Victor Weybright, the chief editor at New American Library, Spillane’s publisher, explained his appeal this way: “The Spillane books are a unique form of ‘Americana,’ a new kind of folklore ...” And it was no insignificant reflection of the times that Mike Hammer soon starting taking on Communists instead of gangsters: “They were Commies.... They were real sons of bitches who should have died long ago.... They never thought there were people like me in this country.” Kenneth Davis went so far as to call Hammer a reflection of the McCarthyite soul of the country, “the ultimate cold warrior, an
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