Capturing Van Cleef’s Lookalike

Hard Case Crime’s new reissues of Max Allan Collins’ novels starring a professional thief known only as Nolan received some love recently from TheBad.net, a soon-to-be-10-year-old blog devoted to the life and works of actor Lee Van Cleef. It seems artist Mark Eastbrook’s cover images of Nolan look strikingly like the film and TV star.

That alikeness isn’t accidental, as Collins explained in his blog late last year. “The Van Cleef resemblance (which was part of the [early 1980s] Pinnacle covers, to a degree, and very much an element of the Perfect Crime reprints) is mentioned prominently in the novels. I met him once, interviewed him, and he treated me with amusement and at one point got briefly irritated with me. It was unsettling but memorable, being Jon to his Nolan. No guns were involved.”