When Mickey Spillane died, he left behind a treasure trove of manuscripts, plot notes, rough outlines, character notes and drafts of final chapters. He told his wife to give everything to Max Allan Collins who “would know what to do.” And this Collins has done, three times so far [with a fourth due out in October]. In this novel, he combined two partial manuscripts and shaped and expanded them from an unfinished version that was a false start.
In this entry, the death of his mentor, officially termed a suicide, brings Hammer back to New York City from Key West, where he has been recuperating for a year after a shootout in which he killed a Mafia don’s son. He returns to the Big Apple with a jaundiced eye, denigrating everything he sees and hears, determined to return to Florida quickly following the funeral. Instead, of course, he becomes enmeshed in investigating the death, which he believes to be a murder, as well as four others, and committing the usual bloody mayhem of his own.
It is pure Spillane, and Collins as usual has performed a service to those who ate up the millions of copies of Mike Hammer novels sold in the 1960s and ‘70s by keeping the flame alive. How much is Spillane, and how much is Collins, is really not important. The book is vintage Spillane, and is a tribute to both authors. Recommended.
