Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction - Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor

The first Mickey Spillane novel I ever read was THE DEEP, a hardback I checked out from the library when I was 12 years old and in the sixth grade. By that time I was already volunteering at the local library and could check books out to myself without anybody saying, “Hey, kid, are you sure you’re old enough to read that?”

My second Spillane novel, and my introduction to Mike Hammer, was KISS ME, DEADLY, another library hardcover I took with me and read while my family was visiting my aunt in Blanket, Texas. I still remember reading it in the big brown armchair that was my favorite reading spot in her house.

Just like I remember reading the Signet paperback of THE SNAKE in the repurposed World War II barracks building that served as the high school study hall, or, best of all, reading ONE LONELY NIGHT in a chair on the porch of my sister’s house one summer day, blown away by the great opening, the even better ending, and all the stuff in between.

Which is my long-winded, nostalgia-wallowing way of saying that I love Mickey Spillane’s books. I read them all, I reread one now and then over the years, and I read and enjoyed many of the Spillane novels that Max Allan Collins completed from various fragments and outlines and notes. Mike Hammer is one of my all-time favorite fictional private eyes and Mickey Spillane one of my favorite writers. One of the things I’m most proud of from my tenure as the editor of Rough Edges Press is that I got to work on the great Spillane collection STAND UP AND DIE!

So for a while now, I’ve been looking forward to SPILLANE: KING OF PULP FICTION, the first in-depth biography of Spillane by that same Max Allan Collins and his excellent collaborator James L. Traylor. Spillane is long overdue for such a volume, and Collins and Traylor have done a magnificent job of delivering it.

I learned a lot about Spillane’s childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood than I ever knew before, and the book is illustrated with photos I’d never seen. Spillane really comes alive in the biographical sections, a driven but affable guy, true to his blue collar roots, never pretentious, but treating his work a lot more seriously than the impression his self-deprecating attitude might convey. Spillane, clearly, was able to take the job of putting words on paper with great seriousness while recognizing the absurdities of much of the publishing business and all the trappings that go with it. My kind of guy, in other words.

Woven through the biography is a critical discussion and appreciation of each of Spillane’s novels. As Collins and Traylor point out, you can’t really talk about Spillane’s novels without talking about the endings, so spoilers abound and anyone who hasn’t read the books should consider themselves warned. The thing of it is, even when you know the endings, the books still hold fabulously on rereading. Some of them I enjoyed even more, because knowing what was coming, I could appreciate how cleverly Spillane set everything up. One of the great joys of writing is planting a seed that doesn’t come to fruition until much later on.

Collins and Traylor also cover the various moves, TV shows, radio shows, comic strips, and comic books based on Spillane’s work, as well as his early comic book scripting and his possible sales to the pulps and the slicks. (For the record, I’m absolutely convinced that Spillane sold hardboiled detective yarns to various pulps under the name “Frank Morris” . . . and I hope to see a collection of those stories someday.)

There are helpful listings of Spillane’s novels and collections in publication order, and also a chronological listing of all the Mike Hammer novels including the ones Collins completed for Spillane. This is very helpful because for a while now I’ve been toying with the idea of reading/rereading the Hammer series in order, including the Collins titles. Whether anything will come of this, I don’t know—I have lots of great ideas I never get around to—but in case I do, this list will be very valuable.

I really enjoyed SPILLANE: KING OF PULP FICTION. It’s entertaining, informative, and very nostalgic, but above all, just plain fun to read. It’s the best book I’ve read so far this year and is a lock for my top ten list at the end of the year. It's available in print, e-book, and audio editions. If you’re a Spillane fan, you’ve probably already bought it. If you’re thinking about it but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, go ahead.

Mike Hammer would. And then tell you it was easy.

The Wrap Up

There’s no point in denying that 2022 was a rotten year in many ways, but there’s also no point in dwelling on that. So let’s turn our attention to more pleasant endeavors, such as writing, reading, editing, and publishing.

To take those things in reverse order, for most of this year I was the editor of Rough Edges Press, the mystery/thriller/men’s adventure imprint of Wolfpack Publishing. It was a wonderful job, as I got to work with Mike Bray, Jake Bray, Patience Bramlett, and all the other great people at Wolfpack, in addition to all the authors involved. While there, I was privileged to edit some really excellent books, and I’m proud of what the line accomplished. However, I stepped down at the end of October because I discovered that I couldn’t both edit and write at the level I wanted to, and although I didn’t mind slowing down some on my page production (more about that in the next paragraph) I just wasn’t ready to stop writing full-time. There are still too many books in my head clamoring to get out.

