Ms. Tree leaps to prose fiction

Once upon a time, mystery writer Max Allan Collins (Road To Perdition, CSI, Dick Tracy) teamed up with his pal Terry Beatty to create one of the longest-running independently-owned hardboiled crime comics, Ms. Tree. It enjoyed a long and healthy life, outlasting several of its publishers.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I edited the last lengthy run of the character over at DC Comics, where we produced ten novelette-length stories.

Now the indomitable private eye is making her return – not as a comic book, but as a prose novel written by Max Allan Collins and published this December by Hard Case Crime, who handles writers such as Pete Hamill, Stephen King and Ed McBain. I’m happy to report co-creator Terry Beatty is not being left out of the action: as you can see from the above illustration, Terry has contributed the cover painting to Deadly Beloved, "the first ever Ms. Tree Novel." This puts Terry alongside such masters as Robert McGinnis, Arthur Suydam and Bill Nelson.

All I can say is, well, hell, it’s about time.

Artwork copyright Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty. All Rights Reserved.