You Can’t Stop Me

Max Allan Collins no longer writes CSI tie-in novels. At least not officially. Because YOU CAN’T STOP ME, written with Matthew Clemens, feels a lot like one.

Instead of Gil Grissom (who, perhaps not-so-incidentally, gets name-dropped), the hero is J.C. Harrow, a Iowa small-town sheriff who hits the big time when he saves the President of the United States from a would-be assassin’s bullet at the state fair. His adrenaline rush is short-lived, however, when he arrives home and feels that something’s “not right.” Sure enough, he finds that his wife and son have been shot to death, and her not-that-valuable wedding ring missing from her finger.

Before long, a grieving Harrow finds his family isn’t the only such crime. There’s a spate of them across the country — perhaps even dozens — but they’ve been getting increasingly sloppy, with the women’s entire ring fingers removed. Now that Harrow hosts a moderately successful reality show called CRIME SEEN!, he’s in a position to do something about it, so on the season finale, he goes off-script to announce that the next season will find him and a top-tier team of criminal analysts bringing the serial killer to justice.

Now, brush aside the fact that reality shows aren’t live, and just go along for the ride. Harrow assembles his multicultural dream team and goes on the manhunt for the baddie known as The Messenger. But when one of the CRIME SEEN! troupe is kidnapped by the man, much more than ratings are at stake.

There’s no elaborate mystery at work here, but CSI fans — and especially those of the sleazy world of reality television — may be more attuned to STOP ME’s wavelength, which is part procedural, part party. I say “party,” because it feels as if Collins and Clemens have approached this one in a manner that suggests they were out to have a ball, rather than craft a somber, serious work. Generic, blah cover aside, this effort operates on a level of exaggerated reality, much like so-called “reality TV” does. In other words, situations are deliberately amped up for maxiumum entertainment value; if some facts get lost in the creative editing, so be it.

Indeed, STOP ME feels episodic, as if you could tune in next week for more adventures of Harrow and the gang. (The title even suggests another one is just around the corner.) The dialogue is a little TV-cheesy and unrealistic, but again, it can get away with it in the context of the novel’s setting and situations. The paperback original is an escapist read — not top-shelf Collins, but engrossing enough for a minimal investment of time and money. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE BABY BLUE RIP-OFF by Max Allan Collins
• BLACK HATS by Patrick Culhane
• BYLINE: MICKEY SPILLANE edited by Max Allan Collins and Lynn F. Myers Jr.
• DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins
• DICK TRACY by Max Allan Collins
• DICK TRACY GOES TO WAR by Max Allan Collins
• DICK TRACY: THE SECRET FILES edited by Max Allan Collins and Martin H. Greenberg
• THE FIRST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins
• G.I. JOE: ABOVE & BEYOND by Max Allan Collins
• G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA by Max Allan Collins
• THE GOLIATH BONE by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
• KILL YOUR DARLINGS by Max Allan Collins
• A KILLING IN COMICS 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 IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins
• QUARRY’S LIST by Max Allan Collins
• RED SKY IN MORNING by Patrick Culhane
• ROAD TO PARADISE by Max Allan Collins
• STRIP FOR MURDER by Max Allan Collins
• TOUGH TENDER by Max Allan Collins
• THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER by Max Allan Collins

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Related posts:

1. Quarry in the Middle
2. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
3. G.I. Joe: Above & Beyond
4. Dead Street
5. Red Sky in Morning

About Rod Lott

Rod is the fearless editor-in-chief of BOOKGASM and a voice of reason in Oklahoma City.