Review by Booklist Review
Collins brought his Nolan series, starring a heist man determined to give up the game, back to life last year with Skim Deep. Now he brings together two early Nolan novels, Fly Paper and Hush Money, originally published in the early '80s (Collins describes the byzantine bibliographic history of both books in a foreword). Fly Paper finds Nolan and his younger sidekick, comics-crazy Jon, on a plane from Detroit to Quad Cities with a purloined $200,000 nestled safely in a suitcase. All's well until the plane is skyjacked by a D. B. Cooper--wannabe, who claims to have hidden a bomb in his own suitcase, also resting quietly in the baggage compartment. How to subdue the skyjacker while saving the loot from prying eyes hunting for the bomb? In Hush Money, Nolan is summoned by his former Chicago Mob colleagues to figure out who is systematically bumping off members of the DiPreta family. Even early in his career, Collins displays here the ability to combine nifty plot machinations with superb character building of both principal and supporting players. Thoroughly entertaining hard-boiled fare.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This welcome collection from MWA Grand Master Collins Skim Deep offers two gritty crime novels, both first published in 1981, starring heist man Nolan. In the superior Fly Paper, the 50-year-old veteran thief of 20 years begins to go stir-crazy in Sycamore, Ill., while managing a motel for a powerful Chicago crime syndicate. Sherry, his "almost obscenely young" girlfriend, has gone to Ohio to care for her sick mother, leaving him restless and frustrated. When his young, comic book--fanatic partner in crime, Jon, requests his help, Nolan relishes being drawn into a big-money heist involving vicious, double-crossing father and son crooks and facing off with a desperate antagonist, who has taken advantage of a wave of skyjackings. The less gripping Hush Money, set one week after the end of Fly Paper, revolves around the Mafia-connected DiPreta family, with Nolan tasked with finding the sniper who's picking off the DiPretas. Collins's careful plotting and attentiveness toward character development steer the narrative to a reasonably satisfying resolution despite some redundant backstory. Fans of old-school, hard-edged heist yarns will have fun. (May)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Hard Case celebrates the publication of Skim Deep, the first new novel since 1999 about the never-quite-reformed thief Nolan, by reprinting the third and fourth of Nolan's adventures, originally published in the early '80s. The first of the two, Fly Paper, pulls Nolan and his friend and son figure, Jon, away from a comic-book convention long enough to avenge the Comfort family's double-cross of their latest partner in crime, the compulsive gambler Breen, by leaving one Comfort dead and grabbing $200,000 from another. So far, so lucrative, until the successful thieves discover that the passenger list of the airplane carrying them from Detroit back home to Iowa includes a skyjacker whose luggage contains a bomb he threatens to detonate unless he's paid--wait for it--a ransom of $200,000. The more ambitious but less satisfying Hush Money, set only a week later, is kicked off by the shooting of golfer Joey DiPreta just as newly appointed state highway commissioner Carl H. Reed has turned down his gentle request to ignore the about-to-be-discovered graft of Reed's predecessor. Since Joey is a member in good standing of the DiPreta crime family, his execution by Vietnam-trained sniper Steven Bruce McCracken sets shock waves of violence radiating out from the family in all possible directions. Nolan, who's recently returned to the good graces of the family after a 16-year exile, is assigned the tricky task of locating and defanging the sniper without making any waves that might be traced back to the DiPretas. Honest pulp marred only by the odd moments in which the hero explains things or shows his sensitive side. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
