Like VARGAS Vignettes 1 and 2, I wish this was bigger. The book is small and that is the only reason it didn't get the full 5 stars. Although Vargas is my favorite artist, MacPherson is right up there too, and this book shows a lot of examples of his WWII era art. A lot of these pin-ups also appeared on the WWII bombers. There are about 30 works represented and they are all beautiful.

The book has a nice set-up as the pinups are printed nicely with good color reproduction. I use them as reference for painting nose art on A-2 flight jackets and the quality really allows me to get some really nice detail for my purposes.

At $10 it is worth getting but I would also recommend VARGA by Robothman which is a lot bigger format so it really allows you to fully appreciate the art with the bigger format. Also, check out THE GREAT AMERICAN PIN-UP as that has a lot of pin-up artists represented and shows the rich history of Pin-Up art

The pin-ups of days gone-by, still retain their classy beauty, their timeless appeal. Any lover of pin-up art, any lover of the girl-next door female form, any lover of classy and beautiful art of the ladies, ought to seriously consider adding this book to their collection. A+

Award winning Author Max Allan Collins is also one of the foremost collectors of original pin up art in the country. He combines his love of this media with the detailed research evident in his awardwinning Nate Heller and Eliot Ness historical novels to produce yet another outstanding pin up book similar to his award winning collaboration with artist Gil Elvgren's son Drake last year. Max comes to this project with the benefit also of having known Earl MacPherson in his final years of life. On top of all of this you get the high production quality known to most collector's press books. Highly recommended.

This is most definitely a beautifully produced book. It is most artistic and definitely worth a buy. Try it!

This is a veyr clean looking book of Varga. Very typicla of his style he uses great lines and beautiful girls for his art. I recomend this book for the collector or admirerer of great pin-up art. To own it is to enjoy it!

Gorgeous. Great reprintings. A must for any Varga fans. It was above my expectations. So much so, I'm ordering others of the Artist Archive's series.

This book was pretty cool. Max Allan Collins was commissioned to write three books initially so this will be his last one, and probably the series last one if it doesn't sell well. Unlike 'Skin Game', it wraps up most of the loose ends from the show. What the snake cult is after? What part Max plays? It still leaves a couple of items open and even throws an unexpected curve at the end. Overall, not a bad addition to the Dark Angel collection, but it probably isn't Collins best work as he cut it short (about 260 pages, he was probably trying to get the contract over with) and it occasionally shows that he's not a big Dark Angel fan or 'true believer' as Stan Lee would say. Worth buying for hardcore fans.

Okay this sum's up the Dark angel series in probably the best way possible (apart from the actual show not being cancelled that is). It answers pretty much ever question there is (although Collin's does leave a few open doors incase he wanted to write another book); and even manages to have a nice twist at the end. I HIGHLY RECOMEND THIS BOOK FOR ALL DARK ANGEL FANS!!! (However, make sure you read "Skin Game" before you read this book or you wont know what is going on). Awsome book!!!

If you love Dark Angel then you will love this book. This book is great, it allows us to see what would have happened if the show hadn't been cancelled. Its perfect for anyone has been missing the show and craving new episodes.

Great story, although the writing is a little bit choppy and the character developement somewhat flat. Where this book really fails is the inordinate use of stereotypes and glib commentary. For instance, I know many Americans wrongly believe Canada is a frozen hinterland where the people ride dog sleds and end every sentence with "eh?". While I loved the intelligence displayed in the character of the Mounty from Saskatchewan, and it is true that we have winter in Canada (although Minnesota gets it worse and they are the equivalent of two states lower than where I live), I simply could not excuse the inappropriate use of the word eh. Far too many sentences ended with eh. Most Canadians don't even say eh, let alone those who are highly educated such as a forensic scientist must be. The myth of the Canadian accent is dead. Sure, amazon.com, edit my post, why don't you? I bet those people who didn't find my review helpful are american too.

Great book, just like an episode of the show. It is great already knowing the characters...when the author describes character quirks, you can actually picture EXACTLY what he is talking about
I love CSI and I loved the book

Catherine, Warrick and Nick are in Las Vegas investigating the murder of a woman whose body was discovered in Lake Mead National Forest. Grissom and Sara travel to upstate New York for a forensic conference where they stumble upon a dead body in the woods next to their mountain hotel. And then a blizzard hits and they are cut off from the outside world. Collins handles the background information on the characters without being tedious and although this is the third book in the series, I think it can stand alone. Both of the cases in this book are excellent but the makeshift lab they set up in Grissom's hotel room is particularly ingenious. I have enjoyed all three of the CSI books, but I think Cold Burn was my favorite. I look forward to more CSI stories from Max Collins.