As I mentioned a few posts back, 2022 was the first year since 2004 that I didn’t write at least a million words of fiction. So the streak ends at 17 years, and while I might have preferred an even number (yes, I am a little OCD), I’m absolutely fine with that. I wrote approximately 900,000 words this year. That’s plenty. I think 750,000 would be a good total for 2023. I wrote at that level for many years before I started hitting a million, and I think I can continue producing at that level for a while yet. My plan for next year is to keep up with my regular ghost-writing job (I’m committed to approximately half a million words there) and devote the rest of the wordage to a few books of my own. We’ll see.

On the reading front, it was a good year, not at all rotten. I read 138 books. Here are my top ten favorites, in the order in which I read them:

A GUIDE TO THE GOOD LIFE: THE ANCIENT ART OF STOIC JOY, William B. Irvine

GUNS OF THE DAMNED, Stone Cody (Thomas E. Mount)

IN THE PULP FICTION TRENCHES, Len Levinson

STAND UP AND DIE!: THE LOST THRILLERS OF MICKEY SPILLANE, Mickey Spillane

THE SPIDER: SCOURGE OF THE SCORPION, Will Murray

GHOST OF THE HARDY BOYS, Leslie McFarlane

FROM THE FILES OF . . . MIKE HAMMER, Mickey Spillane

THE RANCH CAT (apa STRAIGHT FROM BOOT HILL), Willliam Hopson

JANE FURY, James Robert Daniels

CALICO, Lee Goldberg

I’m aware that’s a pretty odd mix. Two of them I edited (the Levinson memoir and the Spillane prose collection; the other Spillane book is a collection of the Mike Hammer comic strip I had nothing to do with). Two of them aren’t out yet because I read them in manuscript, JANE FURY and CALICO, but they’ll be out next year and you should remember those titles because they’re great. The pulp influence is there in GUNS OF THE DAMNED, the first novel in the Silver Trent series originally published in THE WESTERN RAIDER and STAR WESTERN, and in the Hopson novel because he got his start in the Western pulps, and in the new Spider novel by Will Murray since the Spider is one of the iconic pulp hero characters. My study of Stoic philosophy kind of petered out as the year went on, but the lessons I learned from it came in handy more than once and I still plan to get back to it.

There were at least two dozen other books right on the verge of making this list, including quite a few I edited, starting with Jamie Mason’s Father Barrett series and Ryan Fowler’s Father Tag Nolan series. Both of those feature priests/detectives and both are absolutely excellent, but beyond that, they couldn’t be more different. You should check them out if you haven’t already. Chuck Dixon’s Levon Cade series continued this year with several great entries. Brent Towns added another top-notch action/adventure series to his tireless output with TALON and also gave us some fine hardboiled private eye novels set in Australia. Nik Morton’s Leon Cazador books are fast-paced international thrillers with a great protagonist. Stephen Mertz’s latest Cody’s War novel demonstrates that he hasn’t lost a step and is still a legend in the action/adventure field. And these are just Rough Edges Press books. I also read some great pulp reprints from Altus Press/Steeger Books and several superb hardboiled/noir novels from Stark House/Black Gat Books/Staccato Crime. I swear, if you can’t find plenty of great books to read these days, you’re just not looking hard enough!

Finally, this blog suffered a bit in 2022 because I just didn’t have enough time to devote to it. As a result, there were fewer posts than any year since I started it in 2004—and since I started it in July, that was only half a year. I hope to post more in 2023, including more book reviews, the return of movie reviews, and maybe an occasional post about what else is going on in my life, although generally, that stuff is pretty boring. My thanks to all of you reading this, whether you’ve been a regular reader since 2004 or just found the blog. Like the WesternPulps email group (which will celebrate its 24^th anniversary this spring), I intend to keep this going for a good long while yet.

From the Files of . . . Mike Hammer - Mickey Spillane and Ed Robbins

As a Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer fan for more than fifty years, I was surprised that I didn’t even know this book existed until recently. Published by Hermes Press in 2013, FROM THE FILES OF . . . MIKE HAMMER reprints the Mike Hammer comic strip that ran for less than two years in 1952 and ’53 and is still available in both print and digital editions.

Editor Max Allan Collins provides the usual fine introduction, covering the background for the strip and information on who did what. The art is by Ed Robbins, an artist I’m not really familiar with, but he does a great job all the way through, with superb storytelling and a version of Hammer that just looks right. Mickey Spillane provided plots and contributed to some of the scripts, and Robbins handled much of the writing as well as the art. Veteran comics scripter Joe Gill worked on the strip early on but didn’t last long.

Although the strips ran in the usual daily and Sunday form, with different storylines in each format, this volume collects them in different sequences. In the first daily continuity, “Half-Blonde”, Mike Hammer, always the champion of the underdog, investigates the murder of a bum. Not surprisingly, the case turns out to have a much larger scope than that. While in the hospital recuperating from injuries suffered during that case, Mike finds himself involved in the mystery of “The Bandaged Lady”. In “The Child”, he’s hired to rescue the kidnapped child of a mob boss.

