The Baby Blue Rip-Off

A Mallory Mystery

De: Max Allan Collins

Narrado por: Dan John Miller

Budding mystery writer Mallory was just trying to impress a politically correct girlfriend by delivering hot meals to little old ladies. The last thing he expected was to find his elderly charges such fascinating company, and when one sweet old gal meets an unexpectedly grisly fate, Mal sets out to find and stop the burglars who this time stole a life. The last thing the local sheriff needs, however, is a meddling civilian - even if the professions the young writer pursued before coming back home to sleepy Port City, Iowa, included reporter, soldier, and cop.

But Mal’s weakness is the fairer sex, and when he’s distracted by a high-school flame who got away, he has to wonder if he’s been blonde-sided. Back on track seeking the killers, Mal finds out the hard way that a murder mystery in real life could close the book on him…forever.

©2012 Max Allan Collins (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Small Town Crooks

I liked the familiarity of the author with small town life, with crooks that were bullying school boys, the lifelong regret of teenage sweethearts and old ladies who used to be third grade teachers. Great descriptions and rural masterminds.

Not as Hardboiled as the Heller Series

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I am a big fan of the Nathan Heller series written by Max Allan Collins. I thought that I would enjoy reading other books he wrote as well and had the opportunity to get this one inexpensively because of the Amazon Whispersync deal. (If you buy a Kindle version on Amazon of a book that has Whispersync you get a deal on the audio book.) Since my wife loves audio books I went ahead and got the book in audio as well.

In my opinion this book is a better read on the Kindle than it is as an audio performance. Part of the reason is the narrator. Mr. Miller does a fine job with everything but the female voice performances.

I would recommend the Kindle or the paper version of the book over the audio.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The best, most fleshed out character is the main character Mallory. Like the Nathan Heller books, you need to read more than one to get a real good 'feel' for this character though.

What didn’t you like about Dan John Miller’s performance?

His female character voices are really hard to listen to. I wish he had done a better job with them.

Could you see The Baby Blue Rip-Off being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

I could see the series made into a television show, not unlike Murder, She Wrote. It may be difficult to do that without the comparisons although it may have been a long enough time since MSW was on for it to work.

Any additional comments?

This is not a hard boiled detective series like the Nathan Heller stories. There also is no well known crimes in this series like in the Heller or Disaster series. I still recommend the books, just wouldn't recommend the audio unless you get them very inexpensively.

Great start to an overlooked detective series

Max Allan Collins is a prolific author well known For his Quary And Nathan Heller series of books. He also completed many Mike Hammer novels after the passing of Mickey Spillane. Somehow his Mallory series is overlooked which is a shame because it’s a lot of fun. It’s not quite as noir some of his other works
characters are solid, the clocks are good and the writing is superb. If you like Chandler, or Robert B Parker you’ll like Mallory.