Christopher Pinto's Reviews > Dead Street

I've always been a big Micky Spillane fan. When I heard that Max Allen Collins (Road to Perdition, Saving Private Ryan) was Spillane's longtime friend and was asked to finish out several of his unfinished novels, I was ecstatic, yet took it with a grain of salt. After all, how could anyone...even as great a writer as Collins...match Spillane's style and flair?

Well, he did a great job. So far I've read two of these collaborations and have been satisfied with both. My only criticism is that you can sort of tell that Collins had to stretch out some of the material to go from notes and partial chapters to a finished book. There are times when it what you are reading may seem redundant...as if it were covered a few times already. I found more of this in The Goliath Bone than I did in Dead Street, but it still seemed like a little of Spillane's "meat" was never written before his death.

This non-Hammer Spillane cop story reminded me a lot of The Deep. If you dug that, you'll dig this.

Could I, as a writer have done a better job, though, without comprising Spillane's story? Nope. This is a great read for Spillane lovers, with few exceptions.