Mike Hammer’s deadly final adventure challenges everything we knew about the enduring noir detective in this gripping finale with a shocking twist.
The concluding Hammer novel begins with a 21st-century funeral before flashing back to summer, 1973.
Nine years after the events of Dig Two Graves, Hammer takes another unlikely vacation - this time on Long Island to help look after his partner Velda Sterling’s seventeen-year-old sibling, Mikki.
Mikki must deal with the attention of two boys vying for her affection – Hammer preferring the good kid from a wealthy family over the long-haired doper with an Easy Rider vibe. When Mikki gets hooked on heroin, Hammer – filled with contempt for dope dealers – goes on a rampage. He will find those behind the drug racket and teach them what shooting up is all about.
But a final resolution awaits him in the future at that funeral...
‘Collins rewrites a good deal of the hardest-boiled private eye’s backstory, getting as close as you could expect to showing Hammer as an avenging father figure as he tracks down Mikki and deals out wholesale punishment to her abusers and their accomplices before a return to the present provides a bittersweet ending… Don’t worry about being overwhelmed by sentimentality: The legendary shamus still kills and maims with the best of them.’ Kirkus Reviews
PRAISE FOR MICKEY SPILLANE
Mike Hammer is an icon of our culture. - The New York Times
A superb writer. Spillane is one of the century’s bestselling authors. - The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
PRAISE FOR MAX ALLAN COLLINS
[Collins] has no problem serving up Hammer the same way Spillane did, with plenty of mayhem, violence, and sex, dished out in straight-ahead, no-frills prose, right on target, so direct, with no room for sissy stuff like digressions, detours, or doubts. Hammer is a shark that needs to keep swimming to survive, and Collins tosses plenty of chum into these waters... It's the real deal, folks: primo, primal detective fiction. Pass the peanuts. - Mystery Scene
Max Allan Collins is the closest thing we have to a 21st century Mickey Spillane. - ThisWeek (Ohio)
Collins’ witty, hardboiled prose would make Raymond Chandler proud. - Entertainment Weekly
Mike Hammer’s deadly final adventure challenges everything we knew about the enduring noir detective in this gripping finale with a shocking twist.
The concluding Hammer novel begins with a 21st-century funeral before flashing back to summer, 1973.
Nine years after the events of Dig Two Graves, Hammer takes another unlikely vacation - this time on Long Island to help look after his partner Velda Sterling’s seventeen-year-old sibling, Mikki.
Mikki must deal with the attention of two boys vying for her affection – Hammer preferring the good kid from a wealthy family over the long-haired doper with an Easy Rider vibe. When Mikki gets hooked on heroin, Hammer – filled with contempt for dope dealers – goes on a rampage. He will find those behind the drug racket and teach them what shooting up is all about.
But a final resolution awaits him in the future at that funeral...
Praise
‘Collins rewrites a good deal of the hardest-boiled private eye’s backstory, getting as close as you could expect to showing Hammer as an avenging father figure as he tracks down Mikki and deals out wholesale punishment to her abusers and their accomplices before a return to the present provides a bittersweet ending… Don’t worry about being overwhelmed by sentimentality: The legendary shamus still kills and maims with the best of them.’ Kirkus Reviews
PRAISE FOR MICKEY SPILLANE
Mike Hammer is an icon of our culture. - The New York Times
A superb writer. Spillane is one of the century’s bestselling authors. - The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
PRAISE FOR MAX ALLAN COLLINS
[Collins] has no problem serving up Hammer the same way Spillane did, with plenty of mayhem, violence, and sex, dished out in straight-ahead, no-frills prose, right on target, so direct, with no room for sissy stuff like digressions, detours, or doubts. Hammer is a shark that needs to keep swimming to survive, and Collins tosses plenty of chum into these waters... It's the real deal, folks: primo, primal detective fiction. Pass the peanuts. - Mystery Scene
Max Allan Collins is the closest thing we have to a 21st century Mickey Spillane. - ThisWeek (Ohio)
Collins’ witty, hardboiled prose would make Raymond Chandler proud. - Entertainment Weekly
