Masters of Noir - Volume 1 (1953-1959, published in 2010)

A great collection that starts slowly but gets better with each story.

Identity Unknown (Jonathan Craig, first published in Manhunt, August 1954)

Nice police procedural. All it takes for our detective is a pair of the victim's expensive shoes to establish her identity and, consequently, her killer. I liked its sharp style. There is no need for (too much) drama and emotions in a short story, right?

The Girl behind the Hedge (Mickey Spillane, first published in Manhunt, October 1953)

It seems like a logical decision for the editors of this compilation to shift gears with Spillane to follow up on the fairly plain opening story. You know - throw in a bit of sex and violence. No, sir.

I don't like writing this, and it's slowly beginning to look like I have something against good old Mickey, but this one is truly horrible. Instead of private eyes, cops, gangsters, dolls etc., we have a moral story about a couple of Wall Street brokers. One is good (?), and the other (surprise, surprise) is not so good. A real asshole, in fact, who some time ago stole the good one's fiancé. Hence, the poor sucker masterminded a diabolical revenge plan by making the asshole desperately fall in love with a mentally disabled girl and kill himself upon realising this.

And yes, that's it. Does it ring a bell? I forgot most about the classical adventures I read back in my primary school days, but this resembles one of those Count of Monte Cristo romantic revenge plots. I hope this is the case and that Spillane was fooling around and/or paying homage to some old master. But at least he stayed the classical Spillane as we know - one of his two protagonists calls this unfortunate girl a "hopeless imbecile". Fucking hell, what was this guy's problem??

Carrera's Woman (Ed McBain writing as Richard Marsten, first published in Manhunt, February 1953)

More like a Western, but still pretty cool. A bad guy vs. a good guy, and a woman playing a cat-and-mouse game in the scorching Mexican sun. Memorable for avoiding the obvious twist at the end.

Butcher (Richard S. Prather, first published in Manhunt, June 1954)

Can a good serial killer hunt story be squeezed into a short story? Probably not. But can a mediocre serial killer hunt story full of incredible coincidences be squeezed into a short story? Yes, definitely - this one is living proof. It's not all bad, and there are some okay moments and a decent twist at the end. Also good to see Shell Scott being a tough guy and not just some douchebag babbling about women.

Look Death in the Eye (Lawrence Block, first published in Saturn Web Detective Story Magazine, April 1959)

Another serial killer story! And it took exactly ten minutes to answer the above question and reject my hypothesis. Yes, writing a compelling short story about a serial killer is definitely possible. Although this one is not about the hunt, it is about the hunter instead.

It's Lawrence Block doing his Jill Emerson-ish erotic thing. But this time I was prepared and knew what to expect... and surprisingly I liked it. Liked it a lot, to be honest. Hot, a bit crazy, and also a little nasty! His recent one, The Girl with the deep Blue Eyes is now on my to-do list.

On a Sunday Afternoon (Gil Brewer, first published in Manhunt, January 1957)

A sexually repressed wife and her cowardly (impotent?) husband go to a family picnic after the Sunday mass, where they are attacked by a gang of juvenile delinquents. Cool stuff by the master.

Frame (Frank Kane, first published in Manhunt, December 1954)

Now we are getting somewhere! This one is a proper P.I. mystery with mobsters, dames, stolen loot, and even a decent body count. Great story, too. It kept me guessing right until the end.

Double (Bruno Fischer, first published in Manhunt, June 1954)

My favourite one in the collection. The bitter and woman-hating cop is fixated on the idea that the killer is his cheating ex-wife lookalike. Savage stuff, my only minor complaint would be that the apologies at the end are needless!

As I Lie Dead (Fletcher Flora, first published in Manhunt, February 1953)

It's hot, and two young lovers sit by the lake. She's dreaming about Acapulco, but his mind is elsewhere:

I saw that Grandfather had reached the raft. He was sitting on the far side, his back to us, legs dangling in the water. He’d made it out there in good time. For an old man, damn good time. He was strong, in spite of his fat belly. It didn’t look like he was ever going to die.

