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Mike Hammer #2
My Gun is Quick
Before Jack Reacher . . . there was Mike Hammer
PI Mike Hammer runs into a red-headed prostitute in a bar. He's not interested in her professional services, so he buys her a coffee and chats to her for a while. Tired, drained, he just wants someone to talk to, and she's a willing listener. He's just got paid, and in a fit of generosity he offers her enough money to buy some decent clothes and get a regular job.
No big deal, except that the next day the streetwalker turns up dead. It's none of Hammer's business, but all the injustice of the world is suddenly crystallised in this one senseless death. And then Hammer begins to realise that the death, supposedly a hit-and-run accident, doesn't add up. It's starting to look like murder.
But it doesn't stop there. The trail leads Hammer into a world of vice, corruption and violence . . .
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1950
103 people are currently reading
685 people want to read
About the author
Mickey Spillane
316 books448 followersMickey Spillane was one of the world's most popular mystery writers. His specialty was tight-fisted, sadistic revenge stories, often featuring his alcoholic gumshoe Mike Hammer and a cast of evildoers who launder money or spout the Communist Party line.
His writing style was characterized by short words, lightning transitions, gruff sex and violent endings. It was once tallied that he offed 58 people in six novels.
Starting with "I, the Jury," in 1947, Mr. Spillane sold hundreds of millions of books during his lifetime and garnered consistently scathing reviews. Even his father, a Brooklyn bartender, called them "crud."
Mr. Spillane was a struggling comic book publisher when he wrote "I, the Jury." He initially envisioned it as a comic book called "Mike Danger," and when that did not go over, he took a week to reconfigure it as a novel.
Even the editor in chief of E.P. Dutton and Co., Mr. Spillane's publisher, was skeptical of the book's literary merit but conceded it would probably be a smash with postwar readers looking for ready action. He was right. The book, in which Hammer pursues a murderous narcotics ring led by a curvaceous female psychiatrist, went on to sell more than 1 million copies.
Mr. Spillane spun out six novels in the next five years, among them "My Gun Is Quick," "The Big Kill," "One Lonely Night" and "Kiss Me, Deadly." Most concerned Hammer, his faithful sidekick, Velda, and the police homicide captain Pat Chambers, who acknowledges that Hammer's style of vigilante justice is often better suited than the law to dispatching criminals.
Mr. Spillane's success rankled other critics, who sometimes became very personal in their reviews. Malcolm Cowley called Mr. Spillane "a homicidal paranoiac," going on to note what he called his misogyny and vigilante tendencies.
His books were translated into many languages, and he proved so popular as a writer that he was able to transfer his thick-necked, barrel-chested personality across many media. With the charisma of a redwood, he played Hammer in "The Girl Hunters," a 1963 film adaptation of his novel.
Spillane also scripted several television shows and films and played a detective in the 1954 suspense film "Ring of Fear," set at a Clyde Beatty circus. He rewrote much of the film, too, refusing payment. In gratitude, the producer, John Wayne, surprised him one morning with a white Jaguar sportster wrapped in a red ribbon. The card read, "Thanks, Duke."
Done initially on a dare from his publisher, Mr. Spillane wrote a children's book, "The Day the Sea Rolled Back" (1979), about two boys who find a shipwreck loaded with treasure. This won a Junior Literary Guild award.
He also wrote another children's novel, "The Ship That Never Was," and then wrote his first Mike Hammer mystery in 20 years with "The Killing Man" (1989). "Black Alley" followed in 1996. In the last, a rapidly aging Hammer comes out of a gunshot-induced coma, then tracks down a friend's murderer and billions in mob loot. For the first time, he also confesses his love for Velda but, because of doctor's orders, cannot consummate the relationship.
Late in life, he received a career achievement award from the Private Eye Writers of America and was named a grand master by the Mystery Writers of America.
In his private life, he neither smoked nor drank and was a house-to-house missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses. He expressed at times great disdain for what he saw as corrosive forces in American life, from antiwar protesters to the United Nations.
His marriages to Mary Ann Pearce and Sherri Malinou ended in divorce. His second wife, a model, posed nude for the dust jacket of his 1972 novel "The Erection Set."
Survivors include his third wife, Jane Rodgers Johnson, a former beauty queen 30 years his junior; and four children from the first marriage.
He also carried on a long epistolary flirtation with Ayn Rand, an admirer of his writing.
His writing style was characterized by short words, lightning transitions, gruff sex and violent endings. It was once tallied that he offed 58 people in six novels.
Starting with "I, the Jury," in 1947, Mr. Spillane sold hundreds of millions of books during his lifetime and garnered consistently scathing reviews. Even his father, a Brooklyn bartender, called them "crud."
Mr. Spillane was a struggling comic book publisher when he wrote "I, the Jury." He initially envisioned it as a comic book called "Mike Danger," and when that did not go over, he took a week to reconfigure it as a novel.
Even the editor in chief of E.P. Dutton and Co., Mr. Spillane's publisher, was skeptical of the book's literary merit but conceded it would probably be a smash with postwar readers looking for ready action. He was right. The book, in which Hammer pursues a murderous narcotics ring led by a curvaceous female psychiatrist, went on to sell more than 1 million copies.
Mr. Spillane spun out six novels in the next five years, among them "My Gun Is Quick," "The Big Kill," "One Lonely Night" and "Kiss Me, Deadly." Most concerned Hammer, his faithful sidekick, Velda, and the police homicide captain Pat Chambers, who acknowledges that Hammer's style of vigilante justice is often better suited than the law to dispatching criminals.
Mr. Spillane's success rankled other critics, who sometimes became very personal in their reviews. Malcolm Cowley called Mr. Spillane "a homicidal paranoiac," going on to note what he called his misogyny and vigilante tendencies.
His books were translated into many languages, and he proved so popular as a writer that he was able to transfer his thick-necked, barrel-chested personality across many media. With the charisma of a redwood, he played Hammer in "The Girl Hunters," a 1963 film adaptation of his novel.
Spillane also scripted several television shows and films and played a detective in the 1954 suspense film "Ring of Fear," set at a Clyde Beatty circus. He rewrote much of the film, too, refusing payment. In gratitude, the producer, John Wayne, surprised him one morning with a white Jaguar sportster wrapped in a red ribbon. The card read, "Thanks, Duke."
Done initially on a dare from his publisher, Mr. Spillane wrote a children's book, "The Day the Sea Rolled Back" (1979), about two boys who find a shipwreck loaded with treasure. This won a Junior Literary Guild award.
He also wrote another children's novel, "The Ship That Never Was," and then wrote his first Mike Hammer mystery in 20 years with "The Killing Man" (1989). "Black Alley" followed in 1996. In the last, a rapidly aging Hammer comes out of a gunshot-induced coma, then tracks down a friend's murderer and billions in mob loot. For the first time, he also confesses his love for Velda but, because of doctor's orders, cannot consummate the relationship.
Late in life, he received a career achievement award from the Private Eye Writers of America and was named a grand master by the Mystery Writers of America.
In his private life, he neither smoked nor drank and was a house-to-house missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses. He expressed at times great disdain for what he saw as corrosive forces in American life, from antiwar protesters to the United Nations.
His marriages to Mary Ann Pearce and Sherri Malinou ended in divorce. His second wife, a model, posed nude for the dust jacket of his 1972 novel "The Erection Set."
