Deadly Beloved (Max Allan Collins, 2007)

Mrs Tree runs a detective agency, which she inherited after her husband was killed on their wedding night. She used to employ two assistants, but one had left to conduct some private investigation. So she gets an assignment by her lawyer associate to help some rich guy's wife who had killed the cheating bastard when she caught him with a hooker. A cop-friend of hers hints that this might look like a job of the mysterious Event Fixer - a highly skilled and professional hit-man who specialises in fixing "accidents". He's usually employed by the sinister mob family Muertas, who is also responsible for the premature demise of Mr Tree. What else? Oh, yeah - Mrs Tree got over her hubby's death and she is now fucking his friend Chic Steel. She also has to attend psychiatric sessions to recover from the stress she had suffered when she killed some bad guys...

So lots of stuff is going on in this little, less than 200-page pulp. So much, in fact, that sometimes I got the impression that Collins was in such a hurry to complete it that he forgot to develop his characters and, even more importantly, build some decent atmosphere. Its pace is too fast, maybe because Mrs Tree is a comic book character, and Collins tried to preserve the spirit of a graphic novel. Whatever that's supposed to be...

A few things stand out, both good and not so good. The ending should be better, more developed. The final twist is truly surprising; there's no way to see it coming. But that's simply because it is so far-fetched and totally unbelievable. It seems like Collins wanted to wrap everything up and get it over with. And the thing I liked was the narration. The story is told partly in real time and partly in flashbacks while she's on the shrink's couch. These passages are executed very elegantly and help build suspense. Very skillfully and very comic book-ish indeed.

Nice and entertaining, but - will all due respect to MAC - a bit too childish for my taste.

2.5/5

Facts:

Hero:
Mrs Tree

Location:
Chicago

Body count: 
7 (one guy is actually killed twice; first time just in dreams!)

Dames:
Besides our hero, there's also a victim, Marcy Addwater, and a beautiful and dangerous leader of the mob, Dominique Muertas. She's definitely underused!!

Cover:
Pretty cool. Her facial expression could be better, but I like those dark blue colours - very noir-ish! Illustrated by Terry Beatty, an artist who collaborated with Collins on comic book serials. Although it needs to be said that it is not very accurate: Mrs Tree does indeed wear her signature trench coat most of the time, but not at the end when she confronts the bad guy with a pistol in her bed. At that particular point, she wore "the top of a pair of black silk men's pajamas".

Cool lines: 
Lots and lots of pretty stupid but still hilarious dialogues. Another proof that this would make it a better comic book than a novel. I can just imagine these wisecracks lettered in balloons!

"You must be the little woman." 
"You must be the dead whore"  [The Coolest!]

"My client is an innocent woman." 
"Aren't all your clients innocent? Until proven broke?" 
"That's unkind."
Notice he didn't say "unfair."

"I was hoping." I said slowly, politely, "to talk to Mrs. Hazen."
He grunted a laugh. "I was hopin' for a ten-inch dick."
I smiled pleasantly. "Aren't we all? You're...?"

That's what I like about being 21st Century P.I. Ten years ago, shoe leather. Today - Google.