The title of the next daily continuity, “Another Lonely Night”, harkens back to what many, including myself, consider Spillane’s best novel, ONE LONELY NIGHT. In this one, Mike is targeted for death by mob killers after he witnesses a gangland execution. “Christmas Story” is a minor but predictably heart-warming tale in which Mike, feeling like Scrooge, corrals a shoplifter dressed as Santa Claus. Finally, in “Adam and Kane”, Mike has an actual client for once, an elderly criminal who hires him to locate his long-estranged son.

The title of the first Sunday storyline is “Comes Murder”, which, as Collins explains in his introduction, is designed to fit with the strip’s overall title: “From the Files of Mike Hammer . . . Comes Murder”. It’s likely that Spillane scripted this story himself. It certainly reads like his work. Mike protects a young couple from a vindictive gambling kingpin, but there’s more to it than a bad debt. He gets a hand in this case from a beautiful blond Amazon who may or may not be trustworthy.

Another beautiful blonde figures prominently in the plot of “The Sudden Trap”. Mike is passing through a small town when he spots a Hollywood starlet who’s out of place there . . . especially since she was believed to have been killed in a car wreck two years earlier. Mike’s curiosity won’t allow him to move on until he’s solved the mystery of her true identity.

The third and final Sunday continuity is the aptly named “Dark City”, in which Mike gets mixed up in the dangerous affairs of a beautiful redhead and her shell-shocked Korean War vet brother. Several panels in this story are considerably more suggestive than most comic strips were in those days, and it’s thought that may have contributed to the strip’s cancellation. I’m just glad Spillane and Robbins were able to finish the storyline. It wraps everything up in a downbeat but effective manner.

I really had a fine time reading this book. It brought back a lot of memories of racing through Mike Hammer novels in study hall at school, on my parents’ front porch, and at my sister’s house. The art is good, the scripts are top-notch, and I can’t imagine any Spillane fan not enjoying this collection. FROM THE FILES OF . . . MIKE HAMMER gets a very high recommendation from me.

Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek (Caleb York #6) -- Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

The Caleb York series, written by Max Allan Collins and based on a character created by Mickey Spillane, started out strong and has gotten better as it goes along, coming to an end (for now) with a terrific range war novel that stands with the best of the classic Western writers.

Following closely on the events of the previous book, former gunfighter and Wells Fargo detective Caleb York, currently a lawman in Trinidad, New Mexico, finds himself caught up in the clash between two strong women: Willa Cullen, the beautiful young ranch owner York wants to marry, and Victoria Hammond, newly arrived in the territory and determined to start a cattle empire built on rustling, intimidation, and outright murder if that's what it takes. The fight over water rights between Willa and Victoria expands to include a number of hired gunmen on both sides and plenty of blood being spilled.

Collins never lets up on the pace in this book. It races along with plenty of action and characterization and occasional bits of humor. In Victoria Hammond, it also has one of the most despicable villains I've encountered lately, willing to sacrifice her own flesh and blood to gain what she wants and a more than worthy adversary for York. The regular supporting characters show up, too, including York's scruffy sidekick/deputy Jonathan P. Tulley (in my head, he's always played by the great Al "Fuzzy" St. John) and saloon owner Rita Filley, part of an uneasy romantic triangle with York and Willa. (If you ask me, and nobody did, York should pick Rita.)

In his acknowledgments, Collins also has a nice mention of the Western Fictioneers for the research help the group provided. It's always good to see WF get a little publicity.

I hope Collins finds time in his schedule to continue this series. I've really enjoyed it. I think I've compared them before to the Amos Flagg series by Clifton Adams writing as Clay Randall. If you're a fan of traditional Western action novels, I give the Caleb York books a very high recommendation.

Hot Lead, Cold Justice - Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

The Caleb York series of Western novels, based on characters created by Mickey Spillane and written by Max Allan Collins, is a series that started off very good and has gotten better with each book. The fifth book, HOT LEAD, COLD JUSTICE, will be out later this year, and I’m fortunate enough to have read an early copy of it.

I hate snow and ice in real life, but for some reason I’ve always enjoyed books that use winter weather as part of the setting, especially Westerns. That’s the case in this book, which finds a blizzard bearing down on Trinidad, the small town in New Mexico Territory where Caleb York, gunfighter and former Wells Fargo detective, is now the town marshal. The weather isn’t the only trouble in store for York and Trinidad: a group of bank robbers—including one who had a deadly personal grudge against York—plans to hit the bank in a nearby town and then hide out in Trinidad while the hunt for them dies down. They manage to do this, but York figures out what’s happening and a dangerous game of cat and mouse develops in the blizzard-battered settlement.

