Flying Blind

Nathan Heller #9

by Max Allan Collins

The intrepid fictional Nathan Heller discovers the truth behind the disappearance of famed aviatrix Amelia EarhartSeven times a nominee for the Shamus Award given by the Private Eye Writers of America, Max Allan Collins has twice been recipient of the honor. His craft has never been as evident as it is in his latest Nathan Heller novel, Flying Blind.

Collins' fictional character has solved some of America's most notorious crimes including the Lindbergh kidnapping -- he's brought down Al Capone -- and uncovered the truth behind the assassination of Huey Long. Now Nathan Heller is faced with something quite different -- not a crime but a disappearance. More painful still, the disappearance of someone he'd known long ago, famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart. He'd been hired to protect her years ago after the discovery of threatening letters. But even Nathan Heller couldn't protect her once she boarded her plane and soared away into the horizon. Now, decades later, he's about to discover what really

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Detective, Thriller, Historical

343 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1998

About the author

Received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 2006.

He has also published under the name Patrick Culhane. He and his wife, Barbara Collins, have written several books together. Some of them are published under the name Barbara Allan.

Book Awards
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1984) : True Detective
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1992) : Stolen Away
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1995) : Carnal Hours
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) : Damned in Paradise
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1999) : Flying Blind: A Novel about Amelia Earhart
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (2002) : Angel in Black

Japanese: マックス・アラン・コリンズ
or マックス・アラン コリンズ

Reviews

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers should be very thankful for the factual appendices in the back of Max Allan Collins’ historical novels (usually solved by Nathan Heller, but sometimes by Jack Starr or others). The history and Collins’ well-considered speculation weave together so seamlessly that it would otherwise be difficult to tell the verifiable from the imaginative. In Flying Blind, that blend of fact and fiction involves Amelia Earhart and her last flight. If the news story about Amelia dying as a castaway (as deduced by forensic evaluation of bones discovered two decades ago) is true, Collins’ speculation is not too far off. Indeed, the 2016 news story about forensic study comparing the bone measurements of two decades ago with pictures of Amelia’s arms compared proportionately with her known height, mentions accounts of radio transmissions purported to be from the aviatrix long after the mysterious crash. Collins does a great job of blending those accounts of radio broadcasts into his story.

Of course, his story is better than just having her die as a castaway. It even pulls in information from an old woman claiming to be Amelia Earhart. Further, Collins weaves together rumors of Earhart’s bi-sexuality and her controlling husband’s (manager’s) jealousy of stunt flier Paul Mantz (who crash-landed a bomber as a stunt for the movie 12 o’ clock High and then, ironically, died crashing a unique plane for Flight of the Phoenix in 1965). Yet, Collins has even more intrigue in mind. He plays off the “Amelia Earhart as spy” rumor and gives it the ultimate conspiratorial slant.

Frankly, I like the skepticism about the U.S. government’s motivation(s) in at least two of these Nathan Heller novels—this one and Better Dead. Collins doesn’t raise his concerns to the point of paranoia. It’s not a morality play like the graphic novel, The Watchmen, but it certainly makes clear that the government’s interest isn’t always in the interest of the individual citizen. Protagonist Nathan Heller and, at least in this account, Amelia Earhart, discover that certain types of extortion are presumed to be the order of the day in some of the government bureaucracy.

As one can tell from this brief review (it’s hard to call out much more without risking significant spoilers), Flying Blind encouraged me to check out some other facts about the characters in this book. What more can one ask of historical fiction than that it offers an engaging story, interesting characters and an inspiration to know more about the historical situation. Flying Blind, so named for a slang reference to flying by instruments, gives readers all three facets of good historical fiction. The title notwithstanding, it is clear that Collins doesn’t fly blind when he puts together mysteries such as this one.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nate Heller has the worst record of any bodyguard. He's lost almost all of his clients. Amelia Earhart's husband hit on the perfect murder method by hiring him to guard his wife, if he only knew.

Kind of a strange mystery as we sort of know what happened to her, but Collins constructs a scenario that makes sense.

