Barbara Allan

Barbara Allan is the shared pen name of mystery writers Barbara Collins and Max Allan Collins. Their Trash 'n' Treasures series pairs antiques dealer Brandy Borne with her theatrical mother, Vivian, in humorous investigations rooted in collecting and small-town life. Kensington issued Antiques Fate in 2016 as the tenth main novel in that sequence. A village festival in Old York draws Vivian into a one-woman performance of Macbeth, but a death at the theater turns the outing into another case for the Borne family. Brandy, Vivian, and their Shih Tzu, Sushi, navigate theatrical rivalries, local secrets, and further danger while the antiques fair provides the series' familiar material culture. The collaborators divide the storytelling work behind one consistent author identity, combining Max Allan Collins's crime background with Barbara Collins's comic instincts. Antiques Fate shows that partnership at its most characteristic, balancing a conventional mystery structure with an eccentric mother-daughter relationship and practical observations about antiques.