Guess what happens next?  You are right - grandfather won't be swimming much in the future. But that is just the beginning of the story. There will be blackmail, and murder, and betrayal. Excellent stuff, a bit depressing, but a great choice for a closing story.

3.5/5

Facts:

Body count: 

1 + 1 (added reluctantly since Wall Street yuppies shouldn't really count, right?) + 1 + 1 with at least 3 victims + 1 with a bunch of other victims (unfortunately, those eyeballs count is not specified) + 0 + 3 + 2 + 4 = 17

Dames:
Linda from "Carrera's Woman" is pretty cool (or should I say hot?):

There was sweetness in her kiss, and an undercurrent of danger, a pulsing emotion that knifed through me like an electric shock. She pressed against me, and her body was soft and womanly, and I forgot the marks of her nails on my arms and face, forgot that she could be as deadly as a grizzly. She was a kitten now, soft and caressing, and her breath was in my ears, and the movement of her body was quick and urgent. I lifted her, the .45 still in my hand, and carried her to the deep shadows of the rocks.

And cousin Cindy from "As I Lie Dead":

She was gold all over in the various shades that gold can take. Even her brown eyes, behind dark glass in white harlequin frames, were flecked with gold.

Edition: eBook

Cool lines: 

From "Carrera's Woman":

I hesitated before answering. “Ten G’s is a lot of money, baby.”
“I’m a lot of woman,” she answered.[Fatale]

From "Frame:

He debated the advisability of walking around back, decided to knock.

He slammed his fist against the big man’s mouth. There was the sound of crunching teeth. The big man went staggering backward and fell across a table.
“You won’t be needing teeth where you’re going.”

From "Double":

I growled, “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Shouldn’t I?” She got off the chaise longue and ran her hands sensuously over her half-naked body. “Look at me, Gus. Don’t you think I have a right to flatter myself?[Fatale]

From "As I Lie Dead":

I took the gun out of my pocket and pointed it at him, and then I saw what I’d been living to see. I saw the smooth assurance go sick in his eyes and fear come flooding in. When I’d seen that, I’d had everything from him I’d ever want, so I shot him. I shot him where I hated him most. Right in his pretty face. 

“Yes,” I said. “We’ll go away together, honey. I’ve got our tickets right here in the gun. One way and a long way.”[The Coolest!]

The Killing Man (Mickey Spillane, 1989)

I'm not sure what the story behind 'The Killing Man' is, but according to Spillane's Wikipedia page, it was originally published as a short story and later adapted into a novel, which was also serialised in Playboy magazine. I have no idea which came first, but the serial concept would explain why this is all over the place.

Once again, Hammer doesn't even get properly hired by a paying customer. Trouble finds him when he walks into his office on a Saturday noon. He finds his beloved Velda beaten, unconscious and half-dead lying on the floor. Keeping her company is a very dead dude tied to a chair. Tortured, his fingers cut, and with a sinister, threatening message addressed to our hero pinned into his head. A bit gruesome, but so far, so good. This shit is going to be personal!

We have a fluke going here and I don't know where or how, but damn it, I'm involved now. I'm sure as hell involved. When he put Velda down I was in and I'm going to stay in until that fucking psycho gets nailed to the wall.

But then, with every single chapter (or was it every monthly Playboy issue?), it goes wilder and crazier, and I got the impression that Spillane didn't really have any concept and was just making up this shit as he went along. Because it soon makes no sense whatsoever. The plot doesn't progress at all, and the only amusement I had was trying to predict who or what would come on the scene next. We start with the usual NYPD and DA involvement, joined later by the State Department, CIA, FBI, Mob, Medellin drug cartel, some super-smart guy called General Skubal, etc.

And yes, you've guessed it by now:

"Penta's beginning to have an international flavor." +
"...the security of the United States could be compromised."  +
"Now we're into the heavy cocaine scene."

I wanted to like it, but it's really a mess. In the end, there's some ludicrous vice-president assassination attempt/plot thrown in, and the big finale twist is nothing more than an amateurish "twins mistaken identities" trick. Depressing read. It made me a bit sad about the ageing maestro...

