The Nightrunners

Dan Fortune #9

by Michael Collins

First Edition. Foxing to page edges. Plastic protective cover to DJ. Original price of $6.95 is intact. Pages are clean and binding is tight. Solid Book.

Genres: Mystery

383 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Michael Collins was a Pseudonym of Dennis Lynds (1924–2005), a renowned author of mystery fiction. Raised in New York City, he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart during World War II, before returning to New York to become a magazine editor. He published his first book, a war novel called Combat Soldier, in 1962, before moving to California to write for television.

Two years later Collins published the Edgar Award–winning Act of Fear (1967), which introduced his best-known character: the one-armed private detective Dan Fortune. The Fortune series would last for more than a dozen novels, spanning three decades, and is credited with marking a more politically aware era in private-eye fiction. Besides the Fortune novels, the incredibly prolific Collins wrote science fiction, literary fiction, and several other mystery series. He died in Santa Barbara in 2005.

Reviews

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s not much more to say about the Dan Fortune books that I haven’t said in my last few reviews. This one is slightly better than the previous few I panned, but it again suffers from the writer biting off a little more plot than he can chew. When I started these, I expected Dan to be romping around New York. That was part of the appeal. Instead, Collins continues to introduce new locations, this time suburban Connecticut and Mexico, the latter probably the weakest part of the book. Also, for a book this size, there are way too many characters. Again, it’s fine. I just was really hoping for more from this series after a promising start.

[dennis barron · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Night runners. Dennis Lynds

PI Fortune is hired by the owner of a large pharmaceutical company to find his brother, an unmotivated failure with no real ambition. A professional gambler. Not a very good one. Then Fortunes clients son is arrested in Mexico. Drugs. All steps to get him released are unsuccessful. Then people start dying, murder, suicide. Everything points to Mexico. An extremely fast paced thriller. The primary motivational factor? $. This is a good old school detective thriller masterfully written. I highly recommend!