[Victor Carson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this novel about Amelia Earhart because I am interested in her disappearance and because I like the detective novels of Max Collins. I have read his novel True Detective (Nate Heller) and a collection of his short stories, Chicago Lightning. All of the Nate Heller series were offered recently by Amazon as Kindle books, at very reasonable prices. I like the style and swagger of Detective Nate Heller but moreover I appreciate Collins' attention to the historical detail of the 1930s. I was very impressed by the amount of research that went into Flying Blind, the use of many actual persons and events, and the convincing argument the author makes that Earhart's final round-the-world flight was paid for by the U.S. military. The U.S., it seems, supplied a new Lockheed Electra, with much more powerful engines, when Earhart's first round-the-world flight ended in a crash, taking off from Honolulu. Collins captures Amelia Earhart's personality very well and he is not afraid to suggest some faults or weaknesses that Amelia's biographers ignore.

Not everything about the book is perfect. A segment that imagines an attempt to rescue the flyer and her navigator from the Japanese-controlled island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas, goes beyond the plausible, but everything else in Flying Blind is only too believable. The U.S. was very anxious to obtain intelligence about the Japanese military build-up in the Pacific, and might well have risked Amelia Earhart, a friend of FDR, to gather that information.

I am not ordinarily a detective novel fanatic. I read a few mysteries and very few mystery or detective series. However, The quality of Flying Blind encourages me to read more of the Nate Heller series.

[Tim Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having jumped back in to reading Nate Heller with a vengeance our historical shamus meets up with and tackles the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. It's 1935 and Heller has recently left the Chicago P.D. and opened his office as a private investigator. He is hired to accompany and provide security for aviatrix on her cross-country lecture tour as she has been getting anonymous threats. Of course this leads to Heller becoming involved with her further and ultimately investigating her disappearance in the South Pacific as the U.S. and Japan appear to be on an inevitable course for war.

Besides Ms. Earhart, Heller meets a few other historic personages, most organically and involved in the early aviation biz. James Forrestal, at the time an advisor to Roosevelt and later Secretary of the Navy and the first Secretary of Defense, makes an interesting appearance. Collins appears to be skeptical of the motivations of the U.S. government, frequently...and almost certainly with good reason overall.

I really only new the bare basics about Earhart. Many air records. Lost at sea trying to fly around the world. What one can glean from cultural osmosis and general reading. So this was a great opportunity to go down some extraneous outside research. Obviously Heller's result is speculation, but it's not unreasonable speculation. And that makes it that much more fun.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a little put off by the sometimes racist and sexist language- was the author trying to fit the protagonist into the times? But the story eventually grabbed me. The author did a nice job of weaving facts about Earhart with the speculations about how she disappeared and what became of her. It was a compelling read

[David Highton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collins continues his inventive series, immersing Nathan Heller into historic stories - in this case Amelia Earhart and whether she died in a plane crash on her round the world flight or whether she was captured and imprisoned on a Pacific island. Extremely well researched but with a strong element of fiction thrown in.

[Bob Andwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting blend of fact and fiction about the disappearance of Amelis Earhart

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 4 out of 5]

review of
Max Allan Collins's Flying Blind
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 22-25, 2022

For the complete review go here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticF...

I've been systematically going thru my personal library of crime fiction & reading a bk each by authors that I haven't previously read anything by. This one intrigued me b/c it uses the disappearance of Amelia Earhart as its mystery. The publisher's logo wasn't familiar to me so I looked to see what their name is &, Lo & Behold!, it's from "amazon encore" from 1998. That surprised me, I don't remember Amazon being around 24 yrs ago.

"Although the historical incidents in this novel are portrayed more or less accurately (as much as the passage of time, and contradictory souce material, will allow), fact, speculation, and fiction are freely mixed here; historical personages exist side by side with composite characters and wholly fictional ones—all of whom act and speak at the author's whim." - p -v

""I think it's too bad when aviation movies depend for their excitement on plane wrecks and lost fliers and all that sort of thing. Perhaps that's good drama but it certainly isn't modern aviation."

"—Amelia Earhart" - p -iv

The reader is introduced to the detective:

"But at age sixty-four (with sixty-five a few months away), I didn't need to work. My one-room agency in Barney Ross's old building on the corner of Van Buren and Plymouth, established in 1932, had turned into suites of offices in six cities now, not to mention two floors of the Monadnock Building. I wasn't President of the A-1 anymore, but Chairman of the Board. We no longer did divorce work; our specialties were "anti-industrial espionage" and "security consultation." I had become so successful, I didn't recognize my own business." - p 2