Published 20 years after the previous Mike Hammer novel, it was likely intended to be a dramatic comeback and was therefore written in an over-the-top style. Again, I'm not familiar with its backstory, and I'm not particularly intrigued to do research (but I will definitely try to find the original short story!). I thought that The Goliath Bone was the lowest point of modern Hammer, but this one beats it.

2/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Mike Hammer, P.I. 

Still grinning all the time (43 times to be precise), still bossing everyone around without hardly ever saying "please" or "thank you", still calling everyone kid or kiddie (and women are still kittens, dolls, sugars, honeys,...).

But he is getting older because it's been four years now since the last time he "took down" a bad guy (that "son of a bitch Julius Marco"). And in this one, he also makes just a single kill:

The grin got to him. I was grinning at him the way I had at his brother back in the courtroom...

He had thrashed around so he was pointing away from me, blood spatters streaking the wall. I felt some of it on my face and grinned again...

The agony foaming at his mouth. He saw my grin again and choked out another scream...

There was one smashing roar of the .45. His blood went all over the place. Fresh specks of crimson were on the back of my hand. I stood up slowly and gave him a hard grin he couldn't see any more.

Location: 
New York

Body count:  
9 + Penta's killing. 

But since Penta is so elusive and secretive, his killings are impossible to count. We'll need to trust General Skubal's super computer database: "Sixteen known assassinations were attributed to him, all of them with various forms of digital butchery done to the victims."

And in case you were wondering: 

I said, "Digital butchery?" 
"Newspeak for finger-chopping." 

The object of desire: 
Like everything else in The Killing Man, this, too, is hard to explain. At first - pretty out of the blue - Candace comes with this:

She put her finger under the $905 million total and said, "That's what they want to kill you for, Mike." 

I don't think it ever gets explained how Ice Lady came up with this number, but I think it represents the street value of "tractor-trailer solidly loaded with the purest cocaine you could find". But a bit later, she must have recalculated the whole thing or used a different methodology:

"Wild, huh? Tell me something. How much is the street value of the junk today?"
She told me. I let out a low whistle. No wonder Penta could afford to pass up the VP for an old hood. Nine-digit figures are understandable.
 

Dames: 
Candace Amory, presently working as an assistant to the district attorney but aspiring to become the president of USA:

She was a tall patrician-looking blonde with a cover-girl face and a body that didn't just happen. Every bit of her was carefully cultivated and when she moved you knew she danced and could ski and in the water could take two-hundred-foot dives in scuba gear.

You would never call Candace Amory "Candy." You would want to kiss the lusciousness of those full lips until the thought occurred that it might be like putting your tongue on a cold sled runner and never being able to get it off.  

There was a dominance about her that she was exuding like an invisible veil and I smiled, just barely smiled with my eyes licking hers, and for an instant there was the minutest change of expression, the cat suddenly realizing the mouse was a cobra, and the veil was sucked back in.

It goes on and on, and I don't want to bore you or myself with cobras and scuba gear.

Then there's Edwina West, General Skubal's secretary. But!

"Let's keep it simple and square, Miss West. No secretary garbage."
"Oh?"
"You're CIA, aren't you?"
There was no hesitation at all. "Yes, I am. Why should you ask?"

She has no function/role in the plot whatsoever, but still, there's a four-page description of her:

Some women can hit you with a visual impact you'll never forget... total thing that makes them woman...crazy electric blue eyes... beautifully full breasts... generous swell of her hips... she had a dancer's legs, muscularly rounded, but perfectly curved... they hardly make them like that any more... "You're some kind of doll, Miss West", "Please, call me Edwina."... "Watch it, Edwina, you're touching nerves I didn't know I had."...

But, having a role or not, this perfectly curved spook lady and Mike almost end up fucking mere five minutes after they've met. But Hammer is on the case. He needs to go and simply leaves her with:

"You are one special woman, Edwina. The air seems to shimmer around you. I can feel your body heat and watch you pulse with whatever's going on inside that body of yours."

