World Famous Comics: Two For The Money (Hard Case Crime)
Two For The Money (Hard Case Crime)
By: Max Allan Collins Publisher: Hard Case Crime Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Hard Case Crime Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 383 Publication Date: November 02, 2004
No retirement plans for thieves Donald Westlake, writing under the pseudonym Richard Stark, penned a number of wonderfully lean crime novels featuring Parker, a thief who coolly goes about his business. Versions of Parker have been portrayed by such actors as Peter Coyote, Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson, but the literary version is physically enigmatic, as he is rarely described. Overall, however, I'd have to peg Parker as being in his thirties: old enough to be wise to the ways of the criminal world, yet not so old as to be in physical decline.
Heist men tend to have short life spans, but what if Parker made it to middle age? He might be a lot like Nolan, the antihero center of Max Allan Collins's Two for the Money. Nearing 50, Nolan knows his days of larceny are behind him, and he'd like to retire. Of course, there are problems with doing so, most particularly with a crime boss who wants to see him dead.
Two for the Money is actually a compilation of two novels: Bait Money (Collins's first published novel) and Blood Money, though the two really form one larger story. In Bait Money, Nolan tries to make peace with Charlie, a crime boss who's been after Nolan for years since Nolan killed Charlie's brother and stole some money from him. Charlie, a cog in a bigger crime machine known as the Family, is willing to let bygones be bygones, but only if Nolan pays him $100,000. Furthermore, the money must come from a heist, not a "legitimate" source.
Backed into a corner, Nolan goes to Planner, a friend to thieves who enjoys semi-retirement. Planner sets up capers though he doesn't do the actual jobs. Since Nolan is persona non grata in the thieving world (due to his troubles with the Family), Planner only has one possible job, a bank robbery. The problem is that the crime must be committed with amateurs, including Jon, Planner's comic book-loving, college age nephew.
Obviously, Nolan survives the adventures of Bait Money or he wouldn't be around in the sequel. Even if he has survived, he has been affected by the incidents in the first book. In this one, a mysterious person kills someone close to Nolan and steals a large sum of money, one that he needed to get a new start in his life. Nolan pieces together who this killer is quickly enough, but hunting him down will be more difficult, exacerbated by the fact that Nolan isn't the only one doing the hunting.
Although it is clear that Collins was influenced by Parker when creating Nolan (he even admits it in the afterword), Nolan is also a different character, more older and tired. While relatively stoic, he does comes off as warm and tender hearted compared to Parker. As Collins intends, this is not a very deep read, but it is an entertaining one, a book with the pulpy prose that will appeal to fans of classic crime fiction.
Two great books in one! "Two For The Money" which is two novels in one(Bait Money & Blood Money), was great! I found the plots intriguing, and the character Nolan to be wonderful.
The pages just flew by.
I can't believe these works were Max Allan Collins' first few tries.
Book one "Bait Money" was penned while he was in college at the University Iowa, the 2nd book "Blood Money came several years later. (According to MAC's afterward).
If he could produce work at this level so young, I shutter to think what his later work is like.
I'm definitely going to read all the Max Allan Collins I can get my hands on.
Great books, great author, and a great line of books (Hard Case Crime). I can't recommend all of them enough!
Happy Reading!
Written with reverence for the genre. Two early Max Allan Collins novels have been combined to make Two for the Money, a Hard Case Crime publication. The two novels are Bait Money and its sequel Blood Money. Both feature the hardboiled Collins protagonist known only as Nolan.
Nolan is a professional thief who is unrelentingly tough but operates within a certain code of conduct. (Though at times it's not easy discerning where the boundaries of Nolan's moral code are.) In Two for the Money, Nolan rather reluctantly pulls a bank heist in order to make peace with the Chicago based mob he unwisely offended some 16 years before. The plotting is less than airtight but the dialogue and the descriptive prose both make for compelling reading. The narrative is action packed and takes a number of unexpected, rather surprising turns.
The most admirable aspect of this book is the way Collins has successfully fashioned a genuinely hardboiled novel which does not take itself all that seriously, yet at the same time does not come off as self mocking. When you think about it, that's no small accomplishment. Two for the Money is a great example of hardboiled fiction. A solid 4 stars.
Two Classic Crime Noir Tales This volume reprints the first two of Max Collins' novels about Nolan, a character initially patterned as "homage" to Richard Stark's tough guy Parker.
In Blood Money, Nolan, a long time professional heister (that is he earned his money the old-fashioned way: he stole it) has found an apparent opportunity to put to rest the long time animosity of the Chicago Outfit (and to get the contract on his life rescinded). All he has to do is pay a sum reasonably attainable by "withdrawal" from a small town Midwestern bank. He puts together a team of willing amateurs for the task, but things are not as straight-forward as they seem. Internal tensions wthin the Outfit and difficulties within the robbey team complicate life as double-cross after double-criss occurs, up to the last page.
In Blood Money, before Nolan can recover from the near fatal conclusion of Bait Money, the money he secured to satisfy his obligation with the Outfit is stolen, his surviving partner kidnapped, and a senior colleague murdered. Both from loyalty to Jon, and from the principle that no one heists a heister, Nolan is forced, well, to be Nolan. The identity of the robbers and their personal issue with Nolan drive him toward the violent finish as he finds himself working with, or is it against, the Outfit once more.
Collins' style is terse, muscular, and fitting for the noir style of the 70 when these were initially published. Nolan is a hard professional, not cruel or vicious, just very professional at doing what needs to be done. The writing is direct and the action credible.
Fans of the Parker series will enjoy these initial books of the Nolan series.
Collins went on to write five more novels involving Nolan and Jon. In them, the character of young Jon becomes more siginificant, as does Nolan's desire to put heisting behind him and, as he says "go straight." Circumstances, his loyalty to Jon, and the vengeance of some with whom he had dealings during his "professional" years will conspire to complicae the attainment of his objectives. The concluding novels are far less "tough" than the initial two, certainly not Parkeresque, and as Collins himself says the presence of Jon hunanizes Nolan. They are still worth reading, especially once one has got to know Nolan and Jon
If You Like Parker ... Fine vintage noir writing with few wasted words. Protagonist Nolan is a slightly more sentimental version of Westbrook's (i.e., Richard Stark) Parker. If you like the Parker books, you'll like these too. Hopefully, Collins has a few more reprises of this character left ...
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