After putting his historical mystery series to bed, Max Allan Collins dips into the past again for BLACK HATS – albeit under the pen name of Patrick Culhane – for a “what if?” crime novel about Wyatt Earp going head to head with Al Capone. The idea of the Western hero meeting the gangland boss has the potential to generate sparks, which the book does … for a while.

In the early 20th century, his O.K. Corral days far behind him, Earp barely makes ends meet as a freelance detective in Los Angeles. One day, the widow of his friend Doc Holliday comes calling, with a secret and an offer. The secret: Holliday impregnated her before he died, but the child never has learned who his father was. The offer: That boy, now grown, is making some serious cash – and serious enemies – in New York illegally running a speakeasy under the shadow of Prohibition. Would Wyatt mind talking some sense into him?

Handed a wad of cash, Wyatt saddles up – er, so to speak – for the East Coast, picking up old pal Bat Masterson along the way, the former U.S. Marshal now toiling away as a sports editor. When they meet Kid Holliday, his mother’s fears are not to be allayed, because he’s “in business” with one Alphonse Capone. Guns blaze.

Collins has an eye for period detail, as his devoted readers already know, and BLACK HATS is well-researched. Given the author’s love for Eliot Ness, it should come as no surprise that he enjoys playing in his world, sticking to the truth as much as can to lend the fiction some gritty authenticity.

But it’s almost as if the pairing of the protagonist and antagonist had more potential than is actually reached. Perhaps Collins felt stifled to color too far outside the lines by adhering to facts, but the story never quite takes off with the Old West-meets-UNTOUCHABLES flair one expects. Ironically, the best chapters are all upfront, getting to know Earp and even flashing back to his dusty days as a gunslinger.

I like that Earp is presented as likable but flawed, rather than the mythologized, larger-than-life figure Hollywood often force-feeds us. We’re with him all the way, but once he meets Capone – the reader’s first introduction as well – it’s clear that perhaps this meeting wasn’t meant to be.

Collins is one of my favorite authors, but he does best when there’s an actual mystery to be solved. BLACK HATS will do for his fans – and may even earn him some new ones – but when you know what he’s capable of, “will do” isn’t quite enough. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• DICK TRACY by Max Allan Collins
• THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins
• MY LOLITA COMPLEX AND OTHER TALES OF SEX AND VIOLENCE by Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens
• QUARRY’S LIST by Max Allan Collins
• ROAD TO PARADISE by Max Allan Collins
• THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER by Max Allan Collins