MAX ALLAN COLLINS was named a Grand Master in 2017 by the Mystery Writers of America. He is a three-time winner of the Private Eye Writers of America’s Life Achievement award (2006), the Eye. His graphic novel Road to Perdition (1998) became the Academy Award-winning film directed by Sam Mendes and starring Tom Hanks. His other comics credits include the syndicated strip Dick Tracy, Batman, and (with artist Terry Beatty) his own Ms. Tree and Wild Dog. He has completed fourteen Mike Hammer novels begun by the late Mickey Spillane, and his Hammer audio novel The Little Death with Stacy Keach won a 2011 Audie. Recently he adapted the first of his Nathan Heller novels into a ten-part audio drama, True Noir.

For five years, he was sole licensing writer for TV’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, creating best-selling novels, graphic novels, and video games. His movie tie-in

novels have appeared on the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists, including Saving Private Ryan, Air Force One, and American Gangster.

Max has written and directed two documentaries and seven feature films, including the Lifetime movie Mommy (1996); and he scripted The Expert, a 1995 HBO World Premiere, as well as the film-festival favorite The Last Lullaby (2009) based on his innovative Quarry novels, which were also adapted as a 2016 TV series by Cinemax, for which Max wrote two scripts. Collins properties have also been optioned by Skydance, Lionsgate and CBS Films. His most recent self-scripted/directed indie films are Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder (2022), Blue Christmas (2023) and Death by Fruitcake (2024).

Mickey Spillane is the legendary crime writer credited with igniting the explosion of paperback publishing after World War II as a result of the unprecedented success of his Mike Hammer novels, feeding the public's appetite for sexy, violent, straight-talking crime stories. He also starred as Mike Hammer in The Girl Hunters. Mickey Spillane died at the age of 88 in 2006.