Survivors include his third wife, Jane Rodgers Johnson, a former beauty queen 30 years his junior; and four children from the first marriage.
He also carried on a long epistolary flirtation with Ayn Rand, an admirer of his writing.
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October 28, 2023
“My Gun Is Quick,” first published in 1950, was the second book in the Mike Hammer series by Mickey Spillane. Although throughout the 1950’s there were many other pulp authors who wrote stories about private eyes and themes about corruption and gambling and call girl syndicates, no one wrote more stories more hardboiled than Spillane.
Moreover, Mike Hammer was fairly unique in many respects. Hammer was larger than life and tougher than a Sherman tank. Hammer had a strict sense of right and wrong. He never wavered. And, Hammer would mete out justice as he saw fit without waiting for a corrupt and compromised legal system to work its way through the morass. Also, Hammer, unlike other detectives, didn’t always have a client. Things happened around him. Bodies drop. Bad guys get the drop on people and Hammer can’t sit around and read the funny papers.
Spillane explained at the beginning of “My Gun Is Quick” that the Romans used to watch wild animal rip a bunch of humans apart and, although there isn’t a Coliseum any more, the city is a bigger bowl and a man’s claws can be just as sharp and twice as vicious.
This story starts with Hammer, barely awake, stopping into a hash house for a “couple of mugs of good black java to bring me around.” The place is a dump with two bums and a drunk seated there and a “fluff sitting off to one side at a table” with “red hair that didn’t come out of a bottle.” Hammer notices that she wasn’t pretty at all, but she once had been. He explains that “there are those things that happen under the skin and are reflected in the eyes and set of the mouth that take all the beauty out of a woman’s face.” He beats up a hood who wanders in with a piece to bother her and then, with a soft spot in his heart, gives her some dough and asks her to get out of the life, open up the classifieds, get a job, and get her life straight. She doesn’t live to see the next day and Hammer isn’t satisfied when told it was a hit-and- run. Hammer has a soft spot for all the people who get ripped apart by life, who have their dreams torn to tiny little bits as each gray day goes on.
Though he doesn’t learn her name till halfway through the book, Hammer tries to figure out what happened to “Red” as he takes to calling her and, on the way, steps into a web of corruption and blackmail and greed.
What’s great about this book isn’t necessarily the plot, which is typical of hardboiled fifties stories, but the great writing in it. The guys he deals with are “greaseballs.” The women are “dames” or “fluffs.” He finds a brunette in a bar, for instance, and notes that she was “Deep-dish apple pie in a black satin dress,” but she had “that look around the eyes and a set of the mouth that spelled just one thing. She was for sale cheap.”
Velda, his secretary, is “big and she’s beautiful, and she’s got a brain that can figure angles while mine only figures the curves.” Anyone who thinks Spillane is not a romantic at heart hasn’t read his books, hasn’t read the way Hammer falls for Velda and for all the other pretty dames he comes across.
And Hammer is somehow tougher than any other private eye you’ve ever read. He doesn’t sit around and figure the angles. He walks into a joint and grabs the first sleazeball he finds and starts hauling off on him until he’s satisfied with the answers he’s getting. Hammer might get into trouble because he is too quick on the draw, but he has no moral qualms about what he is doing. He knows right from wrong. He knows justice from two-sided bull.
Moreover, Mike Hammer was fairly unique in many respects. Hammer was larger than life and tougher than a Sherman tank. Hammer had a strict sense of right and wrong. He never wavered. And, Hammer would mete out justice as he saw fit without waiting for a corrupt and compromised legal system to work its way through the morass. Also, Hammer, unlike other detectives, didn’t always have a client. Things happened around him. Bodies drop. Bad guys get the drop on people and Hammer can’t sit around and read the funny papers.
Spillane explained at the beginning of “My Gun Is Quick” that the Romans used to watch wild animal rip a bunch of humans apart and, although there isn’t a Coliseum any more, the city is a bigger bowl and a man’s claws can be just as sharp and twice as vicious.
This story starts with Hammer, barely awake, stopping into a hash house for a “couple of mugs of good black java to bring me around.” The place is a dump with two bums and a drunk seated there and a “fluff sitting off to one side at a table” with “red hair that didn’t come out of a bottle.” Hammer notices that she wasn’t pretty at all, but she once had been. He explains that “there are those things that happen under the skin and are reflected in the eyes and set of the mouth that take all the beauty out of a woman’s face.” He beats up a hood who wanders in with a piece to bother her and then, with a soft spot in his heart, gives her some dough and asks her to get out of the life, open up the classifieds, get a job, and get her life straight. She doesn’t live to see the next day and Hammer isn’t satisfied when told it was a hit-and- run. Hammer has a soft spot for all the people who get ripped apart by life, who have their dreams torn to tiny little bits as each gray day goes on.
Though he doesn’t learn her name till halfway through the book, Hammer tries to figure out what happened to “Red” as he takes to calling her and, on the way, steps into a web of corruption and blackmail and greed.
What’s great about this book isn’t necessarily the plot, which is typical of hardboiled fifties stories, but the great writing in it. The guys he deals with are “greaseballs.” The women are “dames” or “fluffs.” He finds a brunette in a bar, for instance, and notes that she was “Deep-dish apple pie in a black satin dress,” but she had “that look around the eyes and a set of the mouth that spelled just one thing. She was for sale cheap.”
Velda, his secretary, is “big and she’s beautiful, and she’s got a brain that can figure angles while mine only figures the curves.” Anyone who thinks Spillane is not a romantic at heart hasn’t read his books, hasn’t read the way Hammer falls for Velda and for all the other pretty dames he comes across.
And Hammer is somehow tougher than any other private eye you’ve ever read. He doesn’t sit around and figure the angles. He walks into a joint and grabs the first sleazeball he finds and starts hauling off on him until he’s satisfied with the answers he’s getting. Hammer might get into trouble because he is too quick on the draw, but he has no moral qualms about what he is doing. He knows right from wrong. He knows justice from two-sided bull.
March 3, 2024
SECOND READ: (some spoilers ahead)
yeah, it only gets better on second read. i realized something that i previously considered a flaw in the writing, was actually wholly intentional and having a particular effect on me without me even noticing. ***SPOILER ALERT*** in a lot of the mike hammer books you can guess the killer early on, but it makes you subconsciously root for hammer to figure it out while the villain is clearly deceiving and patronizing him. this way, when you get to the finale — you’re AS angry and vengeful as he is, because you’ve been waiting for mike to realize the truth about someone.
it’s less a whodunnit than a “when is mike gonna get this bastard or bitch” and it’s kinda genius. not a structure anyone would ever teach or recommend, but it led to some of the best selling pulp fiction books of all time. pretty dope.
and yes, the denouement is as juicy, mythic and primal as any mickey spillane finale. 👌🏽
____
FIRST READ:
wow. the first few paragraphs of this book might be some of spillane’s best writing. still as relevant as ever, anytime i reread the opening, which is often.
yeah, it only gets better on second read. i realized something that i previously considered a flaw in the writing, was actually wholly intentional and having a particular effect on me without me even noticing. ***SPOILER ALERT*** in a lot of the mike hammer books you can guess the killer early on, but it makes you subconsciously root for hammer to figure it out while the villain is clearly deceiving and patronizing him. this way, when you get to the finale — you’re AS angry and vengeful as he is, because you’ve been waiting for mike to realize the truth about someone.
it’s less a whodunnit than a “when is mike gonna get this bastard or bitch” and it’s kinda genius. not a structure anyone would ever teach or recommend, but it led to some of the best selling pulp fiction books of all time. pretty dope.
and yes, the denouement is as juicy, mythic and primal as any mickey spillane finale. 👌🏽
____
FIRST READ:
wow. the first few paragraphs of this book might be some of spillane’s best writing. still as relevant as ever, anytime i reread the opening, which is often.