And, of course, there will always be Velda:

"Velda. Beautiful, gorgeous Velda. Those deep brown eyes and that full, full mouth. Shimmering auburn hair that fell in a page-boy around her shoulders."

Blackouts: 
It wasn't a mugging. I felt the needle go into my hip and within seconds the drowsiness started.
 

Title:
"That one son of a bitch is going to fall. I don't give a damn what happens to all the money or all the coke as long as I get that bastard under my gun. We're playing around with somebody who likes to kill, likes to get paid for killing and likes to sign his name in chopped-off fingers."

But I think it should simply be titled "Penta" since this super assassin's code name is mentioned no less than 126 times! Or even better, what about "Penta, Penta, Penta" or "Killing Penta" or "Penta Killing"?

Edition:  
Clio Press, 1993. Published in "Large Print", which was something entirely new for me. Hardly any margins, and the font size is so large that it makes the book almost 350 pages long!

Cover:
Nice illustration credited to Kevin Feeney. For the details, see the bottom of the 'dames' section.

Cool lines:  

"You're a damn killer, buddy," he told me. "We need people like you." [The Coolest!]

I couldn't play it smart. I had to explode and rammed through the door in a blind fury ready to blow somebody into a death full of bloody, flying parts...[The Coolest!]

Me, Hood! (Mickey Spillane, 1963)

Needed something normal after that excruciating Woolrich experience, and who else would be more appropriate than good old Mickey Spillane? It's incredible how popular his titles still are and how easy (and cheaply) they can be obtained. So I usually keep a few of his paperbacks ready for the right moment, and this little one containing two novellas and one short story seemed perfect. With titles like "Me, Hood!" and "Kick It or Kill It!", there was no doubt about what I was going to get.

And yes, no surprises here. It's yet another sex & violence madness. The plot is pretty far-fetched, and due to its relentless pace (the whole thing is about 70 pages long), it quickly becomes almost incomprehensible. And to make matters worse, it falls into the "grand issues" category. But at least we get an early warning about this because our hero, after being recruited by a secret service (I think) to do some dubious job, quickly concludes that:

Patriotism doesn't exist on any local level. Suddenly we're international and I can only think of three fields where you striped pantsers could exploit me: The narcotic trade through Italy, Mexico or China; illegal gold shipments to Europe; then last, the Commies.

Welcome, once again, to the beautiful, frightening and simplistic world of Mickey Spillane. Btw, I liked the touch with commies being written with the capital C - makes the whole thing a bit personal, don't you think?

But it turns out that the evil our hero will be fighting in this one ticks the first check box. Heroin! And this is where things get absurdly hilarious, making this short pulp unforgettable. Because - believe it or not - 8 kilos (kilograms) of smack in the year of our lord 1963 cost "Millions. Not one or two. Not ten. More than that. Enough to get a whole city killed off."

Let's take a quick break and do some math. To help us understand things correctly, let's calculate the running costs of a junkie living in NYC in the early 60s. Assuming that the street price is twice as much as 'retail' (probably much more; I have no idea really) and considering inflation that blows 10 million to 77.79, we can calculate that the price of a single gram is 19.447.50 US dollars. Since the daily dose of an addict is at least 1 gram (according to this site), we can conclude that an average junkie in 1963 would spend almost 60 grand a month supporting their habit. Which, in other words, means that drug addicts used to be millionaires.

So this makes a difference and puts a new perspective on the whole setup. Obviously, since "There hasn't been a single shipment that size in twenty years", we can now better understand the ridiculous body count and involvement of the CIA and Mafia. Italian boys even dispatch their top East Coast enforcer, Keyser Soze-like dude named Lodo, to kill our hero. Which is another (also unintentionally funny) story, but I don't want to reveal everything.

2.5/5

Kick It or Kill It!

Craziness continues. Drugs again, but this time we also get Commies because "Reds are injecting a poison into this country." All three axis of Evil are somehow involved: Cuba is a collection point for China-grown narcotics, and the whole deal is supervised by the Soviet attache. Also aided by mysterious and uber sinister Mr Simpson, who eventually (and most unsurprisingly) turns out to be a corrupted senator.