This book isn't bad, it follows the movie pretty well. But it doesn't give huge insights into anything, which is what I'd hoped for.

Young men will probably enjoy it well enough. For others that aren't complete die hard fans, skip this and read the Mummy books by the same author instead.

I have never been disappointed in a Max Allan Collins novel. The Iowan is a capable writer who also has several mystery and adventure series under his belt. This venture simply adds to his reputation.

His novelizations resonate well with the source films and yet are enough different to warrant handing over a few bucks. You get more than a sorry re-hash of the movie; you get a great story teller who backgrounds you and spins a yarn as complex and compelling as anything on the screen.

The pace in book version *The Scorpion King* is wildly frenetic. Action is fast and furious, and enemies fall by the hundreds. Yet it's a fun ride. Mathayus is more fully developed as a character, albeit an action character. Mr. Collins gives Mathayus enough brains and brawn to get into, and out of, trouble. Plus Mr. Collins pays gentle homage to the first of the fictional warrior kings, Conan the Barbarian.

What a sequel! Conan the Barbarian meets The Scorpion King. . .

Highly recommended.

This book was great. Everything to make me want to see the movie. Adventure, Action, Comedy, A little bit of romance--yes, it was a great book. Completely orginal story. Frankly, I thought it would [be bad]. I thought how stupid, The Scorpion King? The only reason I was sightly intrested in it was because The Rock starred in it and it was kind of a Mummy Movie. Let me say, if the movie is anything like the book, it could possibly be the best movie in the Mummy series. This book is worth your time, you cannot be dissapointed, if you like the Mummy stuff.

STOLEN AWAY is a very strong novel, but the thing runs for 600 pages and could profitably have been shortened to 400. Yes, the Lindbergh kidnaping was a complex case, but by the end of this book you'll be having a hard time keeping straight the various characters, ransom demands, conflicting stories, etc. No doubt that makes it true to life, but then again, it would be even truer to life if it took you four years to read the book, since that's how long the case took.

Not a bad book in any way other than as noted above, and really impressive for its erudition, but sometimes less is more.

Collins did a better job in FLYING BLIND, methinks.

This was the first of the "Nate Heller" detective series novels of Collins that I had read, and I must admit that I couldn't put it down. Not only is this tour de force a great mystery and suspense novel, it is also a wonderful historical novel; well researched and informative while grabbing and then not letting go of the reader's interest.

The story of how Chicago policeman Heller becomes involved in the case of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping is plausible enough. Once the wise cracking detective is admitted to the inner circle of the myriad investigators and con men (and women) involved in the infamous 1932 tragedy the excitement begins and continues without let-up. I was not that familiar with the details of the case until I started this novel, but Collins does a wonderful job of making each character (both those of historical record, and those who are fictional blendings of historical characters) belivable and memorable. One strong point of the book is that I finished it feeling that I knew more about the case that I did previously. Collins posts an afterword to the book that explains which parts are fictitious, conjecture, and historical. He also presents a detailed proposed reading list for those interested, along with his comments on the bias or worth of each author. I really appreciated this part of the book.

As for Heller himself, the Chicago lawman grows on you, even though Collins presents him as not always a shining knight, showing him "warts and all." The book is quite long, 593 pages in the paperback edition, including the afterword, but the complexities of the story make it a good read, well worth the time and effort.

A definite 5 stars, this one made me rush out and buy up other books in the Nate Heller series, as well as check out the facts of the historical case that inspired this story. My advice is for anyone who hasn't read this novel to do the same.

The best entry in the Nate Heller series. Collins Nate Heller novels are recommended for those who like hard boiled period pieces as well as lovers of true crime. There is good detail on the facts and people involved in the Lindberg kidnapping. Like all the Heller novels, Mr. Collins has his own theory on what really happened. His theory here is really wild. A great book.

Nate Heller novels are always fun. When I reviewed the last one I had read, I made the observation that you must accept one big whopper: that a single detective could do everything he does, in all of the various historical cases the author gets him involved in. If you can live with that, then you'll thoroughly enjoy the books, as I do.

In this installment, it's early in Heller's career, and he's still a Chicago cop. He's finishing up the first part of his involvement in the Lindberg kidnapping when Clarence Darrow calls. Heller knows Darrow because Heller's father owned a radical bookstore some years before, and Darrow was a customer. Darrow wants an investigator to accompany him to Hawaii, and help him with the defense of a quartet of accused murderers, who apparently killed a man accused of rape. The accused include the rape victim's husband and her mother. The kicker is that all of the accused rapists were Asian or Polynesian of some sort, and the rape victim, and all of those accused in the killing, are white. Racial tensions are running high when Heller and Darrow arrive in the islands.