August 22, 2024
After listening to her story, PI Mike Hammer feels sorry for a down on her luck prostitute and gives her his pay. However, the following day…
Though this second Mike Hammer novel runs out of steam and plot about halfway through, it bounces back with a bang in a tense, moving and bone-crunching finale. It’s all very enjoyable for much of its length and is everything you would expect from the wisecracking PI genre. Very funny.
I’ll definitely be reading some more of these. He’s one tough (and soft) entertaining dude swimming in a world of unscrupulous bastards, scorching femme fatales, and those simply down on their luck looking for a better life.
Though this second Mike Hammer novel runs out of steam and plot about halfway through, it bounces back with a bang in a tense, moving and bone-crunching finale. It’s all very enjoyable for much of its length and is everything you would expect from the wisecracking PI genre. Very funny.
I’ll definitely be reading some more of these. He’s one tough (and soft) entertaining dude swimming in a world of unscrupulous bastards, scorching femme fatales, and those simply down on their luck looking for a better life.
September 27, 2025
Mike Hammer's gun, reflexes and temper are definitely quick. However, his brain is somewhat slow, otherwise he would have figured out who the culprit is much sooner. It is very obvious.
December 2, 2020
Mike Hammer is back in the second offering in the series from Mickey Spillane.
This time around Mike Hammer gets caught up in the death of an prostitute, called accidental by the cops, but of course, Mike knows it was no accident. He met her in a bar a few hours before, and took a liking to her - and was now determined to track down her identity, and locate her family.
This of course escalates. Mike gets a few hidings, gives out a few hidings, and of course any attractive women he comes in contact with ends in love with him, then winds up dead. He must be the most unlucky guy in New York when it comes to love.
For me this was a quick, easy read. Not too challenging, as it was pretty obvious from the midway point who was going to be to blame for the murders, just perhaps not the detail until later. No more around this without spoilers.
3.5 stars, rounded down.
This time around Mike Hammer gets caught up in the death of an prostitute, called accidental by the cops, but of course, Mike knows it was no accident. He met her in a bar a few hours before, and took a liking to her - and was now determined to track down her identity, and locate her family.
This of course escalates. Mike gets a few hidings, gives out a few hidings, and of course any attractive women he comes in contact with ends in love with him, then winds up dead. He must be the most unlucky guy in New York when it comes to love.
For me this was a quick, easy read. Not too challenging, as it was pretty obvious from the midway point who was going to be to blame for the murders, just perhaps not the detail until later. No more around this without spoilers.
3.5 stars, rounded down.
“He couldn't lose me now or ever. I was the guy with the cowl and scythe. I had a hundred and forty black horses under me and an hour-glass in my hand, laughing like crazy until the tears rolled down my cheeks.”
“They were going to die slower and harder than any son of a bitch had ever died before, and while they died I'd laugh my god-damn head off!”
September 1, 2011
In terms of commercial success Mickey Spillane was certainly one of the big guns of hardboiled and/or noir fiction. His books have sold around 225 million copies which is not to be sneezed at. But while other hardboiled writers like Hammett, Chandler, Cain, Jim Thompson and Horace McCoy have gained at least a small degree of acceptance by the literary establishment Spillane is still generally reviled. It’s not difficult to understand why, although it’s arguably something of an injustice.
The political subtext of Spillane’s books is not such as to endear him to the denizens of academia (as compared to Hammett and Chandler for instance).Spillane cannot be made politically correct. And Spillane stubbornly refuses to be cynical about the sorts of things writers are expected to be cynical about. Things like law and order. In fact his greatest crime is probably his overall lack of cynicism about American society. There’s the same passionate outrage against corruption that you find in Chandler, and Spillane certainly can’t be accused of being naïve about the seamy underside of the American Dream. But Spillane still believes that justice can prevail.
And of course there’s the question of violence. Mike Hammer might be a righteous avenger but the relish with which he exacts revenge is going to make some people uncomfortable.
Which brings us to My Gun is Quick, which came out in 1950. This was the second of the Mike Hammer novels. Surprisingly enough Spillane only published thirteen Mike Hammer books.
Hammer runs into a red-headed prostitute in a bar. He’s not interested in her professional services, he just buys her a cup of coffee and chats to her for a while. He’s tired and drained and just wants someone to talk to for a while and she’s a willing listener. In a fit of generosity that he can’t even really explain to himself (except that he’s just been paid a huge amount for a very easy job and temporarily has more money than he knows what to do with) he offers her enough money to buy some decent clothes and get a regular job.
He wouldn’t give this very minor incident a second thought except that the red-headed streetwalker turns up dead the next day. It’s none of Hammer’s business really but he just can’t stand the thought that for once he does something nice for someone and straight away they wind up dead. All the injustice of the world is suddenly crystallised in this one senseless death. And then Hammer starts to realise that the death, ascribed to a hit-run driver, doesn’t add up. It starts to look like murder.
Needless to say it doesn’t stop there. The trail leads Hammer into a world of vice and corruption and violence.
My Gun is Quick differs from most earlier hardboiled detective stories in that Mike Hammer’s quest for vengeance is very personal. He’s not just pursuing this case for the money and in fact he’d follow it up even if he wasn’t getting paid. It’s the kind of obsessive revenge story one associates more with the blood-soaked world of Jacobean tragedy or with classic western movies.
While Mike Hammer has no time for pimps or for dishonest city officials who turn a blind eye to vice rackets he’s surprisingly sympathetic and non-judgmental towards prostitutes. That’s something one doesn’t quite expect, given Spillane’s reputation.
Spillane’s style might lack the polish of Chandler’s but like Mike Hammer’s detective methods it gets the job done. It’s an exciting well-paced crime thriller even if the major plot twist isn’t difficult to guess. There’s enough energy in the writing to overcome some deficiencies in plotting.
Hammer is an old-fashioned non-PC hero and you’re either going to accept that or you’re not. If you can’t accept it you won’t like Spillane. If you can accept it there’s plenty to enjoy. It’s rough around the edges but it doesn’t pull its punches and it’s highly entertaining. I’m off to read more Mickey Spillane.
The political subtext of Spillane’s books is not such as to endear him to the denizens of academia (as compared to Hammett and Chandler for instance).Spillane cannot be made politically correct. And Spillane stubbornly refuses to be cynical about the sorts of things writers are expected to be cynical about. Things like law and order. In fact his greatest crime is probably his overall lack of cynicism about American society. There’s the same passionate outrage against corruption that you find in Chandler, and Spillane certainly can’t be accused of being naïve about the seamy underside of the American Dream. But Spillane still believes that justice can prevail.
And of course there’s the question of violence. Mike Hammer might be a righteous avenger but the relish with which he exacts revenge is going to make some people uncomfortable.