In short, it's Spillane's take on Hammett's Red Harvest. A secret agent arrives in a godforsaken little town and cleans it up. So I don't think that recapping the last five pages will be a major spoiler:

"The guy on the dock died easily and quietly... I took him with one sudden stroke... The other one... went just as easily... My hands were tied. My feet weren't. It took only three kicks to kill him... Then I was ready... When the man there saw me he tried to call out and died before he could. The other one was just as unsuspecting. He died just as easily. Soft neck... There was Harry Adrano. I shot him. There was Calvin Bock. I shot him. There was Sergei Rudinoff. I shot him and took the briefcase off his body and knew that what I had done would upset the Soviet world... There was the man who owned the airlines and I shot him... so I shot him too... I brought the shotgun up and let him look all the way into that great black eye and then blew his head off."

I liked that "soft neck" touch. Otherwise, no further comments are needed...

2.5/5

Facts (only for Me, Hood!):

Hero: 
I asked, "Who am I?"
His answer was flat and methodical. "Ryan. The Irish One. Sixteen arrests, one conviction for assault and battery. Suspected of being involved in several killings, several robberies and an un-cooperative witness in three homicide cases. Associates with known criminals, has no visible source of income except for partial disability pension from World War II. Present address.."
"That's enough," I said

Location:
New York

Body count: 
18, not counting "Holmes in emergency ward with a couple of slugs in his chest and not expected to live."

Dames: 
Miss Carmen Smith. Ryan's description (shortened, as it goes on for two hefty paragraphs):

Most times a woman is nothing... then one day you see one... you not only like but one you must have... instinctively you know... she's big and beautiful... full-breasted... She's not trying for anything. She doesn't have to... long legged and round and in her loins there's a subtle fire that can be fanned, and fanned, and fanned.

Blackouts: 
None. There is one in "Kick It or Kill it!"

Title: 
"May I ask who you are?"
"The name is Ryan, honey. In common parlance I'm a hood. Not a big one, but I get along."

"The things you do... are so different. I never know what to expect-"
"They're hood things, kitten."

Cover: 
Great looking dark-haired semi-naked woman. Hm, did I just use the word 'woman'? Correction - in Spillane's world, they are called sweeties, kittens, dolls, kids, sugars, honeys...

Cool lines:  
I don't think I looked like the typical Haynes client. I wasn't carrying a briefcase, either. I was carrying a rod, but that was one reason for the $200 suit. It didn't show. 

"I need a doctor..."
"You'll need an undertaker more."
"Look..."
"Talk." My hand started to go white around the butt.[The Coolest!]

The Twisted Thing (Mickey Spillane, 1966)

After reading Goliath's Bone, I promised myself not to go near any of those semi-finished Hammer novels patched together by Max Allan Collins and to take at least a year's break from Spillane. I have bought a few of his paperbacks at a flea market since then, and I was growing increasingly excited and impatient as the end of my self-imposed embargo drew near.

But I picked up the wrong one. Nothing really works in this twisted thing. In short: Kidnapping case that soon turns into a murder investigation that quickly becomes an incomprehensible mess that drags itself like a fucking snail and finally reaches its climax with a pretty idiotic (but far from unexpected) twist.

The story is too complicated; it's part hard-boiled and part classical detective fiction, and it often doesn't make much sense. No decent characterisation: there's our superhuman Mike Hammer, and everyone else is either good or bad. Surprisingly, even depictions of Spillane's trademarks of sex & violence are somehow pathetic. Violence is pretty distasteful (torture, beating people to a pulp) and too repetitive (brain, blood, gore,... spurting, flying,... all over his coat, road,...).

Sex does deserve a separate paragraph. Check out these two descriptions:

• Roxy took a quick breath, grabbed the negligee off the bed and held it in front of her. That split second of visioning nudity that was classic beauty made the blood pound in my ears. I shut my eyes against it. "Easy, Roxy," I said, "I can't see so don't scream and don't throw things. I didn't mean it.".
• I followed her at a six-foot interval, enough so I could watch her legs that so obviously wanted watching.