Collins’ prose is as smooth and effective as ever in this story that races along in a very satisfying manner. York is a likable, stalwart hero, and his uneasy romantic triangle with ranch owner Willa and saloon owner Rita continues to be interesting. His deputy Tulley is a great sidekick, and the rest of the supporting cast works well. The villains are properly despicable, especially their leader, the ruthless outlaw “Burn ‘em” Burnham.

One thing I especially like about this series is that the books range from 60,000 to 65,000 words, just about the perfect length for a Western. There’s no fat on the bones. Collins provides the reader with plenty of characterization to make the players in his tale interesting, while at the same time keeping the pace moving along briskly. This series reminds me of the Amos Flagg series by Clifton Adams writing as Clay Randall. Readers who enjoy good, solid traditional Westerns definitely should make the acquaintance of Caleb York, and if you already have, you’ll want to grab HOT LEAD, COLD JUSTICE. It’s great stuff.

Last Stage to Hell Junction - Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

First of all, is that a great title or what? LAST STAGE TO HELL JUNCTION. I can see it on the cover of a Popular Publications Western pulp or a Gold Medal paperback. In fact . . .

But more on that later. What you need to know is that this is the fourth Caleb York novel by Max Allan Collins based on the character created by Mickey Spillane. Former Wells Fargo detective/gunfighter Caleb York is still the sheriff of the small town of Trinidad, New Mexico Territory, and as usual, trouble’s not long in cropping up. York is also still juggling on-again, off-again romantic relationships with two women, beautiful blond ranch owner Willa Cullen and beautiful brunette saloon owner Rita Filley. The two women find themselves on the same stage bound for the neighboring town of Las Vegas, where there’s a railroad spur that will take them to Denver for shopping trips. Also on the stage is the most successful businessman in Trinidad, who owns banks and other enterprises throughout the Southwest.

The stagecoach hasn’t gone very far before it’s jumped by an outlaw gang led by a charismatic former actor gone bad. Their target is the businessman, who they kidnap to hold for ransom. They take the two women along with them as well, and everybody holes up in the ghost town of Hale Junction, which some wag has renamed Hell Junction on the sign at the edge of town. When Caleb York finds out about this, he sets out to rescue the hostages and deal with the outlaws, of course, but doing that without getting his friends killed proves to be a tricky job.

As always, Collins’ prose is just as smooth and fast-flowing as can be, and his characters are interesting, including the villains. I’m particularly fond of York’s deputy, reformed drunk and desert rat Jonathan Tulley. He’s a fine sidekick. I don’t know how the author sees him, but in my head he’s always Al “Fuzzy” St. John. Collins does an excellent job of making things worse and worse for his protagonist, until you really do start to wonder how York will be able to sort things out.

Now, as for that Gold Medal connection . . . I realized as I was reading this book that the series reminds me of the Amos Flagg novels written by Clifton Adams under the name Clay Randall in the Sixties. Flagg and York are very different characters, of course, but the books are the same sort of tough, fast-moving Western yarns with colorful casts and plenty of action. The York books could have almost been written and published then. If you’re looking for good, solid traditional Westerns with a hardboiled edge, I highly recommend LAST STAGE TO HELL JUNCTION and the other Caleb York novels.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Hollywood Detective, August 1948

This is a pulp that a friend of mine loaned me to read. The scan is from the FictionMags Index, since the copy I have on hand has a loose and considerably damaged cover.

The reason I’m reading this issue of HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE is because it contains a story by Frank Morris, “Location for Murder”, which is suspected of being one of the unidentified stories that Mickey Spillane wrote for the pulps before he became the best-selling novelist in the world. One reason Spillane’s name has been connected to this story is because of the by-line: Frank Morrison Spillane was his real name.

However, some investigation seems to weaken that point. There appear to have been two Frank Morrises, one who wrote sporadically for the Western pulps beginning in the mid-Thirties, and another who published exclusively in various Western and detective pulps published by Trojan beginning in 1945. This later Frank Morris is almost certainly a house-name, and if Mickey Spillane wrote some of the stories published under that by-line, the similarity in names is just a coincidence, in my opinion.

But what about the story in this issue? “Location for Murder” is narrated by tough Hollywood talent scout Joe Kane, who is sent to San Francisco by his movie mogul boss ostensibly to find a suitable location for a new theater. In reality, though, Joe is searching for the killer of an old friend of his who worked for a nightclub owner. There’s a rumor that the nightclub owner had Joe’s friend killed because they had clashed over a girl, a dancer who works at the club. Joe is determined to get to the bottom of it, and things get a lot more complicated before he does, including two more murders.