I wonder, were there ever detectives as they're depicted in detective novels? Do they still exist? I have a friend who worked for a detective, he was pd to do things like check client's phones for tapping. The thing is, the detective didn't have a clue about how to do that & just gave my friend vague instructions about how to fake it & then lied to the client. The Pinkertons, arguably the most famous 'detective' agency, were basically goons-for-hire whose job it was to break up strikes. I think most people find the myth of the hard-boiled detective very appealing: someone who's able & intelligent enuf to tough out any challenge to see that crimes are prevented &/or solved. But is that entirely a romantic myth? Certainly there're police detectives, I reckon they solve crimes from time-to-time - probably largely thanks to forensics & vast databases. But ones independent of the poilce? Insurance investigators? They exist.. but wd I trust one?! Nope. How many of them are honest & not motivated by the profit interests of the companies they work for? Not many, if any, I reckon. At any rate, these fictional detectives are fun.

""Mind if I sit myself down?"

""Who else is gonna do it for you?"" - p 4

I seriously doubt that there's ever been a real-life detective to match the wit & wisdom of the fictional ones.

"["]There was a time you gave plenty of interviews, droppin' all them famous names."

""Stirring up business." I shrugged.

"He made a click in his cheek, and his words made me sound like a pecan pie he liked the taste of. "Crony of Frank Nitti and Eliot Ness alike. At the Biograph when Dillinger got his. Pal of Bugsy Siegel's." He shifted his body from side to side, like he was really settling into this one-way conversation. "Were you really one of Huey Long's bodyguards, night they plugged him?"" - pp 5-6

""You know what they say—Semper Fi, Mac. Guadalcanal, weren't you?"

"I thought about cold-cocking him, but only nodded.

""Got out on a Section Eight, I understand. Funny. You don't look like a nutcase to me."

""You might be surprised."

""Of course, according to that Look magazine article, it was battle fatigue. They even made you sound like a kind of hero, holdin' off the Japs in a foxhole with your boxer pal, Barney["]" - p 7

I reckon there're other Nathan Heller detective novels written before this one that this history is a recap of. If I ever find them used I reckon I'll buy them & add them to my more-or-less-impossible-to-read-in-my-lifetime pile. Then, when I get so old everybody takes it for granted that I must be dead by now I'll have plenty of reading to keep me distracted while I very slowly starve to death.

"I know you were her bodyguard for a while, in what, 'thirty-five? Least they didn't bump her off under your nose, like they done with Mayor Cermak and the Kingfish."" - p 8

Oohh!! I just love it when something referred to in a bk I'm reviewing gives me an excuse to quote from something else I wrote:

"Giuseppe Zangara was forced by poverty into harsh labor (that contributed to a painful stomach condition) by age 6. He'd wanted to kill "that no good capitalist Herbert Hoover in Washington" but settled for attempting to kill President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt out of convenience. While FDR was visiting Miami, Zangara shot at Roosevelt from a poor vantage point & killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak instead. "A sanity commission that examined him avoided the sanity issue and referred only to his rejection of social standards - the 'distortions' of judgment (for example, capitalists are bad) combined with his at least average intelligence as evidence of a 'psychopathic personality.'"! I think a much better psychoanalytic case could be made that ALL prosecutors are SOCIOPATHS - people willing to push for the death of ANYONE (guilty or not) in order to advance their political & economic careers. Look at people like Philly DA Lynn Abraham for a case in point. To call someone a "psychopath" for thinking that capitalists are bad when they've been forced into hard labor at age 6 by a capitalist society is really going out on the propaganda limb."

Now that's from an article of mine called "Recommended Reading" that was published in my anarchist magazine Street Ratbag 5. It was also published in my writing section on Goodreads but they're getting rid of that (if they haven't done so already). Assholes.

Heller interviewed a witness who may've seen the vanished Earhart's plane in storage:

"["]we heard an explosion, over at the airfield. Bunch of us went over there and this plane, a Lockheed Electra, civilian plane, was the hell on fire. Like somebody'd poured gas on and lit her up like a bonfire. Still, I could make out an ID number—NR16020—which meant nothin' to me at the time."

"That was the registration number of Amelia's Lockheed Electra, the one she'd taken on her final, ill-fated flight around the world." - pp 11-12

""I think somebody was destroyin' evidence. That fella I saw? In the white shirt? He had a real familiar face. I recognized him from the papers, or anyway I knew I should have recognized him from the papers. He was somebody."

""Did it ever come to you, who he was?"

"He snorted a laugh. "Only the goddamn Secretary of the Navy. Remember that guy? James Vincent Forrestal!"" - p 12

There's a loaded name, dropping that in is bound to get a rise out of suspicious historians (sometime erroneously called 'Conspiracy Theorists').

