The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume II: 2 [Kindle Edition]

ONE LONELY NIGHT begins and ends on a deserted New York City bridge in a snowstorm. At the beginning, Hammer is involved in a murder and suicide. At the end, he kills the villain with his bare hands and leaves his cooling corpse to be covered in snow! In between, Hammer is mixed up with palpably evil Communist Party USA members and the agate-eyed NKVD killers who keep them in line. [The novel was written at the height of McCarthy-era paranoia.] Added to the mix are missing plans of the latest US secret weapon, and a universally loved political figure who says he's being blackmailed by his identical twin brother, an escaped lunatic! At the very end there's an amazing if implausible identity switch that is a variant of the one at the end of VENGEANCE IS MINE.

In THE BIG KILL, Hammer winds up having to care for a 1-year-old orphaned boy, while trying to solve the puzzle of who killed the boy's father, and why. Not only is the DA on Hammer's case big time, but kingpins of a city-wide gambling and vice racket seem extraordinarily nervous about who has possession of some unknown documents that the DA is desperate to obtain. You'd guess the identity of Hammer's secret adversary long before Hammer does, if the inside front cover blurb didn't give it away already! Action is nicely integrated by having almost all the novel's events occur during heavy rain showers.

Since Hammer is in all three novels engaged to marry his lovely assistant Velda, you'd think sex with strangers would take a back seat in these adventures, and to some extent it does, particularly in the last of the three novels, KISS ME, DEADLY, in which Hammer does little more than to gaze appreciatively at the hot babes he encounters. To make up for no sex, Spillane escalates the violence tremendously. I lost count of the number of Mafia goons that Hammer kills, usually with his bare hands, when opportunity presents. The goons return the favor by beating Hammer to a pulp at least twice, torturing one girl to death and getting a good start on doing the same to Velda! Oddly among Spillane's usually tightly constructed plots, there are some major loose ends at the end of KISS ME, DEADLY.

Every one of these is a classic. Spillane's novels hurtle along at a breathless pace... and they're addictive, as you'll see if you sample this great bargain of a collection.

These novels definitely ARE violent, even by today's standards, although the sexual content that enraged so many critics in the 1950s (who often labeled Spillane's work as pornographic) seems quite tame now. However, what sets people off about these books today is the reactionary character of their hero. Hammer is an unpleasant, brutally violent, and self-righteous character who envisions himself as a necessary element that works outside the law to bring justice (i.e. death) to criminals. Hammer's techniques and attitude are sometimes gruesome, intolerable, and plain repulsive.

But that's the appeal! Even if you can't stand Hammer's ethics, it's impossible not to read his adventures compulsively from start to finish. He's a fascinating, hot-blooded character, and because of Spillane's frantic and feverish writing style, you'll want to follow him to the very end of each of his violent adventures. Not only is Hammer himself a great character, but the world through which Spillane hurtles him is a marvelous portrait of noir, where everything from dames to booze is cheap, loyalty means nothing, and violent death awaits the guilty and innocent alike.

The three novels here:

ONE LONELY NIGHT. One of the best of all the books, this one has Hammer facing a communist cabal in NYC while helping a progressive politician fight against a possible scandal. Spillane ditches the usual formula of Mike Hammer out for revenge, and instead makes the focus of the story Hammer's internal conflict over who he is. A condemnation from a judge echoes in his mind through the whole story. Hammer battles against the communists not so much because they are a threat to America (remember, this is during the height of the McCarthy era) but more because the fight will prove to himself if he is or isn't the monster that the judge accused him of being. Aside from the frenzied action and the amazingly bloody double finale with its twist ending, what makes this novel work is Hammer's internal struggle. Whether or not you go with the novel's rabid commie-baiting (it seems ridiculous now but hit a nerve back then), it's a great noir character study.

THE BIG KILL. This, on the other hand, is probably the weakest of the early Mike Hammer novels. Spillane switches back to the boilerplate vengeance storyline. When an ex-criminal who tried to go straight gets gunned down in front of Mike after leaving his baby in bar, Mike chooses to go after the killers (and even take care of the baby). There isn't as much action here as you might expect, but the sexual content is higher than usual. Mostly, however, the book feels a bit tired. The finale is either fantastic or utterly ridiculous, depending on your view, but certainly shocking and one of the few memorable scenes in the book.

KISS ME, DEADLY. This is one of the most famous of Spillane's novels because it led to the superb film noir version in 1955 (which was very anti-Hammer and purposely changed him into what the critics had always claimed he was: a stupid, callous, fascist thug). Mike Hammer again swears revenge, this time for the vicious murder of a girl he picked up on the road when she threw herself in front of his car. The revenge quests gets him embroiled with the mob and the chase for a mysterious case everybody will kill to get their bloody hands on. Despite the old-hat premise, this is another great, deliriously violent novel, and has the best finale in any of the Hammer novels. (The movie, however, did it one better with the most...ahem...explosive conclusion ever seen on screen.) It makes a fitting end to the original exploits of Mike Hammer. (Spillane wouldn't write another one until the 1960s.)

This volume contains a new introduction by mystery writer Lawrence Block, but he doesn't have much to say. He gives most of the space to quoting the opening paragraphs of each of the novels, and then makes a few quick remarks about Spillane's style coming from his days as comic book writer, and tells a little anecdote. (We find out that Spillane was a funny guy!). Disappointing overall; I expected one of today's top mystery novelists to have more to say about a legendary writer and character.

But you aren't buying this volume for Lawrence Block's introduction. You're buying it to read some of the best crime noir and violent detective fiction ever penned -- and that's what you get (well, two out three). Drop your 21st-century mindset for a while and get down in the gutter in Mike Hammer's world. It's an awful place, but it's a helluva interesting one.