The Pearl Harbor Murders (24 page)
Read The Pearl Harbor Murders Online
Authors: Max Allan Collins
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Historical, #Military, #Mystery & Detective, #Mystery Fiction, #History, #Historical Fiction, #World War II, #Pearl Harbor (Hawaii); Attack On; 1941, #Burroughs; Edgar Rice, #Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), #Edgar Rice, #Attack On, #1941, #Burroughs
Despite the use of real names and an underlying basis in history, these are all characters in a novel, fictionalized and doing the author's bidding.
My fact-based novels about fictional 1930s/'40s-era Chicago private detective Nathan Heller have required extensive research not unlike what was required here. As usual, my Heller research assistant, George Hagenauer, provided valuable input and came up with research materials on both Pearl Harbor and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Many books on both Hawaii and the Pearl Harbor attack were consulted, but none was more valuable than
Pearl Harbor Ghosts
(1991) by Thurston Clarke. Mr. Clarke's wonderful book is a vivid picture of Honolulu in 1941 filtered through a modem prism; this work- along with
Tarzan Forever
-provided the spine of my research, and I am indebted to him.
Other Hawaii references consulted include:
All the Best in Hawaii
(1949), Sydney Clark;
Aloha Waikiki
(1985), DeSoto Brown;
Around the World Confidential
(1956), Lee Mortimer;
Detective Jardine: Crimes in Honolulu
(1984), John Jardine with Edward Rohr-bough and Bob Krauss;
Hawaii: A Profile
(1940), Merle Colby;
Hawaii Recalls
(1982), DeSoto Brown, Anne Ellett, Gary Giernza;
Hawaii: Restless Rampart
(1941), Joseph Barber, Jr.;
Hawaiian Tapestry
(1937), Antoinette Withington;
Hawaii! "... Wish You Were Here."
(1994), Ray and Jo Miller;
Hawaiian Yesterdays
(1982), Ray Jerome Baker;
Honolulu-Waikiki Handbook
(1994), J. D. Bisignani;
The Japanese in Hawaii: A Century of Struggle
(1985), Roland Kotani;
Remembering Pearl Harbor
(1984), Michael Slack-man;
Roaming Hawaii
(1937), Harry A. Franck;
The View from Diamond Head
(1986), Don Hibbard and David Franzen;
Waikiki Beachboy
(1989), Grady Tim-mons; and
When You Go to Hawaii
(1930), Townsend Griffiss. The latter-a book I stumbled onto in a Honolulu used-book store while researching the Nathan Heller novel
Damned in Paradise
(1996)-was again particularly useful.
Two especially helpful references were
Pearl Harbor
(1969) by A. J. Barker, and the groundbreaking
Day of Infamy
(1957) by Walter Lord. I also screened the film
Tora! Tora! Tora!
(1970), directed by Richard Fleischer, Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasuku. Other valuable references on the attack include:
At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor
(1981), Gordon W. Prange;
The Broken Seal
(1967), Ladislas Far-ago;
Dec. 7 1941
(1988), Gordon W. Prange with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon;
Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath
(1982), John Toland;
Long Day's Journey into War: December 7, 1941
(1991), Stanley Weintraub;
Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial
(1986), Richard A. Wisniewski; and
Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History
(1986), Gordon W. Prange with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon.
Internet research led me to several useful articles, including "Alewa Teahouse One of the Last of Its Kind" by Rod Ohira
(Honolulu Star-Bulletin);
"The Pearl Harbor Spy" by Wil Deac (thehistorynet.com); and the wonderful overview article "Turning Points: One Sunday in December" by Edward Oxford
(American History
magazine), the single most important research document for my portrayal of the attack itself.
I would like to thank editor Natalee Rosenstein of Berkley Prime Crime for having the foresight to allow me to do this book sooner rather than later-and then to graciously grant me a brief but vital extension; my agent and friend, Dominick Abel; and of course my wife, Barbara Collins, who interrupted her own writing to help me survive various sneak attacks along the way.
About the Author
Max Allan Collins has earned an unprecedented nine Private Eye Writers of America "Shamus" nominations for his "Nathan Heller" historical thrillers, winning twice
(True Detective,
1983, and
Stolen Away,
1991).
A Mystery Writers of America "Edgar" nominee in both fiction and nonfiction categories, Collins has been hailed as "the Renaissance man of mystery fiction." His credits include five suspense-novel series, film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets and movie tie-in novels, including such international bestsellers as
In the Line of Fire, Air Force One,
and
Saving Private Ryan.
He scripted the internationally syndicated comic strip "Dick Tracy" from 1977 to 1993, is cocreator of the comic-book features "Ms. Tree" and "Mike Danger," and has written the "Batman" comic book and newspaper strip. DreamWorks has bought motion-picture rights to his 1998 graphic novel,
Road to Perdition.
Working as an independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, he wrote and directed the suspense film
Mommy,
starring Patty McCormack, premiering on Lifetime in 19%, as well as its 1997 sequel,
Mommy's Day.
The recipient of a record four Iowa Motion Picture Awards for screenwriting, he also wrote
The Expert,
a 1995 HBO World Premiere film; and wrote and directed the award-winning documentary
Mike Hammer's Mickey Spillane
(1999) and the innovative feature
Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market
(2000).
Collins lives in Muscaline, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins, and their teenage son, Nathan.
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