"Forrestal was intensely hostile to the Soviet Union, fearing Communist expansion in Europe and the Middle East. Along with Secretary of State George C. Marshall, he strongly opposed the United States' support for the establishment of the State of Israel, fearing that this would alienate Arab nations which were needed as allies, and whose petroleum reserves were vital for both military and civilian industrial expansion."

[..]

"Thereafter, Forrestal's mental health rapidly deteriorated, declining to the point in which he underwent medical care for depression. While a patient at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Forrestal died from fatal injuries sustained after falling out a sixteenth floor window."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_F...

Of course, you'd have to be a 'Conspiracy Theorist' to even suggest that Forrestal was pushed out the window. Still, a word to the wise: if you're privy to secrets that the government wd wish you to not share & you find yourself on the wrong side of the administration, ahem, don't allow yrself to be hospitalized above the 1st floor.

Earlier, Heller gets hired to be Earhart's bodyguard by her husband:

"George Palmer Putnam, formerly of G. P. Putnam's publishing, part-time consultant to Paramount Pictures, full-time husband and manager of Amelia Earhart." - p 23

Historical figure name-dropping is part of the fun of reading this.

""Ben?" I asked. "Which Ben told you about me?"

""Hecht," Putnam said, and at first I thought he said "Heck," which was better than "fucking." "Aren't you and Ben Hecht old friends?"

""... Yeah,. Sort of..." Former newsman Hecht, who'd long since traded Chicago for Hollywood, had been part of the Bohemian coterie that used to hang around my father's radical bookshop on the West Side, when I was a kid. "How do you know him, G. P.?"

""I published his first novels," Putnam said" - p 30

Hecht is one of the many authors that I've intended to read something by w/o ever doing so. This is yet-another impetus in that direction.

Putnam partially justifies hiring Heller as Earhart's bodyguard w/ tales of sabotage.

""Please understand," Putnam said, his pudding finished long ago, "there's a history of sabotage, where female fliers are concerned. During the first Women's Air Derby, Thea Rasche got a note with cut-out words like the ones A. E.'s been receiving and got grounded with sand in her fuel tank . . . the rudder cables of Claire Fahy's plane were weakened by acid, and Bobbi Trout was forced down with sand, or maybe dirt, poured in her fuel."" - p 38

I really know next-to-nothing about Earhart or the history of women pilots so this bk was useful for my education.

"Her eyes flared at that. "Actually, there's a great deal of camaraderie. ... Have you heard of the Ninety Nines? That's an organization of women pilots, and I'm a past president."

""Presidents get assassinated, now and then."" - p 40

&, waddya know?!, the Ninety Nines are still going strong:

"OUR MISSION — The NINETY-NINES® INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN PILOTS® promotes advancement of aviation through education, scholarships, and mutual support while honoring our unique history and sharing our passion for flight.

"Established in 1929 by 99 women pilots, the members of The Ninety-Nines, Inc.®, International Organization of Women Pilots®, are represented in all areas of aviation today. And, to quote Amelia, fly "for the fun of it!""

- https://www.ninety-nines.org/

"My role as bodyguard entailed any number of activities I hadn't expected, including hauling in from the trunk of her Franklin a slide projector, a reel of 16-millimeter film, a carton of books, and of course a small tin cash box for me to make change out of, being the guy who'd be selling The Fun of It (it would be too undignified for the author to do so herself)." - p 45

Too undignified, eh?! I always sell my own merch (when I'm not giving it away).

"["]They were well off and I think it's rather hard on kids, seeing how the other half lives, and then going back to the other side of the tracks."

"I nodded. "I know what you mean. My uncle was wealthy, my pop was a diehard union man. On old Wobbly."

""Ha! Old boyfriend of mine took me to a Wobbly meeting once."

""It can be a good place to pick up girls."

""Ah, well, Sam already had a girl, didn't he? Though not for long. You father wasn't much for capitalism, huh?"

"I sipped my coffee. "That's the funny thing. He was a moderately successful small businessman. He ran a radical bookshop for years, in Douglas Park."" - pp 60-61

Ok, I just quoted that b/c of the Wobblies reference. Still, it makes me wonder what the author's politics are.