Which brings us to My Gun is Quick, which came out in 1950. This was the second of the Mike Hammer novels. Surprisingly enough Spillane only published thirteen Mike Hammer books.
Hammer runs into a red-headed prostitute in a bar. He’s not interested in her professional services, he just buys her a cup of coffee and chats to her for a while. He’s tired and drained and just wants someone to talk to for a while and she’s a willing listener. In a fit of generosity that he can’t even really explain to himself (except that he’s just been paid a huge amount for a very easy job and temporarily has more money than he knows what to do with) he offers her enough money to buy some decent clothes and get a regular job.
He wouldn’t give this very minor incident a second thought except that the red-headed streetwalker turns up dead the next day. It’s none of Hammer’s business really but he just can’t stand the thought that for once he does something nice for someone and straight away they wind up dead. All the injustice of the world is suddenly crystallised in this one senseless death. And then Hammer starts to realise that the death, ascribed to a hit-run driver, doesn’t add up. It starts to look like murder.
Needless to say it doesn’t stop there. The trail leads Hammer into a world of vice and corruption and violence.
My Gun is Quick differs from most earlier hardboiled detective stories in that Mike Hammer’s quest for vengeance is very personal. He’s not just pursuing this case for the money and in fact he’d follow it up even if he wasn’t getting paid. It’s the kind of obsessive revenge story one associates more with the blood-soaked world of Jacobean tragedy or with classic western movies.
While Mike Hammer has no time for pimps or for dishonest city officials who turn a blind eye to vice rackets he’s surprisingly sympathetic and non-judgmental towards prostitutes. That’s something one doesn’t quite expect, given Spillane’s reputation.
Spillane’s style might lack the polish of Chandler’s but like Mike Hammer’s detective methods it gets the job done. It’s an exciting well-paced crime thriller even if the major plot twist isn’t difficult to guess. There’s enough energy in the writing to overcome some deficiencies in plotting.
Hammer is an old-fashioned non-PC hero and you’re either going to accept that or you’re not. If you can’t accept it you won’t like Spillane. If you can accept it there’s plenty to enjoy. It’s rough around the edges but it doesn’t pull its punches and it’s highly entertaining. I’m off to read more Mickey Spillane.
August 1, 2021
Mike Hammer, hardest of the hard-boiled detectives, a direct descendent of the Continental Op, ready to clean up this town by smashing his way through the sordid underbelly of its sinful side just like his blunt surname, talking tough and backing it up with his fists and sometimes a gun, loving all the madonna-whores that Freud could have imagined. It's fun if you don't take it too seriously, although not quite as enjoyable as his debut.
October 8, 2020
The second Mike Hammer novel by Mickey Spillane was first published in 1950, nearly three years after the first, I, the Jury.
The story begins late at night with Hammer dead tired and deciding to stop in at a diner where he meets a red-headed prostitute. She is hassled by a man she seems to know and fear but Hammer comes to her rescue as Hammer often does, using his fists swiftly and effectively. He takes pity on the girl and gives her some money to get a real job and escape her life of prostitution. The next day she is found dead, the victim of an apparent hit-and-run accident. Mike is suspicious though, thinking she was more likely murdered and so he decides to hunt down who might be behind it.
This novel is similar in many ways to his first novel and it is clear that it just isn’t safe to become Mike Hammer’s friend. Hammer, himself even points this out in the book. Other than the recurring characters of his secretary, Velda, and Hammer’s best friend and NYPD homicide detective Pat Chambers, all others need to watch their backs. The case spirals into something much bigger than the potential murder of a prostitute and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Spillane really puts the “hard” in “hard-boiled”.
Another good one from Mickey Spillane.
The story begins late at night with Hammer dead tired and deciding to stop in at a diner where he meets a red-headed prostitute. She is hassled by a man she seems to know and fear but Hammer comes to her rescue as Hammer often does, using his fists swiftly and effectively. He takes pity on the girl and gives her some money to get a real job and escape her life of prostitution. The next day she is found dead, the victim of an apparent hit-and-run accident. Mike is suspicious though, thinking she was more likely murdered and so he decides to hunt down who might be behind it.
This novel is similar in many ways to his first novel and it is clear that it just isn’t safe to become Mike Hammer’s friend. Hammer, himself even points this out in the book. Other than the recurring characters of his secretary, Velda, and Hammer’s best friend and NYPD homicide detective Pat Chambers, all others need to watch their backs. The case spirals into something much bigger than the potential murder of a prostitute and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Spillane really puts the “hard” in “hard-boiled”.
Another good one from Mickey Spillane.
January 29, 2015
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 20, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 39 (of 250)
Spillane's books remind me of Quentin Tarantino's films: you're wary, you know what you're getting into, but you also know you can't resist. I don't like violence at all in books or movies, unless it's done very, very well. Spillane isn't considered to be a 'literary' author. But WHY NOT? He is great at his art. As good as this is, it serves as a very good follow-up to the far better "I, The Jury."
HOOK=2 stars: This opens with Hammer at home, philosophizing about the world outside. Compared to other openers in the genre, this is on the lackluster side.
PACE=4: This is a very fast read after the first page or so.
PLOT=4: An early shocker (Hitchcock did it a decade later in his film 'Psycho') gets things rolling: Hammer is furious when a hooker he has helped out of the gutter (he gives her money, not for sex, but to get things together) is killed. He'll stop at nothing until justice is served.
CHARACTERS=5: Mike Hammer: think a big, strong Bond on steroids but no gimmicks to help him nail the bad guys. I thought this exchange great when Hammer meets the lovely Lola in a bar:
Lola: "You're a nice guy, mister. What's your name?"
Mike: "Mike. How would you like to go for a ride and sober up a little?" (Mike never takes advantage of drunk ladies.)
Lola: "Umm. You got a nice shiny convertible for Lola to ride in? I love men with convertibles."
Mike's reply is a classic hard-boiled detective line: "I only have one thing that's convertible. It's not a car."
Lola: "Oh, you're talking dirty, Mike."
But the thing is, Mike could very well be talking about his convertible sofa. He is choosy with the ladies. Such as Red, the hooker down on her luck who Hammer helps to get back on her feet with new clothing, etc. Hammer sees "Red" then sees "red" certainly. Then there is Fenny Lee, chauffer and bodyguard to Berin-Grotin, an older, rich guy who hires Mike for various assignments. Velda, Mike's 'secretary' of sorts is here but in the background. (She plays a bigger role in the first Hammer book, "I, The Jury")
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE=5: Seedy flophouses and molding beach motels are rendered perfectly. The atmosphere of a singular revenge, present 100% throughout "I, The Jury", is here but not as steady as in the first outing. That said, Spillane ups the sex factor here. Like this:
Lola dresses for Mike: "I made this gown to be worn only once. There's only one way to get it off".
Mike thinks: A devil was making love to me...My fingers closed over the silk and I ripped it away with a hissing, tearing sound.
Spillane knows how to start a sex scene, but even better, he knows (like any great artist) when to stop.
SUMMARY: I enjoyed this book for a rating of 4.0. Very good, but again "I, the Jury" is better, and for me even "I, the Jury" isn't the best Hammer/Spillane work. More on that later.
