Max Allan Collins
The Lusitania Murders
“There’s been some cover-up about the Lusitania. .
it was really murder.”
“There are few punishments too severe for a popular novel writer.”
“So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies,
private citizens will occasionally kill theirs.”
“NOTICE!
Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies to do so at their own risk.
Imperial German Embassy
Washington, D.C., 22 April 1915”
Announcement appearing in New York newspapers the morning the Lusitania sailed
ONE
Dinner at Luchow’sMy friend H.L. Mencken-at least, from time to time we were friends-once characterized me as the “biggest liar in Christendom.” So I would take no offense if the gentle reader (as Elbert Hubbard would say) discounted the tale I’m about to tell, as typical S.S. Van Dine self-aggrandizement.
On the other hand, over the years, the question I’ve most often been asked is how I came up with my distinctive pseudonym. The “Van Dine,” I have explained, is simple: It is an elegant representation of my occasional desire to eat, a luxury that requires earning the more than occasional dollar. Some have speculated that the “S.S.” represented the traditional abbreviation of “steamship,” which is in part true, and relates to this tale, taking place as it does on one of the most famous-and infamous-ocean liners of the twentieth century.