understandably overwhelming distraction, I simply did not remember, until reading this book, that Nikkie, as Marilyn fondly begins to call him, even went to California. His outburst of annoyance when he discovered that he was not going to be allowed to visit Disneyland, for example, must have made headlines at the time, but until I checked it out on the Internet, I wasn’t sure if it happened, or if it is only one of the totally misguided urban legends that spring up from time to time. It is not.

   It is Marilyn Monroe herself who is the detective in this book, beginning when she accidentally visits one of the men’s room at Fox Studios – don’t ask, read the book – and overhears two plotters discussing their upcoming assassination attempt on the Russian leader’s life.

   And of course she is the book’s star attraction all the way through, although the title may have another interpretation or two as well. The Collinses have done their homework – they always do – and that their leading character is Marilyn Monroe, full in equal measure of self-confidence and self-doubt, well, they certainly convinced me. I don’t think any male of a certain age can read this book without falling in love with her all over again.

— June 2004