BOOK 39 (of 250)
Spillane's books remind me of Quentin Tarantino's films: you're wary, you know what you're getting into, but you also know you can't resist. I don't like violence at all in books or movies, unless it's done very, very well. Spillane isn't considered to be a 'literary' author. But WHY NOT? He is great at his art. As good as this is, it serves as a very good follow-up to the far better "I, The Jury."
HOOK=2 stars: This opens with Hammer at home, philosophizing about the world outside. Compared to other openers in the genre, this is on the lackluster side.
PACE=4: This is a very fast read after the first page or so.
PLOT=4: An early shocker (Hitchcock did it a decade later in his film 'Psycho') gets things rolling: Hammer is furious when a hooker he has helped out of the gutter (he gives her money, not for sex, but to get things together) is killed. He'll stop at nothing until justice is served.
CHARACTERS=5: Mike Hammer: think a big, strong Bond on steroids but no gimmicks to help him nail the bad guys. I thought this exchange great when Hammer meets the lovely Lola in a bar:
Lola: "You're a nice guy, mister. What's your name?"
Mike: "Mike. How would you like to go for a ride and sober up a little?" (Mike never takes advantage of drunk ladies.)
Lola: "Umm. You got a nice shiny convertible for Lola to ride in? I love men with convertibles."
Mike's reply is a classic hard-boiled detective line: "I only have one thing that's convertible. It's not a car."
Lola: "Oh, you're talking dirty, Mike."
But the thing is, Mike could very well be talking about his convertible sofa. He is choosy with the ladies. Such as Red, the hooker down on her luck who Hammer helps to get back on her feet with new clothing, etc. Hammer sees "Red" then sees "red" certainly. Then there is Fenny Lee, chauffer and bodyguard to Berin-Grotin, an older, rich guy who hires Mike for various assignments. Velda, Mike's 'secretary' of sorts is here but in the background. (She plays a bigger role in the first Hammer book, "I, The Jury")
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE=5: Seedy flophouses and molding beach motels are rendered perfectly. The atmosphere of a singular revenge, present 100% throughout "I, The Jury", is here but not as steady as in the first outing. That said, Spillane ups the sex factor here. Like this:
Lola dresses for Mike: "I made this gown to be worn only once. There's only one way to get it off".
Mike thinks: A devil was making love to me...My fingers closed over the silk and I ripped it away with a hissing, tearing sound.
Spillane knows how to start a sex scene, but even better, he knows (like any great artist) when to stop.
SUMMARY: I enjoyed this book for a rating of 4.0. Very good, but again "I, the Jury" is better, and for me even "I, the Jury" isn't the best Hammer/Spillane work. More on that later.
August 8, 2017
"You must be fast. Furthermore, capable. Or, then again you'll be dead."
That practically totals up Mike Hammer's reasoning of life in New York City all through the majority of his appearances in Mickey Spillane books. Be that as it may, in My Gun Is Quick, Spillane's singing 1950 story of retribution, Hammer really says this to the peruser. He at that point embarks to demonstrate it.
In the wake of making a post-midnight conveyance to a customer, he stops off at a foul burger joint for a hot measure of java. There he experiences a stunning redhead down on her good fortune. He gets her some espresso. They talk. A person comes up to her, a person with "an implicit scoff that go for know-how", and starts bothering her. Mallet pushes him around, gives the young lady some cash, and clears out.
All things considered, come to discover she's a whore and she turns up dead the next morning. As in numerous other Hammer books, he commits himself to discovering her executioner and administering his own particular image of equity before the framework can mess it up.
For the uninitiated, Mickey Spillane was considered underneath hatred by a significant part of the artistic world for all intents and purposes his whole vocation, which crossed sixty years. His hard-charging, abrasive style killed the artistic elites, who likewise were not wild about his shameless distinguishing proof with the average workers, which once in a while included whores, speculators, and road tricksters. Regardless of this institutional predisposition against him, Spillane sold more than 130 million books amid his life. Despite everything they're offering.
The greater part of the mean comments and awful audits couldn't veil the enthusiasm that comes impacting through in Spillane's composition. The dim roads and back rear ways spring to life on the page, as Hammer sneaks through them like a non domesticated feline on the trail of his prey. The peruser will feel Hammer's hot cravings as he strokes the stripped skin of a lovely lady. When he messes up and is seriously beaten by a couple of intense folks, the peruser will feel the blows. This was truly solid stuff in 1950, when perusers of "riddle books" were being spoon-bolstered Miss Marple.
That practically totals up Mike Hammer's reasoning of life in New York City all through the majority of his appearances in Mickey Spillane books. Be that as it may, in My Gun Is Quick, Spillane's singing 1950 story of retribution, Hammer really says this to the peruser. He at that point embarks to demonstrate it.
In the wake of making a post-midnight conveyance to a customer, he stops off at a foul burger joint for a hot measure of java. There he experiences a stunning redhead down on her good fortune. He gets her some espresso. They talk. A person comes up to her, a person with "an implicit scoff that go for know-how", and starts bothering her. Mallet pushes him around, gives the young lady some cash, and clears out.
All things considered, come to discover she's a whore and she turns up dead the next morning. As in numerous other Hammer books, he commits himself to discovering her executioner and administering his own particular image of equity before the framework can mess it up.
For the uninitiated, Mickey Spillane was considered underneath hatred by a significant part of the artistic world for all intents and purposes his whole vocation, which crossed sixty years. His hard-charging, abrasive style killed the artistic elites, who likewise were not wild about his shameless distinguishing proof with the average workers, which once in a while included whores, speculators, and road tricksters. Regardless of this institutional predisposition against him, Spillane sold more than 130 million books amid his life. Despite everything they're offering.
The greater part of the mean comments and awful audits couldn't veil the enthusiasm that comes impacting through in Spillane's composition. The dim roads and back rear ways spring to life on the page, as Hammer sneaks through them like a non domesticated feline on the trail of his prey. The peruser will feel Hammer's hot cravings as he strokes the stripped skin of a lovely lady. When he messes up and is seriously beaten by a couple of intense folks, the peruser will feel the blows. This was truly solid stuff in 1950, when perusers of "riddle books" were being spoon-bolstered Miss Marple.
March 25, 2018
Really enjoying this series - this one was even better than the first one.
Mike Hammer is such a great character !
Mike Hammer is such a great character !
February 12, 2019
Very nice Pulp era detective story. I was surprised at many of the social themes that the story talked about. Good and interesting read. Recommended
October 26, 2023
Un ejemplo perfecto y, a la vez, una vuelta de tuerca al género hard boiled clásico. Un detective de gabardina y puño fácil, una trama de corrupción, los más bajos fondos de la ciudad, los poderosos y la gente que vive aplastada bajo la bota del sistema. En esta novela, sin embargo, el detective tiene corazón y la policía no es un obstáculo en el camino, sino una ayuda, un cuerpo atado de pies y manos por la ley y la burocracia, que ha decidido que basta ya.
👍 La relación romántica entre los protagonistas. Me encantó desde el principio.
👍 Y la amistad entre el detective y el policía. Magnífica.
👍 El ritmo brutal e impecable.
👍 El final. ¡Buenísimo!
👎 Que sí, que ya, que los detectives de la época eran irresistibles y todas las mujeres caían a sus pies. Claro que sí, guapi.
👎 Vi venir al culpable desde la cuna.
👍 La relación romántica entre los protagonistas. Me encantó desde el principio.
