Reviewed by Martin Byrne
In “The Lady Says Die!” Mickey Spillane, author of the hard-boiled Mike Hammer series of detective novels pays a Noir-ish homage to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction by providing a skewed version of one of its most lasting conventions – the locked room mystery. The LRM – as Spinetingler readers are no doubt aware – presents the reader with a seemingly impossible crime, normally a murder, which has taken place in a location or situation which provides no rational explanation – the proverbial locked room.
Spillane plays with the convention in this story, which begins with the earnest Inspector Early approaching louche socialite, Chester Duncan to discuss the apparent suicide of his friend and bitter enemy Walter Harrison, who has recently jumped to his death from a locked hotel room. Regardless of how obvious Harrison’s suicide might have been there is still a pall of suspicion hanging over Duncan’s reputation – an insinuation that, even though his involvement was quite impossible, he is still somehow thought to be involved.
Duncan takes over narration and begins his tale by charting his friendship and growing enmity for Harrison. Of course, like all of the most bitter feuds – it started with a woman. Aggrieved by his so-called friend’s betrayal with the love of his life, Duncan begins plotting his revenge – a plot that leads to the locked room mystery at the heart of the story.
To say anymore might be to give away a part of the deliciously dark and fantastically funny twist in Duncan’s tale. Suffice to say, Duncan’s ‘long game’ revenge leaves the smoking gun firmly in his hands.
“The Lady Says Die!” is something of a departure from the other work I’ve read from Spillane – this is a definitely soft boiled tale with a gooey centre – a world away from the often violent and angry world of the Mike Hammer stories. In fact, at times the aristocratic manner of our narrator feels more Jeeves and Wooster than Sam Spade. But the shadow of noir is never far away – even the wholesome Inspector Early, the contented family-man who begins the story, is not beyond implication in this tale of moral bankruptcy.
Spillane’s background as a writer of short, dark comic book thrillers is in full evidence in the snappy conclusion – a nasty twist which might have left the misanthropic Mr. Hammer with a grim smile on his lips.
Martin Byrne is an Irish writer. His novel, Stopped Clocks, is currently making the rounds.
