Red Rosa

Dan Fortune #13

by Michael Collins

“Who shoots a bag lady?” the policeman asked. No one had the answer – yet. In this riveting novel set in 1988 New York, private investigator Dan Fortune faces a tough Who’d want to murder Rosa Gruenfeld, nearly ninety years old and a lifelong fiery Communist living in a derelict hotel in the bohemian Chelsea district? In the hospital, confused and hallucinating, she’s visited by son Nicholas, who walked away from her years before, fed up with her Marxist doctrine and her shopping bags of pamphlets and handouts. But Granddaughter Lennie has her own causes, and one of them is Rosa. A rock singer, Lennie hires Dan to uncover the would-be killer. Dan promptly finds himself targeted, too, and the only way he’s going to stop whoever it is, is to find out who in Rosa’s past hated her so much he or she still wanted her dead. From her three husbands to her children and her brother, to the police and to the FBI, Dan is propelled on a trail of history and politics, bitterness and hope. As Kirkus Reviews said, “When it’s all over, the pieces of the puzzle fit with sweet inevitability. Dan survives a variety of attacks to fight the good fight another day. The reader can hope it’s in a story as suspenseful, character-rich, and absorbing as this.”

299 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 1989

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

[Tom Pepper · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite detective series--this is the case that pushes Dan to leave NY and head for CA. The CPUSA, allusions to the Rubin Carter case, and Dan's usual concerns for the plight of the downtrodden. Very 80s, in many ways, but still great reading.

[Doreen]

Brass

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started good but went downhill quick. Heavy handed and preachy-- the worst of it was that I'd heard that sermon before, many times. Didn't like it the first time.