Do you see where I'm getting at? I'm no psychiatrist, but this kind of behaviour seems to be a typical adolescent fear of adult women. You can watch them from a distance (and make remarks about them), but when you have one actually in front of you, your ass freezes. This is okay and sort of funny when you start looking at one of the toughest motherfuckers in the P.I. business in such a light.

It stopped being funny when a Lesbian arrived on the scene. And I didn't miss-type: she's lesbian with a capital L (used more than once). It turns more and more into a quite nasty, macho chauvinistic shit with remarks like "she only resembled a woman", "she being partially a woman", "she was only a half of dame", "if she thought it was like a man", etc. It looks like Mickey really got into this shit because our poor Myra's sexuality even plays a substantial part in the plot. 

Very disappointing. Not good, not exactly bad, but definitely boring as fuck. Something I never thought I'd write about Mike Hammer novel.

2/5 

Facts:

Hero:
Mike Hammer, PI

"I would like to know one thing, how good a detective are you?"
"I've killed a lot of men. I shoot the guts out of two of them...I hate the bastards that make society a thing to be laughed at and preyed upon. I hate them so much I can kill without the slightest compunction. The papers call me dirty names,... but I don't give a damn. When I kill I make it legal. The courts accuse me of being too quick on the trigger... I think fast, I shoot fast,.... and I'm still alive. That's how good a detective I am."

Location:
Wooster, near NYC

Body count: 

5

Dames: 

• Miss Malcom, aka (ex) stripper Roxy - a beautiful set of legs, natural curves, extraordinary pretty face
• Alice Nichols - concert of savage beauty
• Myra Grange (the Lesbian) - almost as tall as I was, ....figure that seemed to be well moulded
• Miss Cook, aka the Legs

Blackouts:
Yes, he gets knocked out several times (not 100% positive, but I think it was three times). There's nothing special about any of them, but there's one pretty crazy with a cool description of regaining his consciousness: "I came back together like a squadron of flak-eaten bombers re-forming."  

Title: 
Poor Ruston - an adult man trapped in a kid's body - is twisted.

Cover: 
Cool and pulp-ish (damsel in distress, gun) with an unusual yellow/red colour scheme. Not very accurate - even if it depicts a scene where Roxy was shot and wounded, there (1) shouldn't be the gun lying around, and (2) there should be some blood visible on her shoulder.

Cool lines:  
The guy knew guns. The safety was off and the rod was ready to spit. [The Coolest!]

Why is that some dames can work me up into a lather so fast with so little is beyond me, but this one did. I quit playing around. I pulled my .45 and let her get a good look at it. "You open that door or I'll shoot the lock off," I said.

The Big Bang (Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins, written in mid 60s, finished and published 2010)

Ok, I know I’ve bitched about Spillane, but still, I couldn’t resist buying The Big Bang. At the local bookstore, they were selling it for next to nothing, and I decided to try it out since this is a Mike Hammer novel and not some sissy old-aged Jack Stang crap.

Big Bang starts with some big fucking bangs, alright! Hammer springs into action no sooner than in the second paragraph (!!!) by smashing the guy “into a bloody mess“! His buddy gets it even worse: “I broke billy boy’s arm between the wrist and elbow, took half his teeth out, snapped his jaw loose from its hinges, and send the bastard’s balls on a trip…” And all he could think of was “..what the hell these chintzy little shits thought … taking on an old tiger.“

So, in case we have forgotten about Mike Hammer by some miracle, we are immediately back on track. Pace of course steadies a bit (could it possibly go faster and more violent after such an opening!?) and leaves space for the story to develop. In this one, we are dealing with drugs. There’s some big fuck-up happening in New York, and the streets are bone dry. Junkies are climbing walls, and for the last six months, supplies have been provided in small quantities. Mafia (Evello family, also Syndicate) is puzzled and pissed off about their shipments getting intercepted by police, and there’s a new gang led by the guy named Snowbird trying to take over their turf. And in the meantime, they are all just waiting for the Big Bang - super shipment coming from Europe.

