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Bombshell is the Max Allan Collins novel that takes the 1962 Marilyn Monroe death scenario and runs it as a pulp thriller, with the conceit that a private investigator (Nathan Heller, Collins's long-running Chicago PI) is hired to keep her alive in the final week.
Collins is a serious researcher, and the period detail is the engine of the book. The LA-mob figures, the political fixers, the actual people who were on the Monroe payroll, all carry weight. The thriller plot resolves with the kind of inventive what-if cleverness that Collins's Heller series specializes in. Whether you read it as alternate history or just as a fan riff on a famous death depends on your taste.
Four stars. A propulsive read for fans of the Heller series and for readers interested in the actual Hollywood demi-monde of the early 60s.
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