Sun 27 May 2012
Reviewed by Marv Lachman: MAX ALLAN COLLINS – Kill Your Darlings.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Conventions , Reviews[4] Comments
MAX ALLAN COLLINS – Kill Your Darlings. Walker, hardcover, 1984. Tor, paperback, 1988.
The first mystery novel set at a Bouchercon, Max Allan Collins’s Kill Your Darlings takes place in Chicago, where Bouchercon was held in 1984, though Collins wrote the book before that event.
It’s an enormously enjoyable tale, well plotted and with lots of insights into a mystery convention and publishing, though mostly from a writer’s viewpoint. (Fans do not loom large in this book.) The plot device, an unknown Hammett manuscript, is an inspired idea.
Despite Collins’s disclaimer that the victim, an old-time mystery writer, is a composite, he reminded me of someone in particular. If you ask me at the next Bouchercon, I’ll tell you who. Until then, attend a Bouchercon vicariously with Max as your guide.
Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989 (very slightly revised).
Bibliographic Data: The detective who solves the case in Kill Your Darlings is “Mallory,” a former cop who became a mystery writer living in Iowa.
The Mallory series —
The Baby Blue Rip-Off. Walker, 1983.

No Cure for Death. Walker, 1983.
Kill Your Darlings. Walker, 1984.
A Shroud for Aquarius. Walker, 1985.
Nice Weekend for a Murder. Walker, 1986.

May 28th, 2012 at 5:53 am
I also enjoyed the Mallory series, as I have all the Collins books I’ve read (he’s written an awful lot). I recently picked up paperback copies of them to keep, though I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to rereading.
May 28th, 2012 at 1:08 pm
I’ve read a lot of the Collins books, but while I have all of the Mallory books, I haven’t read any of them, and I’m mystified as to the reason why not.
Mystery writing detectives have always been among my favorites, and I should have read Mallory long ago.
I wonder why Collins stopped writing about him. Too many other books in the works, I suppose. Either that, or the number of settings in which Mallory could run across murders to solve became severely limited.
May 29th, 2012 at 9:00 am
“I wonder why Collins stopped writing about him.”
The way I understand it, the main reason Collins stops writing any series is because they weren’t selling so the publisher stopped asking for them.
May 29th, 2012 at 9:44 am
Alas, Craig, you are quite right. The same is true for way too many mystery writers whose two- or three-book contracts run out. Low sales or sales that are going down, not up.
And any series in the works seldom ended by any choice of the author. I probably sounded too naive about that.
Five books is a better run than most. And Max deserves all the credit in the world for continuing on from there. If nothing else he is versatile and keeps the ideas coming.