👍 Y la amistad entre el detective y el policía. Magnífica.
👍 El ritmo brutal e impecable.
👍 El final. ¡Buenísimo!
👎 Que sí, que ya, que los detectives de la época eran irresistibles y todas las mujeres caían a sus pies. Claro que sí, guapi.
👎 Vi venir al culpable desde la cuna.
January 25, 2018
Lock up your daughters, Mike Hammer's in town! Definitely a second novel, this one takes Hammer into the world of callgirls and vice organised on a level even the NYPD is supposedly amazed at. But in 1950 I'm sure it wasn't a new concept. Mike sees himself as always as the paladin of innocent (well, kinda) girls--never mind that they've been on the game for months or years! A look of adoration directed at our man Mike is apparently enough to wipe away all trace of a life of sin and degradation and venereal disease; after all, he says as much. But even that purification won't save them; any woman unfortunate enough to kiss Mike is marked for destruction. How he manages to keep his secretary alive is anyone's guess! One of the call girls tells him that other guys have to pay for sex...he'll never have to, of course, "it's the women who pay" when they have it away with our man Mike. And they do--with their lives.
More than a knight in shining armour, though, he's a rageaholic who's just looking for somebody to take his anger out on. Revenge is his addiction, but even when he's on the rampage he makes some pretty dumb mistakes, by his own admission.
I will say it was an extremely quick read, and made me laugh in all the wrong places. I predicted the bad guy mastermind a few paragraphs after the character appeared. The ending was incredibly silly and over-dramatic and unbelievable. Why did I read it? Well because I had a relapse of flu and felt like death. Had to stay in bed, but my brain couldn't really grasp any real content. Therefore this.
More than a knight in shining armour, though, he's a rageaholic who's just looking for somebody to take his anger out on. Revenge is his addiction, but even when he's on the rampage he makes some pretty dumb mistakes, by his own admission.
I will say it was an extremely quick read, and made me laugh in all the wrong places. I predicted the bad guy mastermind a few paragraphs after the character appeared. The ending was incredibly silly and over-dramatic and unbelievable. Why did I read it? Well because I had a relapse of flu and felt like death. Had to stay in bed, but my brain couldn't really grasp any real content. Therefore this.
January 6, 2023
This book has the same general plot as the last Mike Hammer book: someone kills one of Mike's friends and he goes out looking for revenge. The difference, however, is that everything is dialed up to eleven in this one. There is more action and the violence is much more gruesome (at one point Mike smashes someone's head to a meaty pulp) and the mystery is deeper. By the end of the novel Mike practically goes insane with revenge and people start dropping left and right.
The lessons that we learn from this novel are:
1. If you are a dame, stay away from Mike Hammer
2. If you are not Mike Hammer, don't piss off Mike Hammer
The lessons that we learn from this novel are:
1. If you are a dame, stay away from Mike Hammer
2. If you are not Mike Hammer, don't piss off Mike Hammer
September 11, 2010
I had this figured out within about 40 pages. Either Mike Hammer is as stupid as a sack of hammers or MIckey Spillane thought his readers were. But Mike's too busy getting the crap beaten out of him at regular intervals (but he's so supernaturally tough that he can just shake it off) and bedding every pulsating female (because every woman secretly loves a brute, you know) to think for two seconds about what's going on. A fantasy for 12-year-olds and bored office workers who like to fantasize about tough guys with quick guns (phallic imagery absolutely intended).
August 18, 2021
A quick, easy, noir escape from the political correctness I'm bombarded with daily. I like Philip Marlow much better, but Hammer was fun for a change.
October 8, 2022
Хамър търси истината за смъртта на проститутка: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/b...
След “Аз, съдникът” си знаех, че ще продължа с Мики Спилейн, има мрачна и грубовата енергия в неговото писане, която силно ми допада, при все клишираните сюжети – които все пак по времето, когато той пише, в средата на миналия век, не са чак толкова клиширани още. В “Бърз е е моят револвер” частното ченге Майк Хамър се оказва забъркан в огромна каша като следствие от това, че просто се отнася човешки с една проститутка. Скоро тя е мъртва и макар всичко да сочи нещастен случай, включително самопризнанията на пияницата, който я е блъснал с колата си, Хамър не може да се отърси от убеждението, че е била убита.
Издателство Дамян Яков
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/b...
След “Аз, съдникът” си знаех, че ще продължа с Мики Спилейн, има мрачна и грубовата енергия в неговото писане, която силно ми допада, при все клишираните сюжети – които все пак по времето, когато той пише, в средата на миналия век, не са чак толкова клиширани още. В “Бърз е е моят револвер” частното ченге Майк Хамър се оказва забъркан в огромна каша като следствие от това, че просто се отнася човешки с една проститутка. Скоро тя е мъртва и макар всичко да сочи нещастен случай, включително самопризнанията на пияницата, който я е блъснал с колата си, Хамър не може да се отърси от убеждението, че е била убита.
Издателство Дамян Яков
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/b...
June 30, 2018
Though this is the 2nd Mike Hammer Novel, it is my first experience with the famed character. I never saw the TV show and this is my first reading. I found the experience interesting, because of so many literary comparisons to go on. Hammer, written in the 1950's, cannot rely on technology, but rather his network of stool pigeons, his charm, and old fashioned shoe leather work, using low tech tools such as a phone book. A classic period piece, full of hard-boiled dialogue and dames that will make you weak in the knees, and the genre was just plain fun, if only for nostalgic purposes. The dialogue is usually strong, except when Hammer is talking to a "skirt" and then it becomes melodramatic and is hard to take seriously.
Like more modern incarnations of the private eye, such as Parker's Spenser, Hammer is a tough guy, able to take his licks while getting in a few of his own. The action scenes are pretty crisp and the book excels during these scenes.
The story, though, is sort of like looking through Saran Wrap. It wasn't long until I figured out the bad guy behind all the bad stuff. Of course, it was a pleasure to watch Mike Hammer reach that conclusion as well, it just left me wondering what took him so long. The melodramatic affair between Mike and Lola, the former call girl, was nothing short of ludicrous, but Spillane managed to use it to advance the story.
Worth reading for enjoyment of the genre, but nothing earth-shattering offered here.
Like more modern incarnations of the private eye, such as Parker's Spenser, Hammer is a tough guy, able to take his licks while getting in a few of his own. The action scenes are pretty crisp and the book excels during these scenes.
The story, though, is sort of like looking through Saran Wrap. It wasn't long until I figured out the bad guy behind all the bad stuff. Of course, it was a pleasure to watch Mike Hammer reach that conclusion as well, it just left me wondering what took him so long. The melodramatic affair between Mike and Lola, the former call girl, was nothing short of ludicrous, but Spillane managed to use it to advance the story.
Worth reading for enjoyment of the genre, but nothing earth-shattering offered here.
December 11, 2018
Continuing my tour through mid 20th century private detective fiction, this second volume of Mickey Spillane's series featuring Mike Hammer is the juiciest yet. There's more sex, more violence and the first person POV allows for great tough guy inner monologue, compared to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler's books. It is delightfully over the top, right down to the gruesome vengeance at the end.
September 11, 2018
Another strong detective story, and while the ending is a bit telegraphed and the logic a bit tenuous, the denouement is arguably Shakespearean in its structure and presentation. Really. The final 5 pages are that good.