""We better get back on the road," I said, drawing my hand away, slipping out of the booth, digging a nickle from my topcoat pocket and tossing the tip on the table-top." - p 65

The nickle tip must be a bit jarring to 21st century readers. SO, let's say the time is roughly 1935. According to https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/infl... that nickle wd be worth $1.08 today so he'd still be a cheap tipper.

"And she knew that my idealistic leftist father had killed himself in disappointment over his only son joining the corrupt Chicago police department; shot himself in the head with my gun, a gun I still carried with me, the closest thing to a conscience I had." - p 69

The detective uses typical self-serving logic for justifying becoming lovers w/ a married woman by building a case against her husband.

"["]everybody knows that your husband works against the other women pilots—"

""I didn't know."

""Just ask anybody. Ask Lady Heath, ask Elinor Smith, ask 'Chubby' Miller. ..."" - p 92

"On the afternoon trip to Mantz's place, Amy had done the driving, tooling the sleek Terraplanne past the farms, ranches and lush orange groves beyond the shaded streets of residential Burbank, where the foot soliders of the dream factory lived in modest cracker-boxes." - p 98

I'm finding this 'review' most unsatisfactory so far. The most important thing about this mystery is that it's about the disappearence of Amelia Earhart. If that subject interests you, as it does me, then the story will probably interest you. But, as is often the case w/ my reviews, I don't want to spoil the plot so I pick details to quote that interest me for other reasons that don't necessarily add up to that much as a picture of the entire story. Before, it was the Wobblies, then it's the name of a car that I associate w/ a Captain Beefheart song, next thing you know it'll probably be anti-Semitism. Sheesh.

""It's a country club."

""Might be a problem."

""Why, Nate?"

""Most country clubs are restricted."

""Oh ... I'm sorry ... I forgot..."

"I'm Jewish? That's okay. I forgot it myself, a long time ago. Trouble is, other people keep bringing it up." - p 98

Now the story's still in the mid 1930s. I wonder if there're still country clubs that wd deny Jews admittance in this day & age? It seems unlikely. Then again, it seems unlikely that there're any country clubs that wd have me as a member.

"Dinner was nice, though I was glad Amy was paying—it was a pricey seventy-five cents a steak, à la carte" - pp 98-99

There's that inflation again. When I retired, in 2018, I was making $20 an hr at my main, fairly highly skilled, job & the management offered me more to try to keep me. Now, in 2022, a friend of mine's 15 yr old daughter makes $25 an hr babysitting. The QUARANTYRANNY has made the worst inflation in my lifetime. 1935's 75¢ is 2022's $16.22 according to https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/infl... . It seems to me that the author's sense of 1935 economic scale is a bit off since that 5¢ tip was a bit small & acting like 75¢ was alot seems off given that today's correlative isn't that egregious. Maybe the online inflation calculators just haven't really caught up to how bad inflation actually is in 2022. One young university student friend of mine didn't balk at accepting $1,400 a mnth as rent for what she described as a small apartment. The highest rent I've ever pd was $250 a mnth - & that was for a huge warehouse, 1st, & a whole house, 2nd. I bought a house in 2006 & the highest mortgage for that, wch included home-owner's insurance & taxes, was less than $250 a mnth. That was only 16 yrs ago. SO, in 16 yrs people are accepting expenses almost 6 times as much as the highest I'd tolerate. Of course, I was poor & I had some sense about how to navigate the usually greedy world of landlordism. My friend the student has been given more money to just be a student than I was ever pd to work a whole yr.

One of the many details that made this bk interesting to me was the primitiveness of the flying calculations. We've come a long way in the last 90 yrs.

"Amy spent many hours with Mantz and Commander Williams going over charts and maps (Rand McNally overviews of the United States and Mexico, and state maps of both countries); she would have to compute her position from compass readings and elapsed time using tables that showed distances covered at various speeds." - p 122

Finally, we get to the point where Earhart's plane has apparently gone down during her round-the-world flight.

"The radio operator on the Itasca sent messages by voice and key and listened in every frequency that Amy might use. Her final transmission, at 8:44, was shrill and frightened: "We are on the line of position 156-137. Will repeat message. We will repeat this message on 6210 kilocycles. Wait. Listening on 6210 kilocycles. We are running north and south."

"With no frame of reference, her "position 156-137" and "running north and south" were meaningless. Until 10:00 A.M., the radio operator continued trying to make contact.

"At 10:15A.M., the commander of the Itasca ordered full steam, beginning a desperate search at sea, soon to be joined by the minesweeper Swan, the battleship Colorado, the aircraft carrier Lexington, and four destroyers in a sweeping mass rescue effort the likes of which had never before been expended on a single missing aircraft.