Of course, I can’t say definitely that this is Mickey Spillane’s work, but it sure reads like it. The fast-paced, atmospheric Spillane style is there. It’s raining almost all the way through the story, and the descriptions of the city remind me a lot of Spillane’s vividly depicted New York City in the Mike Hammer novels. The violent action scenes read like him as well, and then you have the thematic similarities—the singleminded search for a friend’s killer, the help of another old friend (a taxi driver in this case, instead of Captain Pat Chambers)—to take into account, too. I believe this is one of the phantom Spillanes, and whether it is or not, it’s a pretty entertaining yarn.

Of course, having the pulp right there in my hot little hands, I was going to read the other stories, too. The issue leads off with the novella “Cinema Corpse” by Robert Leslie Bellem, one of the longest Dan Turner stories I’ve read. This one starts off with a potential client pulling a gun on Dan and handcuffing him to a chair in his own office when he refuses to take the job she offers him. She wants him to break into the home of her daughter’s boyfriend (a mere cameraman) and frame him for theft so he’ll go to jail and the woman’s daughter will go back to her other suitor, a powerful movie producer. Dan doesn’t want any part of a frame job like that, so the woman sets off to accomplish it herself. Of course, Dan gets loose and tries to warn the intended victim, only to run smack-dab into a beautiful young blonde and a murder. It’s not the only killing, either. Bellem never lets the pace slow down, and every time it seems like it might, then bam!, another new character or plot twist comes racing hellity-blip onto the page. The yarn is well-plotted, as Bellem’s stories usually are, and great fun to read. (Bellem’s style is contagious, if you hadn’t noticed. I used to have Longarm “set fire to a gasper” as a tip of the hat to him.)

Up next is “Blood on the Marquee” by Paul Hanna, and since that’s a house-name, it’s almost impossible to say who wrote this short story. But it’s a good one, featuring as its protagonist newspaper columnist and radio broadcaster Nick Harding. One of his radio shows is interrupted by the beautiful wife of a Filipino boxer who’s gotten himself in trouble. She begs for Nick’s help, but before the show is over, she’s jumped out a high window and committed suicide—or was she pushed? Nick, of course, has to get to the bottom of things, in a case involving prizefighters, gangsters, an illegal lottery, and a grisly discovery in a refrigerator. This is a well-written yarn that I liked a lot.

Sam Garson, the author of “L.A. Mix-Up”, is another one-story wonder, as far as I can tell, leading me to believe this is probably a pseudonym, too. The story involves private detective John Park being hired by a beautiful actress to stop someone from blackmailing her with nudie pictures taken when she was young and hungry. Turns out there’s more to it than that, of course, although admittedly not much. This reads like a Dan Turner story at times, and so I suspected that maybe “Sam Garson” was really Bellem, but by the time I finished I had rejected that theory. The plot’s a little too thin and the writing not good enough. But I think there’s a very good chance the writer, whoever he was, had read a bunch of Bellem’s stories and was trying to write something similar, not a bad strategy for breaking into a magazine.

Along in the middle of the magazine comes “Mysto-Magic Murder”, an 8-page Dan Turner comic strip story written by Bellem and drawn by Adolphe Barreaux. I like these, although Barreaux’s version of Dan Turner doesn’t really look like how I visualize him when I read the prose stories. The plot, involving a beautiful stage magician who performs at stag shows, isn’t very complicated but works just fine, and the snappy patter is good as always.

Norman Daniels wrote a lot for the pulps, mostly detective stories but some Westerns and adventure yarns, too, and then went on to a long career as a paperback novelist writing, well, just about every kind of book. I’ve read quite a bit of his work, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a private eye story by him until now. His novella in this issue, “Cradle of Death”, checks most of the classic boxes. Tough, wisecracking first person narrator. Rich client. Rich client’s beautiful nymphomaniac daughter with a gambling problem. Shady nightclub owner. Antagonistic cop. A second beautiful dame, this one a radio actress. Assorted colorful Hollywood characters. Daniels mixes them all up in a plot involving the rich client’s wayward son, who has dropped out of sight but seems to be sneaking back into his father’s house at odd times and then disappearing again. Everything moves along at a nice pace, and there are some good lines here and there. It’s not a great story, but it’s a well-written, entertaining one.

This issue wraps up with the short story “Mediocre Living” by Ralph Sedgwick Douglas, a Trojan Magazines house-name. Any time I see a three-name by-line in one of these pulps, I immediately think it might be Robert Leslie Bellem, but that’s not the case here. I don’t know who wrote this one, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Bellem. It’s the weakest story in the issue, a twist ending yarn about a con job pulled by a shady Hollywood sanitarium owner that’s not very surprising. A readable story, but that’s about all.