February 5, 2021
Hammer in love?
Dietro la morte di una giovane donna ci sono fatti che non convincono Hammer.
La donna la conosce perché incontrata per caso ore prima in un bar, per qualche minuto, ma ne ha un'impressione di forte simpatia, quasi affetto, l'ha difesa da un tentativo di aggressione.
Decide quindi di investigare per proprio conto, certo che le cose siano diverse da come appaiono.
Non credo l'autore volesse nasconderci il colpevole, si intuisce presto, conta meno del meccanismo a rincorsa che investe Hammer a più riprese, compreso un amico in Polizia che considera il caso un suicidio, ma che grazie alle intuizioni del nostro riconsidererà tutto ritrovandosi tra le mani un giro di prostituzione legato ai bordelli.
Il finale non convince, improbabile e per certi versi ridicolo - Come? Sì Mickey, calma, è solo la mia opinione, certo.
Troviamo i pregi e difetti dell'Hard boiled più spinto, con le sue movenze dirette-squadrate-veloci che hanno forgiato il genere da una parte, e dall'altra quella misoginia travestita da buone maniere che rende il protagonista irresistibile agli occhi di donne (tutte, nel romanzo) e uomini.
A onor del vero, nonostante l'onnipresente giustizialismo di fondo, questo mio secondo appuntamento con Hammer/Spillane si è rivelato più empatico rispetto al primo: l'investigatore privato si è 'lasciato andare' a squarci di scanzonata ironia per alleggerire la tensione che porta avanti la storia - Sì Mickey, ironia da veri uomini, meglio specificare, hai ragione, non vorrei farti fare la figura della femminuccia.
Autore importante della narrativa di genere Hard-boiled/Noir - Non c'è di che, Mickey - per me resta comunque a parecchie distanze da Hammett e Chandler - Ricambio, fanculo a te, Mickey.
Dietro la morte di una giovane donna ci sono fatti che non convincono Hammer.
La donna la conosce perché incontrata per caso ore prima in un bar, per qualche minuto, ma ne ha un'impressione di forte simpatia, quasi affetto, l'ha difesa da un tentativo di aggressione.
Decide quindi di investigare per proprio conto, certo che le cose siano diverse da come appaiono.
Non credo l'autore volesse nasconderci il colpevole, si intuisce presto, conta meno del meccanismo a rincorsa che investe Hammer a più riprese, compreso un amico in Polizia che considera il caso un suicidio, ma che grazie alle intuizioni del nostro riconsidererà tutto ritrovandosi tra le mani un giro di prostituzione legato ai bordelli.
Il finale non convince, improbabile e per certi versi ridicolo - Come? Sì Mickey, calma, è solo la mia opinione, certo.
Troviamo i pregi e difetti dell'Hard boiled più spinto, con le sue movenze dirette-squadrate-veloci che hanno forgiato il genere da una parte, e dall'altra quella misoginia travestita da buone maniere che rende il protagonista irresistibile agli occhi di donne (tutte, nel romanzo) e uomini.
A onor del vero, nonostante l'onnipresente giustizialismo di fondo, questo mio secondo appuntamento con Hammer/Spillane si è rivelato più empatico rispetto al primo: l'investigatore privato si è 'lasciato andare' a squarci di scanzonata ironia per alleggerire la tensione che porta avanti la storia - Sì Mickey, ironia da veri uomini, meglio specificare, hai ragione, non vorrei farti fare la figura della femminuccia.
Autore importante della narrativa di genere Hard-boiled/Noir - Non c'è di che, Mickey - per me resta comunque a parecchie distanze da Hammett e Chandler - Ricambio, fanculo a te, Mickey.
Want to read
November 12, 2020My Gun is Quick: After a long day of searching for a lost manuscript. Mike walks into a diner for coffee and meets a down on her luck redhead. Mike tries to help her out. In the morning, while reading a newspaper, he finds out she was the victim of a hit and run drunk driver. Or was she? Hammer sets out to find the truth and ends up embroiled in a double murder case involving girls and the oldest profession.
January 10, 2024
Dames, Greasers, and Rods. Welcome to the world of Mike Hammer and stories that defined noir and detective fiction in the 40s and 50s.
My dad was a big fan of spillane and I used to sneak peeks at them so I thought I would revisit and see what it was all about. The story centers around a redheaded lady of the evening who Hammer befriends and decides to help out. Only to have her killed a few days later. He decides he's gonna find the culprit and it's a rocky ride to the end. Though I guessed the bad guy about midway through, it was still an interesting story and kept me reading.
My only problem was the slang of that period was a little hard to follow at times and I'm not sure I did in all cases.
But if you're interested in classic detective fiction, I'd recommend you give this one a read.
My dad was a big fan of spillane and I used to sneak peeks at them so I thought I would revisit and see what it was all about. The story centers around a redheaded lady of the evening who Hammer befriends and decides to help out. Only to have her killed a few days later. He decides he's gonna find the culprit and it's a rocky ride to the end. Though I guessed the bad guy about midway through, it was still an interesting story and kept me reading.
My only problem was the slang of that period was a little hard to follow at times and I'm not sure I did in all cases.
But if you're interested in classic detective fiction, I'd recommend you give this one a read.
December 16, 2024
Count: Two murders. Just like A Touch of Death , but I am not bored for a moment & want to find out what happens next with each chapter. Proof enough of Spillane's reputation as the best hard-boiled writer of the 50s that he can still touch a nerve in the age of Taken and Epstein. Also because he doesn't write how people have sex, but how it feels to do it.
December 20, 2021
Mickey Spillane's second Mike Hammer noir novel, My Gun is Quick, was published in 1950. Consequently, there is quite of bit of reference to World War II. In fact, both Spillane and the fictional Mike Hammer, were veterans of that war, Spillane being a fighter pilot. It is hard to know how true to life Spillane's noir novels are, but his imagery, to me, is so vivid that it makes the war on crime in the Big Apple almost as life threatening as anything that soldiers discovered in war-torn Europe and the South Pacific. I don't quite believe that it could have been that violent, but how do I know what the early fifties was like in the dark and gritty streets of Gotham, it's hard to say.
In any case, the writing is such that it is hard to put down, but then I have been a film noir fan for many years. I can imagine some old-time actor such as Fred MacMurray or Humphrey Bogart playing the roll of Mike Hammer, who continually finds himself in either the stage of getting knocked about or romantically embraced. Spillane's world is one of conflicting values, where the good people aren't quite as good as we would hope, but they are a lot better than the undesirables who are part of their daily lives, because, you see, that's the thing: they never seem to get away from it. It's always in their face. It's a life, fortunately most of us don't experience and we don't because of those good guys with the struggling ethics that fight with it every day. I, for one, am glad it isn't me that has to be on the front line like Mike Hammer and his close friend, Pat Chambers, the police captain of NYPD homicide.
In any case, Spillane's character portrayals and eloquent descriptions are hard to beat, including those that his main character uses to describe himself. "He couldn’t lose me now or ever. I was the guy with the cowl and the scythe. I had a hundred and forty black horses under me and an hourglass in my hand, laughing like crazy until the tears rolled down my cheeks." I'm not sure I like it, but, on the other hand, I can't beat it and I can't wait to read the next in the series.