"Amelia Earhart was back in the headlines." - p 161

I'm sure that the author did his best to stay true to the facts as he gathered them. Nonetheless, I find the statement "With no frame of reference, her "position 156-137" and "running north and south" were meaningless." bizarre. How cd an experienced aviatrix like Amelia Earhart not announce her location in an SOS in a way that wd be understandable to someone?! It seems more than a little likely that ""position 156-137" and "running north and south"" wd've meant something to her or she wdn't have expressed the coordinates in that way.

For the complete review go here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticF...

[Graham Dennis Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fast-moving tale based on fact. Intriguing and a really good read. Thoroughly recommended.

[J Mark Harrison 3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining take on Amelia Earhart's disappearance. Fiction, but roughly follows some facts and people in her life.

[Mary]

Prompts for reading challenges: Includes a celebrity, ISBN 1/5/0, Northern Mariana Islands for Read Around the World challenge, Island setting, blue cover, yellow cover. Detective story. Mystery. Historical fiction, body part on the cover.

Northern Mariana Islands. Chicago, IL. Florida. Hollywood, CA. Des Moines, Iowa. 1930s, 1970s.

I feel like I've read something else by this author in the past, but not recently, and I couldn't say what it was. I know I've heard the name before, at any rate. I'm not familiar with the Nathan Heller stories. I picked this up because I'm doing a reading challenge and it included reading a book set on any of a specific set of islands. The Amelia Earhart angle sounded interesting. And it is.

Unfortunately, the story itself is very dry and boring. It focuses more on the detective, rather than on Amelia Earhart. I do enjoy the glimpses of her that the author provides. I plodded on, because I am trying to fill that prompt for that reading challenge I mentioned.

However . . . this book is utter TRASH, in my opinion. Not only does the author completely disrespect the LGBTQ community, but the main character is a womanizing pervert. At first I considered that in the 1930s, the LGBTQ+ community was, in fact, disrespected. But it became clear that it was not just the main character's beliefs shown, because the disdain from the author's commentary was equally toxic. As for the main character, the detective, he takes advantage of Amelia in one scene -- it's not that she doesn't give consent; she does. It's that a lesbian, as she is portrayed here, isn't going to be interested in a man. And she's not going to hop into bed with a man hours after being with her own female lover, either. And it's also how this man, who travels on the job with a porno magazine in hand, gets excited over her "childish" breasts. I'm sorry? Her "childish" breasts? So he fantasizes about sexual encounters with LITTLE GIRLS?

Absolutely vile. How this author won any awards I will never know but I do know this -- I will never recommend his work, or read any more of it. It's rare that a book makes me downright angry but this one certainly did. It's my opinion that this kind of nasty thinking that helps prejudices that existed in the 1930s continue to this day, and it lets people who prey on women and children think it's justifiable. Disgusting.

I couldn't finish it. It made me sick to my stomach to read those things, which start to become more and more obvious around pages 70-90. I will find another book to fit my reading challenge, because this one does not deserve my or anyone else's time. I hope the library discontinues it.

[Jessica Gintner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book while volunteering at my local library. I recognized Max Alan Collins from the series he writes with his wife, Barbara called "Trash n' Treasure Mysteries". He is also the author of MANY other books, TV shows & movies including Criminal Minds, Bones, CSI, Kolchak, XFiles, Saving Private Ryan, etc., etc.
I didn't realize when I picked it up that it was part of a series, but I think it would be safe to say, you don't have to read the volumes prior to this to know what's going on. It's almost a standalone due to the subject matter ~ Amelia Earhart. I found the storyline pretty interesting along with the historical facts he integrated. As I've said before, it's amazing the amount of research an author of a historical fiction book puts into writing it!
At a time when woman were more restricted in what they did, wore, or said, Amelia was definitely a law unto herself! She wore manly clothing ~ which prompted people to say she was a lesbian. She was married to a man who no one really believes she had feelings for and vice versa. He had her performing like a trick dog at a circus! And for all the side shows, and department store launches she was involved in, it was never enough. They always had to do more because flying "was an expensive hobby".
One of the really interesting things the author did was put a completely different spin on her world flight, crash and possible life afterwards. I won't give you details because I don't want to spoil it, but think along the lines of a government cover up....
Hope you find the time to read this great novel if for nothing else but to learn about one of the great woman who helped the rest of us become who we are today.