That’s not enough to lower my overall opinion of this issue of HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE. I think it’s a very good assortment of stories with Bellem’s Dan Turner yarn and the story by Frank Morris, whoever he was, being the best of the bunch. I nearly always enjoy HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE, and that’s certainly the case here.

The Last Stand - Mickey Spillane

The 100^th anniversary of Mickey Spillane’s birth is coming up, and Hard Case Crime is marking the occasion by publishing a new volume containing two never-before-published Spillane stories.

The first is a novella entitled “A Bullet for Satisfaction”, which appears to have been written by Spillane in the early to mid-Fifties but never edited and submitted. Max Allan Collins has worked from the original manuscript to smooth out inconsistences and bridge the different parts of the story together. The result is a lightning-paced crime yarn that’s like a Fifties paperback in miniature. The protagonist is Homicide detective Rod Dexter, who works in a medium-sized city somewhere in the Midwest. He’s trying to solve the murder of a recently elected state representative, and it’ll come as no surprise that Dexter soon finds himself up to his neck in crooked politicians, gangsters who are trying to take over the town, imported hitmen, and a number of beautiful women who may or may not be trustworthy. Dexter winds up getting kicked off the force when his investigation gets too close to uncovering the truth, but does that stop him? What do you think? That he’s gonna get his hands on a gat and continue cutting a bloody swath through the bad guys?

I think we all know the answer to that.

Spillane packs enough plot into this yarn for a full-length novel, along with plenty of action, some great dialogue, and several really harrowing scenes of violence. This is good stuff, and I can’t imagine any fan of classic era Spillane not having a great time reading it.

THE LAST STAND is the final novel Mickey Spillane completed, just a few weeks before his death. I don’t know how much editing and polishing Collins did on this one, but I suspect not much. The voice is very consistent with the other later Spillane novels I’ve read, SOMETHING’S DOWN THERE and DEAD STREET.

THE LAST STAND is a contemporary Western and more of an adventure novel than a mystery. The protagonist, successful businessman Joe Gillian, is flying a vintage World War II airplane, a hobby of his, across the desert southwest when engine trouble forces him to set down in the middle of nowhere. He’s in a bad spot, but he soon encounters Sequoia Pete, who lives on a fairly close-by Indian reservation. Pete’s horse has thrown him and run away, so he’s stranded, too. They have to walk back to the reservation, which takes several days, but they make it and by the time they do, they’ve become good friends. Then Gillian meets Pete’s beautiful sister Running Fox, and thinks maybe the bad luck with his plane wasn’t so bad after all.

Naturally enough, it’s not long before trouble breaks out involving three different plotlines: the search for a legendary fortune in gold hidden in the Superstition Mountains and the attempted murder of an old prospector; the discovery of a mysterous mineral that may have incredible scientific and military applications; and the jealousy of Running Fox’s other suitor, a massive Indian known as Big Arms, who wants to beat Gillian to death. Spillane adds some gangsters and federal agents to the mix, then weaves everything together perfectly in a fast-moving tale. It’s told in third person, rather than first, and although the stakes are plenty high, the tone isn’t as dark as much of Spillane’s earlier work. There’s even a hint of breeziness about it, which is not something you expect from Spillane, but it’s balanced by a poignant, elegeiac undercurrent of change and the passage of time and inevitable endings. And he does an excellent job of capturing the southwestern landscape as well.

THE LAST STAND is a fine novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. Along with “A Bullet for Satisfaction”, it makes this volume another real winner from Hard Case Crime. Its publication is a major event for any fan of Spillane’s work, and I give it my highest recommendation.
  

The Bloody Spur - Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

Famous gunfighter Caleb York is still the sheriff of Trinidad, in New Mexico Territory, and he has trouble on his hands again as several newcomers arrive in Trinidad in the opening pages of THE BLOODY SPUR, the third novel in this series by Max Allan Collins based on characters created by Mickey Spillane.

The new arrivals in town are a representative of the Santa Fe Railroad, which wants to build a spur line to Trinidad (there’s where the title comes from); an ex-convict and former partner of York’s friend, rancher George Cullen; and a notorious gun for hire known as the Preacherman, who has come to Trinidad with a couple of minions to kill someone. York just doesn’t know who.

Complications quickly ensue. The railroad wants to build its spur line through George Cullen’s ranch. Cullen is opposed to the idea, but his daughter Willa (with whom York has had an on-again, off-again romance) supports the idea. York has to find out who the Preacherman’s target is, and just what is Cullen’s old partner up to, anyway? Before any of that can be sorted out, a tragedy occurs, and it’ll come as no surprise that what appears at first to be an accidental death is actually murder . . .

