The War of the Worlds Murder

This is a fun outing in this series by Collins. As always, he has done his homework and put together a believeable and intriguing story about Orson Welles, John Houseman and Walter Gibson. They were tied together through The Shadow stories from pulp novels and radio plays. In its own way the story is much like the War of the Worlds radio play Welles was famous for. To say more would be to say too much. Sit down and enjoy this quick read.

Max Allan Collins' historical mysteries are some of the best reading available. His Nathan Heller series has been nominated nine times for the Shamus award (winning twice, for True Detective and Stolen Away) and his "disaster" series has received similar acclaim, with was also nominated for the Shamus). Mysteries are often considered fluff writing, but Collins mixes fact and fiction in a way that is irresistible to those of us who like a little grit in our meringue. The War of the Worlds Murder is the sixth in the Collins' "disaster" series, and it continues the series on a slightly different note. It is both less "disastrous" than previous entries and slightly less effective. But that doesn't keep it from being fascinating reading, especially to such a rabid fan of Orson Welles, the Shadow, and old-time radio as myself. This War of the Worlds does not focus on the H.G. Wells novel (although it was undoubtedly released to coincide with the recent film adaptation). It instead features the 1938 Mercury Theatre radio presentation that "panicked America." Collins introduces the novel, much like the Orson Welles film F for Fake, with the assertion that what follows is true -- the result of a conversation with Walter Gibson in 1975. (Gibson created the Shadow, authored over 230 novels featuring the character, and was the person who recommended Welles the young actor for the role on radio.) However, also like F for Fake, he abandons this tactic once we are well and truly hooked, introducting a fictional murder into the proceedings. (Welles' mistress, or one of them, is murdered in CBS studios on the night of the broadcast and it is up to pulp writer Gibson, in town to assist Welles on a Shadow film project that never materialized, to solve the crime.) Unfortunately, it is the murder that is the weak point in what is otherwise a fascinating portrait of an important incident in entertainment history -- it plays little or no role other than slightly enhancing the storyline. It is the real story of the events on the night of October 30, 1938, that keep the reader turning pages: showing the famous War of the Worlds broadcast from behind the scenes (from Gibson's point of view primarily) and how the radio play affected those millions of listeners who tuned in late and missed the opening announcement. By the time they switched from the popular Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy program (once Nelson Eddy began singing), the Mercury play and the "Martian invasion" were well underway. Max Allan Collins puts a lot of research in his work and often comes up with surprising, heretofore unknown facts. After all, who knew that Judy Holliday (who would later win an Oscar for her portrayal of not-so-dumb blonde Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday) was an office assistant at CBS studios back in 1938, subject to abuse from Welles' Mercury Theatre partner, John Houseman? I didn't. (Interestingly, as Welles' career was coming to an embarrassing close, Houseman's second

This book by Stuart Kaminsky was alternatingly fascinating and a tad plodding. I thoroughly enjoyed the history of how The Shadow was created and William B. Gibson's role in it. I can still feel the pain of his bandaged fingers pounding out 100,000 words a month every month, on a typewriter no less. Those who love this book might also be interested in The Chinese Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont. The interweaving of a murder, didn't have to be the Shadow to figure that out, into the more real events surrounding the War Of The Worlds broadcast was plausible and provided a nice counterpoint to the larger than life Welles, Houseman and Paul Stewart. The latter a very underrated character actor of the time. Books using real people inserted into the tale, usually mysteries, trade highly on the familiarity of the public with their hero. Perhaps this is why you do not see The Screech Mysteries or The Bobbsey Twins with special guest sleuth, Dick Van Patten. I enjoyed the book but would have fared better in hardcover with larger, more accessible print. It is worth the money and worth your time.

As Collins notes in his afterward, "The War of the Worlds Murder", the sixth installment in Collins' "disaster" series (following The London Blitz Murders, The Lusitania Murders, The Titanic Murders, The Hindenburg Murders, and The Pearl Harbor Murders), features a real life crime fiction writer functioning as an amateur sleuth in a fact-based mystery. This time out, the writer/sleuth is none other than pulp writer Walter B. Gibson. Gibson, the journeyman writer who penned dozens of adventures of the pulp hero The Shadow, has been invited to New York by none other than actor/director Orson Welles, who is interested in bringing the enigmatic avenger he has portrayed in radio dramas to the silver screen. Arriving in New York City on Thursday, October 27, 1938, Gibson observes Welles and the rest of the Mercury Theatre players in action as they prepare for their Halloween broadcast of their adaptation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds; swept up by the whirlwind that is Orson Welles, Gibson has great fun, until the night of that fateful performance, as a body turns up in a room adjacent to the broadcast studio. Gibson, who has witnessed the passions that Welles arouses, realizes that anyone in the studio, including the great actor himself, is a potential suspect. A quick, compelling read, TWOTWM features Collins' trademark exhaustive research and unparalleled creativity, as the author deftly weaves fact and fiction into a winning tapestry. Mystery mavens will appreciate the puzzle Collins has concocted; those who know the histories of Welles and Gibson will appreciate the way the author painlessly inserts details about their fascinating lives into the narrative. Collins makes these historical figures and the times come alive, providing his audience with a pleasant way to spend a few hours.

What if, on the night of Orson Welles' production of "The War of the Worlds", the young actor was accused of murdering one of the many mistresses he had? And if the only man that stood between Welles and a certain arrest for murder was Walter B. Gibson, the mesmerizing reconteur of THE SHADOW? Given that Halloween night of 1938 in which the force of radio was recognized across the nation by morning as a background, Max Allan Collins weaves an intricate story of Welles' life pre-Hollywood, the Golden Age of radio, and a neat little murder mystery with a twist. Of course, Max Allan Collins is an old hand at creating mysterious puzzles. Author of dozens of books, most of them mysteries and several others focusing on the Good Girl Art of Gil Elvgren and the pulps, Collins has written the award-winning ROAD TO PERDITION, which became a movie starring Tom Hanks, several novels based on the CSI television franchise, and seveal novels about his own award-winning detective, Nate Heller. He has written five other "disaster" mysteries, all featuring real-life events and authors. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER is a fantastic little tale. As with all of Collins' novels, he devotes time to laying out the disaster as well as the backgrounds of the real people he uses. In this case, Collins brings actor/writer/director Orson Welles and author Walter B. Gibson (who wrote the Shadow novels under the house name Maxwell Grant) to center stage. The first half of the novel is a fun romp that brings the reader up to speed on the personalities as well as providing a peek into the world that was Golden Age Radio. Then he procedes to spin out a neat little mystery that plays out during the hour-long broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" that sent millions of people into a panic that would forever change the face of radio. Collins' prose is as readable as ever and full of the spirit of the times. The only drawback, though no fault of Collins', is that the radio broadcast that triggered a night of panic does tend to overshadow the mystery plot. The reactions of the listeners to Welles' treatment of the H. G. Wells novel dilutes Gibson's own search for a murderer, and more of the tension derives from what is going to happen to Welles as a result of the broadcast than a result of the murdered mistress. THE WAR OF THE WORLD MURDER is a fantastic little gem of a novel. Part nonfiction, part fiction, the novels escorts the reader to a night of wonderment and a murder that's played out in "the theater of the mind". Readers who enjoy this novel may find themselves reaching for books by Leonard Maltin and others on the Golden Age of Radio as well as more of Max Allan Collins' "disaster" novels.