Act of Fear
A Dan Fortune Mystery

***Edgar Award Winner for best first novel in 1968.*** ”Not that I investigate much that is big or dangerous. Some industrial work and some divorces. Armed-guard jobs, and subpoenas for bread and butter. But mostly the personal problems of small people who want to apply a little pressure on someone b......more

One of my great reading pleasures is to discover, in the prose of an older writer new to me, the evidence of his influence on a writer I greatly admire. Michael Collins’ Act of Fear gave me that pleasure, for before completing twenty pages I became convinced that, without this book and the other Dan......more

I read this book many,many moons ago, and picked it up again with the vague feeling I had read it many moons ago. Finally I got to one unimportant, casual descriptive sentence that I had never forgotten in thirty years, and could be sure. I imagine there are very few authors who can write a sentence......more

Answers trickle out in "Act of Fear" by Dennis Lynds. This is the first in a series featuring one-armed private detective, Dan Fortune, and proudly includes a good measure of beatings, murders, warnings and threats, mostly of the variety that is carried out. In addition, we are treated to philospoph......more

Ask any compulsive reader what one of their great thrills is and I would hazard to guess many would say “discovering a new author” lands before “discovering a good book.” For when you discover a new author, you discover the possibility of many good books. I picked this one up on a recommendation from......more