Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer

So, Mickey Spillane died the other day. Max Allan Collins did a great obit of him here. The most I know of Mike Hammer is the cheesy Stacy Keach version because, as Collins points out, we have the literary memory of gnats nowadays. This is the stuff that I love to read, though. And some of my very favorite mystery authors (Pelecanos, Coben, Crais) are all direct descendants of the Spillane tradition.

If you're a mystery fan, check out a Mickey Spillane before they disappear from libraries altogether. It isn't new. It isn't shiny. But he wrote his first book in 1946 and we're still having this discussion. That must mean something.