In any case, the writing is such that it is hard to put down, but then I have been a film noir fan for many years. I can imagine some old-time actor such as Fred MacMurray or Humphrey Bogart playing the roll of Mike Hammer, who continually finds himself in either the stage of getting knocked about or romantically embraced. Spillane's world is one of conflicting values, where the good people aren't quite as good as we would hope, but they are a lot better than the undesirables who are part of their daily lives, because, you see, that's the thing: they never seem to get away from it. It's always in their face. It's a life, fortunately most of us don't experience and we don't because of those good guys with the struggling ethics that fight with it every day. I, for one, am glad it isn't me that has to be on the front line like Mike Hammer and his close friend, Pat Chambers, the police captain of NYPD homicide.
In any case, Spillane's character portrayals and eloquent descriptions are hard to beat, including those that his main character uses to describe himself. "He couldn’t lose me now or ever. I was the guy with the cowl and the scythe. I had a hundred and forty black horses under me and an hourglass in my hand, laughing like crazy until the tears rolled down my cheeks." I'm not sure I like it, but, on the other hand, I can't beat it and I can't wait to read the next in the series.
July 15, 2010
Spillane is not a great writer, but his stuff is better than much of the pulp of the period.
People who complain about his misogyny etc amuse me, as Mike Hammer is egalitarian. He treats everyone the same way: as a tool. And that's what's most enjoyable about this book. We are given an objective and we watch as Hammer moves methodically towards that goal. The best prose of the book is not the lurid scenes that his oversexed and violence prone readers (allegedly) dogear for repeated reading, and certainly not anything that includes a line of dialogue, but rather the simple details that advance the story along inch by inch in a rather workman-like fashion.
Just a randomly pulled passage:
"For ten minutes I splashed around in the shower, then made a bite to eat without drying off. A full pot of coffee put me back in shape and I started to get dressed. My suit was a mess, wrinkled from top to bottom, with the pockets and cuffs filled with sand. There were lipstick smears on the collar and shoulders, so it went back into the closet behind the others until I could get it to the tailor's. That left me with the custom-built tweed that was made to be worn over a rod, so I slapped on the shoulder holster and filled it with the .45, then slipped on the jacket. I looked in the mirror and grunted. A character straight out of a B movie. Downstairs I got a shave and a haircut, which left me enough time to get to the office in a few minutes before the old gent."
The plot was predictable, the violence improbable, and the dialogue just laughable...but there was enough there to make me want to finish the ride, even though I knew I'd been there before.
People who complain about his misogyny etc amuse me, as Mike Hammer is egalitarian. He treats everyone the same way: as a tool. And that's what's most enjoyable about this book. We are given an objective and we watch as Hammer moves methodically towards that goal. The best prose of the book is not the lurid scenes that his oversexed and violence prone readers (allegedly) dogear for repeated reading, and certainly not anything that includes a line of dialogue, but rather the simple details that advance the story along inch by inch in a rather workman-like fashion.
Just a randomly pulled passage:
"For ten minutes I splashed around in the shower, then made a bite to eat without drying off. A full pot of coffee put me back in shape and I started to get dressed. My suit was a mess, wrinkled from top to bottom, with the pockets and cuffs filled with sand. There were lipstick smears on the collar and shoulders, so it went back into the closet behind the others until I could get it to the tailor's. That left me with the custom-built tweed that was made to be worn over a rod, so I slapped on the shoulder holster and filled it with the .45, then slipped on the jacket. I looked in the mirror and grunted. A character straight out of a B movie. Downstairs I got a shave and a haircut, which left me enough time to get to the office in a few minutes before the old gent."
The plot was predictable, the violence improbable, and the dialogue just laughable...but there was enough there to make me want to finish the ride, even though I knew I'd been there before.
December 20, 2018
This is my second Mike Hammer novel after "I, the Jury" which I didn't like very much. I gave it 2 stars and a not too great of a review. I said:
"The writing style seems to start with a Spade/Marlowe like PI and then removes most of the extraneous factors like a moral code (even if it was an ambiguous one), any trace of romanticism, most emotions other than hate or lust and anything resembling contemplation. What's left, toughness, determination, single mindedness and an extremely violent nature that kills with no remorse if he thinks the person deserved it. But the character becomes a little shallow without the missing attributes listed above."
Well the same things are pretty much true about the second novel except that the negatives aren't as negative and a few positive aspects are beginning to show up. The Chandleresque plot gives more substance to the story. He is still a very violent man with no qualms about killing those he thinks deserve it. It's not hard to land on this list. You can harm someone Hammer happens to like at the moment or you can inflict bodily harm on Hammer himself or just be a "punk" or a "thug" that got on his bad side. His distorted view of justice is slightly more tempered here But not by much.
His dogged reluctance to stop pursuing a case once he has gotten involved comes off slightly more as a positive trait than it the first novel. His huge, but unexplained, attraction to woman who "like it rough" and the resulting sex scenes are still as shallow as ever. I'm trying to decide if I will continue with the next novel "Vengeance is Mine".
"The writing style seems to start with a Spade/Marlowe like PI and then removes most of the extraneous factors like a moral code (even if it was an ambiguous one), any trace of romanticism, most emotions other than hate or lust and anything resembling contemplation. What's left, toughness, determination, single mindedness and an extremely violent nature that kills with no remorse if he thinks the person deserved it. But the character becomes a little shallow without the missing attributes listed above."
Well the same things are pretty much true about the second novel except that the negatives aren't as negative and a few positive aspects are beginning to show up. The Chandleresque plot gives more substance to the story. He is still a very violent man with no qualms about killing those he thinks deserve it. It's not hard to land on this list. You can harm someone Hammer happens to like at the moment or you can inflict bodily harm on Hammer himself or just be a "punk" or a "thug" that got on his bad side. His distorted view of justice is slightly more tempered here But not by much.
His dogged reluctance to stop pursuing a case once he has gotten involved comes off slightly more as a positive trait than it the first novel. His huge, but unexplained, attraction to woman who "like it rough" and the resulting sex scenes are still as shallow as ever. I'm trying to decide if I will continue with the next novel "Vengeance is Mine".
September 21, 2012
Ended up skimming this. I know I was reassured that this was a bit better than the first book, but I wasn't ready to be charitable. Hammett and Chandler can be bad enough, but Mickey Spillane's misogynism really got my goat in a way they didn't do (almost made worse by Velda being a decent woman, because of all the jokes about Hammer marrying her).
Hammer is a good name for him, because he really is a blunt instrument. The book is fun enough to read if you're into noir, sex and violence don't bother you, and you can ignore the various -isms and the like, but I could only read it with part of my (over-alert, English Lit trained, admittedly) brain turned off.
I bought the first three books as an omnibus, so I've skimmed the third book too, and I have to say, I think it's probably my favourite of the three. If you've got the same omnibus, and you sort of guiltily enjoyed the first two books, the third is worth hanging on for (because Velda is awesome).
Hammer is a good name for him, because he really is a blunt instrument. The book is fun enough to read if you're into noir, sex and violence don't bother you, and you can ignore the various -isms and the like, but I could only read it with part of my (over-alert, English Lit trained, admittedly) brain turned off.
I bought the first three books as an omnibus, so I've skimmed the third book too, and I have to say, I think it's probably my favourite of the three. If you've got the same omnibus, and you sort of guiltily enjoyed the first two books, the third is worth hanging on for (because Velda is awesome).
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