[This was from back in 2013, but for some reason I never posted my review anywhere other than my blog.]

 

Encore for Murder is a noir thriller that is, from my understanding, based on Mickey Spillane's notes for an unwritten novel. I had never read/listened to anything by Mickey Spillane before, but the audio sample sounded interesting, so I gave it a shot.

The story: Mike Hammer is hired to act as Rita Vance's bodyguard. Rita, a old flame of Hammer's, is making an acting comeback and has been receiving death threats. Hammer sticks close by her, but Rita doesn't seem to be taking the situation seriously. Then things get a little more complicated, Rita disappears, and Hammer has to find and rescue her.

This did not turn out to be a good pick for me. The best thing I can say is that the story was sort of interesting and I enjoyed the full-cast, radio drama feel of it. Otherwise, though, I kind of hated Mike Hammer.

I don't think I've read a lot of noir fiction at all, nor watched many noir movies. It may just be that the genre isn't for me. Although some attempts were made to update this story (mentions of cell phones, the sex offender registry, and the reluctance of restaurants to serve meat cooked rare), it still felt pretty old school. Nearly every woman Hammer encountered was an enormous flirt – the only exception was maybe Velda, Hammer's secretary and partner, but even she had moments when she acted liked Hammer's girlfriend-in-waiting.

I might just have rolled my eyes at Hammer's very male gaze when it came to women, until I got to the torture scene.

Rita was tied naked to a chair and was being threatened with a blow torch. I was a little uncomfortable with some of the almost sexual phrasing used in this scene, such as the description of the blowtorch as “a terrible flame ready to lick her flesh.” Also, post-torture, there was this from Hammer: “I've had a better time with a naked woman.” His lover had been stripped naked, beaten, and almost burned, and his first thought after rescuing her was about sex? Eww. Just eww. Other than feeling a little shaky, Rita barely seemed affected her own kidnapping and torture, which bothered me, too.

(spoiler show)

Prior to listening to this, I checked out a few reviews and noticed at least one mention of Hammer killing a lot of people. I read and listen to a lot of things with violence in them, so I just noted this and moved on. He really does kill a lot of people, though, and sometimes he kills them very violently. If I remember correctly, at one point he almost decapitated a guy with a car trunk door. I think it was his reaction, or non-reaction, to killing people that bothered me the most. At least one of the other characters even commented on the amount of killing he did, and he just brushed them off.

It was short and most of the acting was okay, but if this is what Mike Hammer stories are generally like, they are very much not for me. It's funny, I can root for and even kind of like characters like Jeff Lindsay's Dexter, and yet Mike Hammer just made me feel kind of icky. Maybe it's because Dexter makes it very clear that he is a sociopath, while Hammer seems to have zero recognition of the fact that some of the things he does are not okay?

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

My Gun Is Quick - Mickey Spillane

A couple of weeks back, I was reminded of this book thanks to someone else asking about the name of the book. I had read this before, back when I was at least 30 years younger than I am now, and once we managed to track down the name of the book (and the surprise author!), I requested it through the library. Aside from being a source of nostalgia, the book had become a curiosity because it had been written by Mickey Spillane.

I've never read anything else by Spillane, but I could tell that the book was written by someone who wrote noir crime thrillers. There were no dames, and no guns, but there were definitely turns-of-phrase that stood out as being part of that genre. The plot, too, was a little hard-boiled: Larry and his father are treasure-seekers living on an island off the coast of Miami, who are ready to give up after a financial disaster. It turns out that the disaster was orchestrated by competing treasure hunters, and once the sea rolls back past the horizon, the chase is on between Larry and his friend and the competing hunters to reach the sunken ship they've both been trying to find.

The plot is fairly predictable, and what characterization there is is painted with broad strokes. The competing treasure hunters are motivated solely by greed, while Larry and his dad are nice-guy everymen. It's easy to see where things are going, and the story itself is just one of Larry and his friend staying a step ahead of their pursuers. No explanation is given for why the sea rolls out to such a low tide, but it's not necessary, since it's just a device to keep the characters on the run. I would have liked for there to be some explanation, but for its target audience -- young boys who have developed beyond chapter books -- it's probably not necessary.

There were also some issues with the printing of the book -- some "it's" in place of "its" (which was strange in itself, since later in the book, they were properly used), using apostrophes to indicate a plural, and a "choose" in place of a "chose" -- that were unfortunate, but not the fault of the author. They were a little jarring, though not enough to take me out of the story.

Overall, the story was an entertaining adventure story, but it's impossible for me to remove my nostalgia from the story to judge it completely objectively. I can see it might not have enough to keep today's readers fully engaged, but for young readers who don't have a problem getting lost in pure story, it has some merit. It was worth it to track it down and read it, especially since it only took me an evening to finish it.

This is the second Mike Hammer book by Mickey Spillane and it is also the second book in the Mike Hammer Collection volume that I bought. In most aspects this book is similar to the first book which is to say that it is, to me at least, a good enough but not fantastic crime story about a hard-boiled, womanizing private eye.

I think I liked this book a little bit better than the first one though. The first one felt a bit more insecure which of course would not be that surprising since it was the first book in the series. The relationship between Pat and Mike is more developed in this book in that it is not so much Mike being able to do whatever he wants and then call Pat to clean up. Of course Mike does that anyway but that is besides the point. I have to say that the story was rather predictable though. It was certainly no surprise when the real bad guy was revealed.

Mike does still fall for every good-looking female that crosses his path though which is a wee bit ridiculous. I have seen a lot of people complaining about Mike Hammer being sexist, misogynist and other variations of the same thing. As far as I am concerned that is just a load of BS. If anything Mike treats women well, at least unless they are one of the bad guys. When reading a 65-year-old book one should perhaps not be surprised that it describes a world which is not holding to the standards of the modern world. Especially not the political correctness crap we have way too much of today.

Bottom line for me is that his is a readworthy book but perhaps more of a TV-series type of book than a classical masterpiece.

I quite liked the TV-series with Stacy Keach portraying Mike Hammer. At least the first batch. When he came back for a second batch it went downhill. Anyway, I though I should read at least a few of these, now classic, books so I bought myself volume one of The Mike Hammer Collection on kindle.

It is quite a bit a change of pace from my usual reading. No high-tech, no magic, no monsters, no spaceships etc… Well, it was a fun read nonetheless. The book was originally written 1947 so the language, especially the use of slang, is of course somewhat outdated.

Today it is difficult, at least for me, to understand why this book became the first of a whole string of bestsellers. Yes, it is not my top-favorite genre and it is the first book in the Mike Hammer series and the first book in a series can often be a bit of a practice exercise for the author. Still, the book is readworthy but not fantastic. To me it is a fairly standard crime novel and a rather predictable one at that.

One thing that I have to say that I do appreciate though is that the hero, although being quite a bit of a womanizer, does not jump into bed every five minutes with every good-looking chick he meets. Having said that, I suspect that in 1947 when the book was written, the behaviour of Mike Hammer was considered just as promiscuous, as jumping into bed left, right and center might be today.

Anyway, it was a fun book to read. The old-fashioned language and the equally old-fashioned behaviour of the hard-core and hard-hitting (in 1947 at least) Mike Hammer was indeed enjoyable. There are two more books left in the collection volume I got so I will read two more books in the series for sure. After that, well it remains to be seen if I pick up another volume or not.