As you might expect, THE BLOODY SPUR is as much mystery novel as it is Western adventure, and it doesn’t skimp on either element. There’s plenty of both gunplay and detection before Caleb York untangles everything and delivers his own brand of justice. I’ve really enjoyed this series, and I think this is the best book so far. It’s well-plotted, and Collins’ style is about as smooth as any you’ll find, making for a very fast, entertaining read. I really enjoy his characters, too, especially Jonathan Tulley, former desert rat and current deputy to Caleb York. If these books were Western B-movies from the Forties (which they resemble in some ways), Tulley would have to be played by one of my favorite sidekicks, Al “Fuzzy” St. John.

THE BLOODY SPUR will be out later this month, but it’s available for pre-order, and if you’re looking for a very good traditional Western, I give it a high recommendation.

The Big Showdown - Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

I enjoyed the first book in this series, THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK, which was Max Allan Collins' novelization of an unproduced movie script Mickey Spillane wrote for his friend John Wayne. I think the second book, THE BIG GUNDOWN, by Collins based on Spillane's characters, is even better.

Legendary gunfighter and former Wells Fargo detective Caleb York has been serving as the temporary sheriff in Trinidad, New Mexico Territory, but as the book opens he has turned over the job to an old friend of his and is about to leave for San Diego, where he's going to work for the Pinkertons. Unfortunately, a bank robbery occurs just before the stagecoach that will take York away from Trinidad arrives. This bloody crime keeps York from leaving and forces him to put on a badge again as he tries to find the bank robber who escaped and recover the stolen money.

Then there are a couple of murders, leading York to realize that more is going on than a simple bank holdup. On top of that, five gunfighting brothers who have a grudge against him are on their way to Trinidad to settle the score. And there may be more to that than there appears to be at first, too.

THE BIG SHOWDOWN is a really entertaining mixture of Western and crime novel. Caleb York is a good character, more flawed than the legend surrounding him might suggest but that just makes him human. His old geezer sidekick (I'm seeing him more as Al "Fuzzy" St. John rather than Gabby Hayes) is great, and the other supporting characters are interesting, too. As usual, Collins' fast-paced prose is smooth as can be. This is a fine traditional Western and I had a really good time reading it. There'll be at least one more book in the series, and I'm looking forward to it.

Forgotten Books: The Twisted Thing - Mickey Spillane

Spoilers below, sort of.

THE TWISTED THING came out in 1966, Mickey Spillane's ninth Mike Hammer novel, but I believe I've read that it's actually the second book Spillane wrote, back around 1950. There are a few lines that make it sound as if that could be the case, including what might be a reference to the famous ending of I, THE JURY. The book doesn't have any topical references, either, other than a few mentions of "the war". However, I didn't have any idea about that when I first read the novel all those years ago, and the things I noticed now went right past me then. All I knew was that while I liked the book, I didn't think it was as good as the other Mike Hammer novels I'd read up to that point.

It's sort of an odd duck, to be honest. The setting is a small town somewhere in New York, rather than Hammer's usual haunts in New York City. Most of the action takes place on a country estate belonging to wealthy scientist Rudolph York, who hires Hammer to find his kidnapped son Ruston. Ruston York is a prodigy, raised by his father to be a genius, a little reminiscent of Doc Savage only without the physical development. Also at the country house are an assortment of relatives and employees, most of them with secrets and agendas. More than once I thought, "Wait a minute, shouldn't this be a Hercule Poirot novel?"

But no, it's definitely a Mike Hammer yarn. Maybe not as much shooting and punching as some in the series, but there's still plenty. The voice of Carroll John Daly's Race Williams definitely echoes in some of Hammer's musings. He actually solves the kidnapping and rescues the kid pretty early in the book, but then there's a particularly grisly murder and the case becomes a lot more complicated. Ruston York doesn't turn out to be quite the innocent victim Hammer believed him to be at first. Eventually Hammer sorts everything out, and there's a long scene at the end where it's all explained before the traditional jarring Spillane ending.

After rereading this book fifty years later, I still wouldn't place THE TWISTED THING in the top ranks of the Mike Hammer series. I wasn't sure I completely bought the ending even back in '66, and I don't now, either. However, the action scenes are great and I just love Spillane's voice and the sheer pace of the storytelling. I suspect many of you read this book a long time ago, like I did, but if you haven't, it's worthwhile, just probably not the best place to start with Spillane's work.

For what it's worth, the first Spillane novel I read was the non-series book THE DEEP. I started the Hammer series with KISS ME, DEADLY and quickly read all the others that had come out by then, which I believe took the series up through THE SNAKE. That's one I have fond memories of reading in the old barracks building that served as our high school's study hall, so maybe I ought to reread it one of these days. If I do, I'll be sure to let you know what I think.

