Target Lancer by Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins has made a lasting impression with his wide variety of work – including the bestselling Road to Perdition (made into the film of the same name), and his long running Nathan Heller series (most recently 2011’s Bye Bye, Baby), in which Collins explores real historical mysteries through the eyes of the compelling and well-connected P.I.

Heller returns in his next fascinating novel as Max Allan Collins explores one of the most compelling mysteries of the 20th century—the real story behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Based on countless hours of research, TARGET LANCER (A Forge Hardcover; $24.99; On-sale: November 27, 2012) combines true facts with a very rousing story as Collins presents an eye-witness account of the events, published on the fiftieth anniversary of one of America’s saddest days.

Long before November 22, 1963, Nathan Heller, “P.I. to the Stars,” knows that a conspiracy is in the works. Several years earlier, Heller had been involved with the Kennedys, the Mob, and the CIA in the early stages of a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. In early November 1963, Heller does a favor for a friend who is one of his Mafia contacts. Shortly after, Heller’s Mafia contact is murdered.

After being interrogated by gangsters and contacted by U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Heller realizes that he may be the one person who can prevent a devastating political assassination. Only he knows all the players; only he knows why a web of conspirators has targeted the man known to the Secret Service as “Lancer,” John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Rigorously researched, Max Allan Collins’s TARGET LANCER is far more truth than fiction.

TARGET LANCER is available from Amazon, Tor-Forge, IndieBound and Barnes and Noble.

*****

“Max Allan Collins can lay claim to being the master of true-crime fiction…a seamless juxtaposition of narrative cunning and historical cross-referencing.” —Chicago Magazine

“Collins convincingly portrays the real-life players in the drama, who include Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Sinatra. Readers with a taste for hard-boiled roman à clef will hope that more Heller is in the offing.” —Publishers Weekly Starred Review of Bye Bye, Baby

“A whirlwind tour of the story surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s untimely demise as it might have been covered in the garish pages of Confidential magazine, or by TMZ for that matter, with more grit than George Baxt’s Hollywood mysteries.” —Library Journal on Bye Bye, Baby

“A Hollywood novel that’s more interesting than the true story—if, in fact, it’s not what really happened anyway. Collins’s twist on the American mystery simply can’t be put down.” —RT Book Reviews on Bye Bye Baby

*****

MAX ALLAN COLLINS is the bestselling author of the graphic novel Road to Perdition, the basis for the hit film starring Tom Hanks. He has won two Shamus Awards for previous Nathan Heller novels. His most recent Heller mystery was Bye Bye, Baby. He lives in Muscatine, Iowa. Visit him at: http://www.maxallancollins.com/blog/