Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | True Detective | 1983 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 2 | Dying in the Post-War World | 1991 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 3 | True Crime | 1984 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 4 | Kisses of Death | 2001 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 5 | The Million Dollar Wound | 1986 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 6 | Chicago Lightning | 2011 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 7 | Triple Play | 2012 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 8 | Stolen Away | 1991 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 9 | Carnal Hours | 1994 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 10 | Blood and Thunder | 1995 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 11 | Flying Blind | 1998 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 12 | Angel in Black | 2001 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 13 | Chicago Confidential | 2002 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 14 | Better Dead | 2016 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
| 15 | Heller: The Big Bundle | 2022 | Max Allan Collins | N/A |
The Nathan Heller series is widely considered Max Allan Collins’ finest work. The books follow Nathan Heller, a Chicago private detective who gets drawn into real historical crimes and events spanning from the 1930s through the Cold War. Starting with True Detective in 1983, the series has grown to fifteen entries that mix fiction with extensively researched history.
Collins places Heller at the center of cases that actually happened, from the Lindbergh kidnapping to the Black Dahlia murder to political assassinations. The historical accuracy is a hallmark of the series. Collins has said he approaches each book as both a novelist and a historian, and the result is crime fiction that doubles as a tour through twentieth-century American history.
The collection includes both full-length novels and shorter works gathered in volumes like Chicago Lightning and Triple Play. Heller ages through the series, and readers who follow the books in order get to see both the character and the country change over the decades.