The Legend of Caleb York - Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

Mickey Spillane certainly isn't the first name I think of when the subject of Western movies comes up, but as Max Allan Collins explains in his introduction to this novel, Spillane was good friends with John Wayne and at one point even wrote a screenplay for Wayne's production company Batjac. That movie was never produced, but Spillane's screenplay serves as the basis for this novelization by Collins, another top-notch posthumous collaboration by these two writers.

THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK is a very traditional Western featuring many elements you've seen before: despicable villains in the person of a corrupt sheriff and his crew of brutal deputies/henchmen; the frightened citizens of the town treed by said sheriff (in this case, Trinidad, New Mexico); a sultry saloon owner who's no better than she has to be; an old rancher and his beautiful daughter; an eccentric old desert rat reminiscent of the immortal Gabby Hayes (yes, Spillane and Collins follow The James Reasoner Rule, as Bill Crider has dubbed it); and last but certainly not least, the mysterious stranger who rides into town and sets off a bloody chain reaction of events. The crooked sheriff has his sights set on both the old rancher's spread and the man's lovely daughter, and the rancher has sent a telegram asking for help from the notorious gunfighter Caleb York, or rather, when he finds out that York has been reported dead, the man who gunned down York.

So who is the mysterious stranger? Spillane and Collins make us wait almost until the end of the book to find out, and this twist, along with Collins' fast-paced prose, elevates THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK into a fine Western novel. It's an entertaining tale filled with gritty action and interesting characters, and I hope there'll be a sequel or two. I'll certainly read them if there are. If you're a Western fan and haven't yet read THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK, I recommend it.

Monday Morning Digest Magazine: Manhunt, January 1953

This is the first issue of the iconic crime fiction magazine, and it's also an issue I used to own. I read it about twenty years ago. And what an issue it is, with part one of a serial by Mickey Spillane and stories by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich), Kenneth Millar (better known as Ross Macdonald), a Shell Scott story by Richard S. Prather, Evan Hunter, and Frank Kane. Oddly enough, considering that all-star line-up, the story I remember liking the best was a novelette by the now largely forgotten Floyd Mahannah. But here's what really interests me about this issue now: there's another story, and it's by none other than Charles Beckman Jr., also known as Charles Boeckman, still alive, still writing, and a pulp legend I'm proud to call my friend, something that never would have entered my mind when I read this issue all those years ago.

A Nice Find

I don't normally take part in the "New in the House" series, as a number of my friends and fellow bloggers do, but I came across something today I have to share. One of the items from my collection that I really regretted losing in the fire was a hardback copy of a Mickey Spillane novel (I don't remember which one) that Bill Crider took to the Milwaukee Bouchercon when Spillane attended and got signed for me. I've always appreciated Bill doing that for me. Well, today I was in Half Price Books browsing through their nostalgia section when I saw a paperback copy of what I consider to be Spillane's best novel, ONE LONELY NIGHT. I pulled it off the shelf to look at it, even though I have a policy of not buying books I've already read, and it had a sticker on it that said "Signed". Of course I had to open up the bag and take a look at the inscription, which starts off (wait for it), "Hi, James." Not me, naturally, but still, there it was in Mickey Spillane's handwriting: "Hi, James."


Yes, it came home with me. And I had to sit down and read the opening chapter again, one of the very best opening chapters in all of mystery fiction. For my money, the only one that can match it is the opening chapter of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, and that's only because that chapter has such a great last line. I'm not sure anything will ever equal the impact the first chapter of ONE LONELY NIGHT had on me when I read it the first time on the front porch of my sister's house in 1970. Reading it today, it's still great. And I have a signed Spillane again.

The Last Cop Out Cover

In response to a comment from John Hocking two posts back, here's the paperback edition of THE LAST COP OUT, the second novel to feature Mickey Spillane's wife on the cover. I remember liking this book about the same as THE ERECTION SET, which means it was pretty entertaining but not in the top rank of Spillane's work. I think my least-favorite Spillane novels are the Tiger Mann books. I still liked them, just not as much as the others.

The Erection Set Cover

Bob Randisi mentions this cover in his comment a couple of posts down. For the one or two of you out there who have never seen it, here it is. (I imagine a lot of you have this book on your shelves.) This is the paperback edition. The hardcover edition is uncensored, but I'm a little leery about posting it. Don't want Rough Edges to get a reputation as a nudie blog. (Does anybody under the age of 50 use the word "nudie" anymore?) That's Sheri Spillane, Mickey's wife at the time. I believe she's also on the cover of THE LAST COP OUT, the novel that came after this one. I remember thinking that THE ERECTION SET was an okay novel, but not up to the level of the Mike Hammer books.