(1948– ) has created several diverse series characters, including Quarry, a hit man; Nolan, a professional thief; Mallory, a midwestern mystery writer who solves crimes; Eliot Ness, the real-life FBI agent of the Prohibition era; Dick Tracy, the famous character created by Chester Gould (when Gould retired, Collins wrote the comic strips, a novelization of the Dick Tracy movie, and two additional novels); and his most successful character, Nate Heller, a Chicago private eye whose cases were mainly set in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of the novels involve famous people of the era, including Al Capone, Frank Nitta, and Eliot Ness in the first book, True Detective (1983), as well as featuring such notorious cases as the kidnapping of Charles and Ann Lindbergh’s baby in Stolen Away (1991), the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in Flying Blind (1998), and the Black Dahlia murder in Angel in Black (2001).
Collins is also the author of the graphic novel Road to Perdition (1998), the basis for the 2002 Tom Hanks film, and several sequels, and has written numerous stand-alone novels and coauthored many books and stories with Mickey Spillane, completing works that were left unfinished when Spillane died.
Ms. Tree is the heroine of a popular comic book series featuring Michael Tree, a private detective who takes charge of the agency when her husband is murdered. She is tough and fearless, inspired, according to the author, by Velda, Mike Hammer’s secretary and girlfriend.
“Louise” was originally published in the anthology Deadly Allies, edited by Robert J. Randisi and Marilyn Wallace (New York, Doubleday, 1992).