[Richard Block · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heller Takes Off

By now we know that in MAC's noir historical fiction, Nate Heller is going to f**k with real people back in the 1930's and 1940's. This time, he really does - with Amelia Earhart, famed aviatrix of old. The clever mix of tough guy detective story and historical whodunit is on display once more, as is Heller's caustic wit and ability to meet, Zelig like, every important figure of the the 20th Century and somehow, become central to their lives. Its an amazing trick.

The story is at once credible and fantastic. GP Putnam (yes, that publisher) hires Heller to see if Paul Mantz is schtupping his wife AE. He isn't but soon, Heller is. Their wild romance is complicated, to say the least, by her lesbianism, his money grabbing antics and, oh yeah, flying espionage against the Japanese. This is the biggest stretch for Heller I've read so far, and that's saying something. MAC makes Heller very compelling, a mix of macho action man and sympathetic ladies man - a perfect blend.

The writing is compact, exciting and twists and turns like a 300lb. fish out of water. It's overlong but once you're hooked, be prepared to be dragged underwater a few dozen times. MAC is noir fast food, but Heller is like a big bucket of noir chicken. Yummy but your stomach hurts after.

[Lacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
This was a slow read for me, dragging at times while action-packed at others. While it inspired more interest in further reading about Amelia Earhart, I didn't love Nate Heller's character. He was overall pretty likable, but I found some of his personality traits distasteful, and those things naturally continued to show up throughout the book. Overall, I'm torn about how I feel. I think the ending is a bit abrupt but a somewhat satisfactory ending, and I do admire how well-researched the book is. Like I said, I definitely want to read more about Earhart after this, which definitely counts for something.

[Rose Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting view point of what happened to Amelia Earhart. This is book 9 in a series about a A detective. This detective becomes her Bodyguard and it's his story of what happened to her. I enjoyed the plot and the story but was let down in how she died. It made the detectives feelings toward Amy less important than it was. This had facts in it and of course made up information too. It was worth the read.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining jaunt based on an interesting character

Didn't know what to expect with this book but the story is loosely based on true events and the pacing is pretty good. Action packed end drew the story to a good close. Strange that the subject of the story was recently in the news.

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I think it was well written, I personally do not like history and/or biography books so why I even stated reading it is beyond me. It took me a long time to read it because to me it was very dull.
If you like biography/romance/thriller, go ahead. There was nothing in the book that kept me up at night..

[Robert M. Roth MD · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Flight of Amelia

A fictional account of the last flight of Amelia Earhart which is well written and does not require the suspension of disbelief. A curious mixture of facts and fantasy which enmesh Nate Heller and Amelia. A good read.

[Mary Carr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Agreeable hard boiled

Like all in the series this is a carefully researched and believable story. Cynical wise cracking Nate is inserted into the real life of Aemilia Earhart and examines her disappearance.

[Jeff J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a departure for the Nathan Heller historical mystery series, lacking a mob storyline or a Chicago setting. It works best when viewed as a biography of Amelia Earhart, as well as plausible speculation about her fate. As always, the author’s endnotes were instructive.

[Hugh Heinsohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding and well researched historical fiction based around the exploits of Amelia Earhart. The Nate Heller character is believable and well drawn. Terrific and exciting plot set during a turbulent time. I’ll be reading more Nate Heller stories!

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Read this for a book challenge and was intrigued by the Amelia Earhart connection. It wasn’t quite what I expected and it took me awhile to finish but in the end enjoyed and glad I read it.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome entry in the series. Seriously, read this one. It's fun, romantic, there's mystery and action. You can tell Mr Collins spent a lot of time on the research for this one, which helps immerse you in the past. Definitely don't skip this one.

[Gordon Popular · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another a great book with a history of an historical unsolved mystery that still has people guessing. As per usual many real people from this time are involved. Max Collins has done his research and most of the facts are correct. Nat Heller continues to be hard nosed. Highly recommended.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fictional treatment of a familiar story.

[Jason Stokes · Rating 5 out of 5]

No words for what this book does.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating 2

[Cathy Mcgeowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice mixture of fiction and historical non-fiction that caused me to further explore Amelia Earhart's disappearance.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

PI Nate Heller investigates the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Shamus Award Nominee for Best PI Novel (1999).

[Night Runner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting read as the plane was potentially found a couple days ago (2/5/2024). Definitely worth the read/listen!