The story is typical Collins, and a rather good example of what he does. The mystery is well-presented, and interesting. The author knows the characters, and the issues, involved in the real-life crime that he portrays. Most people think that Hawaiians are easy-going types, and many are, but there is also a considerable amount of anger about past discrimination on the island, percieved or real. This book does a good job of portraying that.

The other thing Collins always does is cameo appearances by celebrities. In addition to Darrow, and the defendants in the case, Heller runs into a young Buster Crabbe and a much older Chang Apana. The latter was a well-known Honolulu police detective who was the basis for Earl Der Biggers' character Charlie Chan. Amusingly, Detective Apana repeats some of Charlie Chan's quotes from the movies, with tongue firmly in cheek.

I really enjoyed this book. I think most others who are interested in history, and in detective novels, would enjoy it also.

Max Allan Collins is one of my favorite writers. His books which employ the character Nate Heller are some of the best mystery novels ever written. Nate is always placed in the middle of a true-life incident, sometimes historically significant, sometimes not. In this case, the incident was not particularly historically significant, if not for the appearance of an aging Clarence Darrow. As always, this Heller book informs regarding the incident and truly entertains. I have read dozens of mystery series. Nate Heller ranks right up there with Travis McGee and Elvis Cole as one of my favorite detectives. Perhaps Heller is the most developed and interesting of the bunch.

I am a begining collector of pin ups and I would recomend this book to people who are just starting out. It gives good basic background information on Elvgren as well as some of his best work. If you like drawn pin ups of the 30's, 40's and 50's. This book is for you.

An excellent presentation of the greatest pinup artist of all time

I always like it when a book is a fast, breezy read, yet still has a lot of meat to it. That's certainly the case here: the stories in this collection are all fast-paced, entertaining mystery thrillers, but these "tall tales" are also laced with lots of authentic period description and accurate biographical details about the true-life crime, crime-fighting, or celebrity figures depicted. It was especially interesting to read about Nate Heller's "true encounter" with Eliot Ness, where we learn that Ness wasn't quite the white-bread hero depicted in Brian De Palma's admittedly terrific "The Untouchables". All in all, a vastly entertaining and informative read.

I've been a fan of Max Allan Collins' Nate Heller stories for years now, well more than a decade. Some time ago, in addition to the novels, Collins released Dying in the Postwar World, which was billed as a casebook. The current volume is a second one, and they're basically short story collections, though both times the author wrote a novella to round out the volumes. In this book, the novella provides the title.

If you've read my reviews of other Heller books, you know the drill. His big drawback is that you must accept this detective being involved in basically every significant crime in the 30s 40s and 50s, with the possibility that he'll carry it further. The last of the stories in this book takes place in the early 60s. Given that you can make the suspension of disbelief, this is a very fun series, and the stories are well-written. I especially enjoyed this second casebook, which includes several cases that I thought were interesting, and was especially well-written.

Heller gets involved in cases with Marilyn Monroe, Thelma Todd, Bill Veeck, Mickey Cohen, and so forth. Frankly, the characters he pulls out of obscurity are endlessly interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, so I won't ruin it for you by telling you anything more about what's in the book. Suffice to say, the author has a solution for every mystery in the book, and they're all plausible, as far as I can see.

To reiterate, this is a wonderful book. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I had seen this book at the library, and being a fan of Dante's Inferno, I checked it out. I was a bit disconcerted when I realized not all the stories take place in or near Hell, as the title suggests. Most of them occur here on Earth, where the characters are in a metaphorical hell. Surprise! Only a handful of the stories are worthy of note, including Gene Wolfe's and James Longrove's. The stories take place either in Hell, Chicago, or London. I found this last fact sometimes discouraging--i.e., I ended up skimming the story.

I recommend you get this book from the library before you spend the cash at a store.

Can't put it down. The intro promises that all the stories will be related to Dante's Inferno theme of Hellish portals on Earth, but they aren't all on that theme (in fact, one is a remake of the Christmas Carol). Scary and thought-provoking none-the-less.

I can't agree with the other reviewer. I found many of these stories scary precisely *because* they were based in metaphorical hells - hells we might actually live in, rather than encounter after death. Also, many stories were set in hells that were not on Earth but were also far from the fire-and-brimstone stereotype. The story "Office Space" alone makes this book worth buying.