Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is publishing this book at this end of this month. I downloaded my ebook copy from Net Galley (thanks to you both). If you enjoy hard hitting pulp detective stories, add this to your TBR list.
When his old friend, Doolan dies from suicide, Mike gathers his medicines and a few clothes and heads back to New York to see just exactly what happened. He knows this retired cop would never kill himself, cancer or not.
He doesn't want to leave the warmth of Florida, he doesn't want to live in New York anymore, and he has no idea where Velda is. But he owes Doolan.
Mickey Spillane died with this plot just an idea on a piece of paper. He gave those papers to Max Allan Collins, and he has created this masterpiece.
Mike Hammer is still a mean machine who cuts no one any slack. The feel of the story and the fast paced action reads just like vintage Spillane.
This was an excellent read. There are not a lot of surprises in the book, it's Mike Hammer against the bad guys with impossible odds. But that's what makes it attractive to me. I had another nice visit with an old friend who kills people, you know, Mike Hammer.
Again if you like the pulp detective stories, you'll love reading this book. Why not pick up a copy?
Happy reading!
2 comments:
This is a lovely review and I'm very grateful.
But Mickey provided more than you indicate. He had a substantial manuscript of about 100 pages, and another very different take on the same basic idea that ran maybe fifty pages. I combined them, expanded them, and referred to various plot notes I found, and the result was (I think) very strong.
Thanks for correcting this Mr. Collins. I misunderstood how much was in manuscript form already. What I can say is that you did a very good job of putting together a first rate story in Spillane style.
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