Hammer has just returned to the city, and all he wants is to chill (cool his heels) and smoke his Luckies when he gets pulled into this mess. To understand his actions (and reactions), we need to examine his attitude towards drugs. I think the best way to do that is to let the main man explain it himself:

• Human garbage – these fucking drug-heads are all the same, scumbags, all of ‘em, and the gutter’s too good for them.
• It’s the plague – and the best way to deal with a plague is to wipe out as many rats as possible.

So it’s no surprise that he starts a war against anyone and everyone. And bloody war this will be, by the time he’s finished, the body count will rise into two-digit numbers. In the process, he’ll avoid police (“Fuck them!”) and get an unlikely ally in a colleague professor whose personal loss made his attitude towards drugs even less tolerable (!!!?) than his. Plus, of course, he’ll fuck a girl or two because – to use his words again – “I was just a human”.

This stuff leaves you speechless; it’s too brutal even for Spillane. It’s probably the best possible cheap pulp fiction on the market, and once I got over the initial shock, I had actually started to enjoy this insanity. I mean, the plot is tight and the writing is good, but there’s just nothing holding it back in its political incorrectness. Okay, we were used to Hammers contempt of law, his macho misogynistic persona, mocking of homosexuals, vegetarians, pacifists, communists, hippies, etc, but here everything goes into the tenth degree. Novel is too (or should I say still) extreme even in this day and age, and I doubt very much that any of the contemporary writers would go that far in creating such a conservative asshole main protagonist. I wonder whether Spillane (or his publisher) was aware of all that in the 60s when he wrote it, and had maybe abandoned it for these reasons.

Unique stuff. Was and still is.

3/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Mike Hammer, PI

Location: 
New York

Body count: 
Thousands! Hammer lets the poisoned heroin be distributed on the streets so “Thousands would die. And their friends and families would be so consumed by rage that they would rise up as one and they would take down the Maffia. Hit the Maffia, kill them all.” 

There are 14 "individual" killings (only two of them not committed by our Mikey boy). Let’s see a few of the more graphic ones:

•  His Colt left one eyeball plastered to his cheek to  dangle there
•  .45 slug entered his right temple, splattering blood and brains onto the dead driver
• .45 slug angled through his open, yelling mouth and up through the roof of his bald head, bursting it in bloody chunks like a target-range melon
• Shotgun blast, which took her head off her shoulders and some of her shoulders too
• Shotgun went off, shearing off the front of his face and leaving him a ghastly wet mask and still alive enough to scream until I leaned out and shattered his skull with a .45 slug and put him out of his misery. 

Yep, it is indeed - like his pal Pat Chambers has concluded - worst mob bloodbath since St. Valentine’s Day!

Dames:
His secretary/lover, Velda Sterling, of course, is holding down the fort while he’s out chasing Indians. Shirley Vought, a society girl who has chosen to associate with the wrong crowd.

Cover: 
Pretty generic but still cool.

Blackouts: 
Surprisingly, there are two of them. The first one is described just briefly, “I was clawing for the .45 when the chloroform found my face, and my last memory was them dragging me.” The second is much better. He’s drugged by LSD, and the description is much better. Hammer sees some collage pictures of Buster Keaton, Guadalcanal, Woody Woodpecker, Lana Turner and Adolf Hitler. 

Cool lines:
She had a tuna salad sandwich. She didn’t eat meat, she said. That would be news to the tuna.[The Coolest!]

She nodded and gave me a look that made the need-anything-just-whistle one Bacall gave Bogie seem like kid stuff. 

She began by falling to her knees to worship the part of me that seemed to be in charge.

“What kind of condition is he in?” 
“Cold,” Pat said. 
“The kind of cold you get when they file you away in a drawer at the morgue.”

I’ll start with re-breaking your goddamn leg, then see where inspiration takes me.[The Coolest!]