Nathan Heller

17 primary works • 19 total works

True Detective

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 November 1983

The return of the Shamus award-winning crime novel by the author of the box office smash Road To Perdition. The first volume in the Nathaniel Heller 'Frank Nitti Trilogy' featuring the real-life mobster played in Road To Perdition by Stanley Tucci. Nate Heller is a cop trying to stay straight in one of the most corrupt places imaginable: Prohibition-era Chicago. When he won't sell out, he's forced to quit the force and become a private investigator. His first client is Al Capone. His best friend is Elliot Ness. His most order of business is staying alive.

True Crime

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 January 1984

By the author of The Road To Perdition, this title sees Private Eye Nate Heller trying discover who the gunshot victim was, found next to the Biograph Theatre, the man the FBI confidently identified as John Dillinger. His search for the answer leads him into a confrontation with J. Edgar Hoover.

The Million-Dollar Wound

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 January 1986

Set in wartime Chicago, this thriller follows private eye Nathan Heller as he prepares to testify against Frank Nitti, mob supremo and heir to Al Capone. But when Heller's old flame is murdered, his hunt for the killer finds him caught between rival gang interests, the FBI and the police. Max Allan Collins was the recipient of the PWA's Shamus Award for "True Detective" and is also author of "Neon Mirage" and writer of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip.

Neon Mirage

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 February 1988

In 1946 Chicago, Nathan Heller—president of the flourishing A-1 Detective Agency—is hired to protect racing-wire gambling chief James Ragen, who is nonetheless shot down on the streets of Chicago. Not one to take such an affront sitting down, Nate goes after the killer, but he’s in for the biggest surprise of his career.

Demonstrating once again that he is the master of true-crime fiction, Max Allan Collins’ story of the birth of Las Vegas—and the dirty deeds that floated all around it—is a masterpiece of modern noir. Heller follows the trail as it leads to Hollywood and Las Vegas, specifically to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, but when he proves Siegel’s innocence, Heller and the suave gangster wind up friends…and rivals for the love of Nate’s life. Bugsy hires Heller as security chief of the under-construction Flamingo hotel, where mob bag woman Virginia Hill is a dangerous, if glamorous, distraction. It all comes to a boil with a shocking mob assassination in Beverly Hills that sends Heller into a fever-dream ride of vengeance.

Stolen Away

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 May 1991

Carnal Hours

by Max Allan Collins

Published 6 April 1994

Blood and Thunder

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 July 1995

Damned in Paradise

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 October 1996

On leave from the Chicago police department, Nate Heller goes to Hawaii to help family friend Clarence Darrow by investigating the rape and murder of a bride only to uncover a morass of bigotry, lies, and revenge.

Flying Blind

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 August 1998

Majic Man

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 September 1999

Angel in Black

by Max Allan Collins

Published 6 March 2001

Chicago Confidential

by Max Allan Collins

Published 4 June 2002

Bye Bye, Baby

by Max Allan Collins

Published 16 August 2011

Hired by Marilyn Monroe to listen to threatening phone calls from a movie studio that wants to fire her, private investigator Nate Heller discovers a conspiracy to murder the iconic star and faces a career-ending challenge when Monroe turns up dead. Marilyn Monroe, the ultimate goddess of the silver screen, is at the peak of her popularity, internationally famous, universally admired by women and desired by men. But she's also famously insecure and temperamental and is being pilloried in the press for delaying the production of Something's Got to Give. When the head of Twentieth Century Fox threatens to cancel her contract, Marilyn hires "PI to the stars" Nathan Heller to tap her phones and record conversations that might prove to be important if there's a lawsuit. Less than three months later, Monroe is dead from an overdose and, officially, a suicide. But Heller isn't buying it. He knows that in the weeks before, the star was anything but suicidal. He knows, too, about her affair with JFK, about the secret connections between the Kennedys and the Mob ... and about Bobby Kennedy's blood feud with Jimmy Hoffa. In short, Heller knows too much to accept this bum rap on a beautiful, gifted woman loved by the whole world ... including Nathan Heller. So he investigates, though his efforts might enrage some very famous, very powerful, very dangerous people. But they can't keep Heller from finding out the astounding truth behind Marilyn Monroe's untimely demise.

Ask Not

by Max Allan Collins

Published 22 October 2013

September 1964. Beatlemania sweeps the nation, the Vietnam War looms, and the Warren Commission prepares to blame JFK's death on a "lone-nut" assassin. But as the post-Camelot era begins, a suspicious outbreak of suicides, accidental deaths, and outright murders decimates assassination witnesses. When Nathan Heller and his son are nearly run down on a Chicago street, the PI wonders if he himself might be a loose end. Then a faked suicide takes Heller to Texas, where celebrity columnist Flo Kilgore implores him to explore the list of dead.

Target Lancer

by Max Allan Collins

Published 1 November 2012

When a favor for a friend leads to the murder of a Mafia contact, Nathan Heller, a 1960s private investigator with contacts in the government and mob, uncovers a dire conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

Better Dead

by Max Allan Collins

Published 3 May 2016

Do No Harm

by Max Allan Collins

Published 10 March 2020

Chicago Lightning

by Max Allan Collins

Published 4 October 2011

Tough, cynical, and clever, Nathan Heller has been called “the perfect private eye,” the best investigator that Chicago (where ‘lightning’ means gunfire) has to offer. Created by New York Times bestselling novelist and Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins, the classic P.I. comes vibrantly to life in this collection of thirteen stories, all based on real cases of the 1930s and ‘40s. In “The Blonde Tigress,” Heller encounters a vicious hold-up crew with a brutal female leader, while in “Scrap” he investigates a union shooting that has national implications. In “The Perfect Crime” he goes Hollywood to protect the lovely Thelma Todd, with tragic results. The private eye finds himself tangling with notorious mobster Mickey Cohen in a “Shoot-out On Sunset” and with Al Capone’s successor, Frank Nitti, in “Screwball.” Heller’s friendship with Eliot Ness finds the two men working together in both “The Strawberry Teardrop,” in which Heller encounters America’s first serial killer, and “Natural Death, Inc.” Heller tackles each case with his trademark cynicism and humor, digging into the grimy underbelly of twentieth-century America to uncover the truth at any cost.

Triple Play

by Max Allan Collins

Published 17 April 2012

Since his introduction in 1983’s True Detective, Chicago-based private eye Nathan Heller has handily earned his spot alongside American crime-fiction greats Phillip Marlowe, Archie Goodwin, and Mike Hammer. Now the classic gumshoe is back in this collection of three novellas, all based on real cases of the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. In Dying in the Post-War World, Heller returns from combat to find his marriage a shambles and himself square in the middle of the notorious Lipstick Killer case of 1946. Kisses of Death follows the PI into the 1950s, when he is hired to guard Marilyn Monroe. The famous starlet’s intellectual pursuits eventually take Heller to Greenwich Village and a grisly murder. And in Strike Zone, Heller is hired by zany baseball boss Bill Veeck to investigate the 1961 murder of a famous pinch hitter, whose private life will pull Nate into a dangerous new world of little people and big sins. With Triple Play, New York Times bestselling author Max Allan Collins has pried back the lid of history to reveal the ugly, entertaining truth behind three of the twentieth century’s most shocking crimes.