[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.)

The first Mike Hammer book.

I expected a hard boiled thriller, but instead got a hard boiled mystery. Like me, you probably won't have a hard time guessing who the killer is, but that's no great accomplishment at this point in time. As for the motive, good luck. Hammer explains it all at the end and maybe it even makes sense (I have my doubts), but that wasn't really the point, anyway. Hammer is the point, and just like his namesake, it's a blunt one.

That's not a criticism, though. I was worried that Hammer would turn out to be an emotionless wrecking ball, but that wasn't the case at all. He's got friends, a sense of humor, and even contemplates children at one point--having them, not killing them. He's a likable guy, most of the time. For the rest, well, he's our imagination come to life. I can't say I always approve of his methods (which, more often than not, involve the threat of grievous bodily harm), but I can't say I've never wished I could solve my problems so easily, either. So what the hell?

It isn't a great book, but it's a pretty good first novel. Oh, sure, some will call it racist (because Spillane uses some of the language of his time) and misogynistic (because they don't understand what the word means), but the reality is, if you look beyond the words, Hammer treats everyone pretty much the same. The good people he likes, the bad ones he doesn't. Pretty straightforward, really. Which is what the whole book is. No great psychological insights, no deep ruminations on the human condition--Spillane just lets the rabbit go and then follows the dogs.

The second Burke novel.

I have the Down Here omnibus, which includes the second, third, and fourth Burke novels. In his Introduction, Vachss says about Burke, "I wanted to show people what Hell really looked like...and I didn't think an angel would be the best guide." And he's right, I think. Yet Burke is much like Eastwood's character, The Man With No Name. And what is he but an avenging angel? And what's Burke's only religion? Revenge. So, yeah, Vachss was right; he just didn't think it through. He didn't need an angel, he needed a human being.

At some point, you gotta ask yourself if you like the guy you're reading about. I waited until the end. I don't suppose it's a prerequisite that you like him, but it helps. I decided I didn't. I can't say he's self-centered--he's got friends to whom he's loyal. But he's certainly the center of his universe. You could say that about a lot of people, of course, but there's a difference with many of them, and it has to do with the size of that universe. I just started I, the Jury. One chapter in and I can already see the difference. Mike Hammer's friend has been murdered and he's going to kill the bastard that did it. He's got another friend, though, a cop. He knows the cop has a job to do and he's fine with that. But this is personal. So he'll work with the cop, but he won't wait for him; he gets there first, well, he's gonna do what he's got to do. At another point, Hammer tells us one reason he's so worked up about this: the friend saved his life, losing an arm in the process, from "a bastard of a Jap" who, during the war, was about to run him through with a bayonet. Hammer's universe is big enough to accommodate nations and what they stand for; big enough to accommodate other good people who work within the system. Not Burke's. Burke's is a small place inhabited by a handful of good people; all the rest are corrupt, or they're freaks or "citizens" (i.e., everyday people) who, if they aren't evil themselves, are little more than the enablers of the ones who are. It's a tiny, claustrophobic world where only Burke matters, Burke and his Chosen Few.

Burke's the kind of hero that can make you root for the bad guys. It's funny. He's got this dog, see. It's a big monster, a Neapolitan Mastiff. It's just like him: you screw with her (or with Burke or anybody Burke likes), you're dead. At one point he's got the dog with him while he's meeting some toughs, including one huge bruiser. I found myself hoping for a Raiders moment. The dog's such a flashy weapon, she's like that ninja. I kinda wanted the bruiser to whip out a gun and blow the dog away. And I love dogs.

To be honest, you can't really root for the bad guys. Burke goes after pedophiles. Sure, Vachss has plenty of skins on the wall and he knows what he's talking about. But pedophiles are easy meat: everybody hates them. Vachss makes it a point to mention in his Introduction that the Burke stories aren't like those of other tough-guy heroes. Unlike those guys, Burke changes with each book. Maybe he does. But do the villains? I don't know, but I'm afraid they're likely to be as one-dimensional at the end as they are here.

I could go on and on. Maybe that's a good thing, right? The book makes me think. Just not about pedophiles so much. Where can you go with people who are inherently evil? Vachss knows this, of course. That's why he tries to show us the survivors, the victims. There's a great deal more to work with in that milieu. Then he goes and throws all that out the window by turning Burke into an idiot, a guy who, because he's an idiot, can take advantage of one of those survivors without culpability. We see the signs, but Burke, who supposedly knows a lot more about it than we do, has to have it spelled out for him. Hell, the way he tells it, he's a victim. You know, just like those pedophiles who claim it was the kids themselves who came onto them.

I have a suspicion. I think Burke wouldn't like Strega. Vachss is on a mission; he admits it. He wants people to know the sort of scum that walk our streets; he wants people to help do something about them. But I think Burke would see through all that bs, that he'd realize that readers are probably drawn to these books because they offer a kind of titillation not readily available elsewhere. He wouldn't understand that and he wouldn't approve.

My dad had said he didn't like Mickey Spillane, and now I know why. Mike Hammer, Mickey's alter ego, is a thoroughly despicable human being. He is violent, is a killer without remorse, has no moral compass that I can see, and is odiously sexist.

Were it not for the despicable nature of the protagonist, this might be an ok book. Which is to say, the plot and descriptions are ok. But, I hope I never have the misfortune to read more of this crap in the future.

Perhaps regular Mike Hammer books are better. This one was finished up and published posthumously by Max Allan Collins, someone else whose books I'll avoid in the future.

The Killing Man (Mike Hammer Series #12)... Oh my, this is not the same Mike Hammer I last read but given it was the first one of a 10 year hiatus for Mike Hammer, things obviously changed. Technology, Hammer's personal habits, his toughness has softened (a little) and he just seems not as 'noir' as the last book I read.

All in all though, a good story with a definate surprise at the end although I figured something was 'in the wind' when he took a backseat to the action.

Re-read Spillaine's bio and he was quite a character, knocking door to door as Jehovah's Witness in coastal South Carolina where he lived, playing parts in TV series, movies and ads. Not your usual writer who tended to be more reclusive especially during the earlier period (50's and 60's) of mystery writers. Looking at picture of him on the back cover, he certainly has the face of a character actor. Looks like a hard-boiled P.I.; I know, a cliche, but accurate.

Look forward to picking up the older more hard-core noir books which I enjoyed so much earlier this year. However, any day with a Mickey Spillane book is a good day for me.

Oops, should have mentioned the steamy scenes. There were some descriptions of beautiful, smooth looking, sexual 'dames' in the previous books, but these women were strong, drop dead gorgeous women who wanted ole Hammer and it was very mutual. Seems like almost exact opposite of the women in earlier books in that these were professionals who had strong personalities. No secretarys here so the book did indeed reflect the time period regarding women's role in the workplace.

Good book and if there were halfs I would give it 3 1/2 stars.