The Body Lovers by Mickey Spillane

The Body Lovers by Mickey Spillane
Signet P3221
Copyright 1967

Spillane's The Body Lovers was written when Mike Hammer came out for round two. Round one being the six explosive Hammer novels from 1947-1952. In the 60s, the toughest fictional PI reappeared in five more novels. Some say they fall a step behind when compared to the first ones, but to me The Girl Hunters (1962) and The Twisted Thing (1966) didn't miss a beat. As for The Body Lovers, I will agree that it's not even near being one of top novels that feature Mike Hammer. But it still is a Mickey Spillane novel, and it still has the violently vindictive Mike Hammer reeling out his own ways of justice, and it still is entertaining as hell.

But it wasn't her he was seeing. It was me he was watching. I was one of his own kind. I couldn't be faked out and wasn't leashed by the proprieties of society. I could lash out and kill as fast as he could and of all the people in the room, I was the potential threat. I knew what he felt because I felt the same way myself.

Bang page one, Hammer stumbles upon a body of a beautiful girl that was whipped to death. From his cop buddy Capt. Pat Chambers, he finds out that other girls have been found tortured and killed. The only lead is that all were found wearing exotic negligee. Mike stays out of this one, even though most of the press and the public believes otherwise. But not for long, because a crook that Hammer sent to the slammer hears about the murders and hires Mike to locate his missing sister. The sister knew the dead girls and might be next. Quickly Hammer is setup for a hit, botched of course with him blasting the hood to kingdom come. The trail leads to the high fashion world and shady UN delegates. And when Velda, Hammer's full-time secretary and part-time associate, gets caught in the action and Mike discovers her missing, not only does he pulled back his snarly grin, the hammer on the .45 gets cocked and he is ready to release his rage.

A little less hard than you'll find in other Hammer novels. But when I comes, it comes. The best by far is when Hammer is looking for a pimp named Lorenzo Jones. He locates Roberta, one of Jones' whores. Roberta agrees to tell him where Jones is hiding but on one condition, Hammer must take her along to watch him kick the crap out the pimp. It's Spillane at his best. In The Body Lovers, Hammer comes off a bit older. He even realizes it. At one point he talks about dissection thinking and missed clues in this head, "Little voices, I thought. They were saying something, but were too far away to be heard. It wasn't like the old days any more. I could think faster then." But when he's ready to cut down the evil that has spread throughout the city, our revenge seeking white knight doesn't fail the reader.

This one has all that makes Mike Hammer novels a fun read. Including Hammer's (and Spillane's) views about commies, diplomatic immunity, bleeding-heart liberals creating loopholes in the justice system-they are all here. The reader is never disappointed. You can't go wrong picking up a Mickey Spillane novel. He was an American icon and created one of the most memorable private detectives in fiction.

Every now and then you have to get your Mike Hammer fix.

The Tough Guys by Mickey Spillane

The Tough Guys by Mickey Spillane
Signet T4141, Copyright 1969

“The Tough Guys” contain three Spillane short stories that came out in men’s magazines in the early sixties. All are solid Spillane high caliber yarns , with a guy ready to tackle injustice with violence, always with a clip in the gun and a broad by his side. The last two stories, "The Seven Year Kill" and “The Bastard Bannerman" are excellent, but the first "Kick It or Kill" is exceptional.

“You ever kill anybody?”
I slammed the door shut and looked at him. He was completely serious.
Finally I nodded. “Yes. Six people.”
“I didn’t mean in the war, son.”
“I wasn’t talking about the war.”
“How’d you do it?”
“I shot them,” I said and let the clutch out.

The story "Kick It or Kill" starts with a man called Kelly Smith from New York City, arriving in the Adirondack town of Pinewood. Smith is recuperation from an operation and his doctor recommended the mountain air would be good for him. But the off-season quiet town isn’t what it seems to be, and Smith quickly notices some high-level crime punks walking the streets. His outsider appearance becomes known and instead of a chance to relax, he willingly seeks to find out what is going on. He learns that a man named Simpson owns a highly-secured estate near the lake that is a haven for well-known members of organized crime. Local town girls have been known to be invited up there and later return mentally damaged and hooked on drugs. After tough guy Kelly Smith gets into a few altercations with some of the hoods, we find out he is recuperating from a gunshot wound. The wound causes more problems for him and he gets some assistance from the local doctor and a voluptuous hotel manager. Some town people suspect him of being a crook or a drug addict, but we find out he is actually a federal agent. The full-breasted hotel manager ends up caught at Simpson’s private compound and Kelly Smith, realizing he will get no help from the local law, must take quick action to rescue her. Alone, he heads out to the fortified estate with his .45 and enough piss in him to explode Simpson's operation wide open.

As you can tell Kelly Smith is like many of Spillane’s creations, he possesses a .45 and plays the game hard. Written in 1961, there is a Cuba, Russia, and drug connection in the story and we know how Spillane characters feel about commies and drugs. The story is short enough that the pace is swift with plenty of “bullets and broads” action. Marvelous hardboiled dialog from the start, as Kelly Smith steps off the train with an altitude; And possibly my favorite ending in a Spillane short story, with Kelly and his .45 inside Simpson’s compound.

I always said if you need to read something where the bastards “get theirs”, no one does it better than the Mick.
Top-notched stuff from the Master.
If you are looking for three fast and lean Mickey Spillane short stories in one book, this one has them.

One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane

One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane
Signet 888, Copyright 1951

Talk about classics....

"This time I wasn't dealing in murder, I was dealing in war!"

It's nice to be enlightened by a couple of guys who know more about pulp fiction than I. This was the only Mike Hammer novel that I haven't read in the past, and it turns out to be Spillane's best.

Ridiculed and judged, Mike bounces back with the understanding that the world needs men like him. Men who have to do what is needed and right, no matter what the wishes of society dictate. Great stuff by the great man-Commies, murder, broads and vengeance. This may be Mike Hammer at his most vicious and you go on the hunt with him all-the-way. From the haunting beginning; when he walks the bridge, tormented and chastised on that raining night. To the violent ending; when he understands who he is, what he has become, and why the world needs him. "I killed because I had to and I killed things that needed killing." It's a hell of a ride...

This is a fascinating dark, noir novel (not just another Mike Hammer story) and Mickey Spillane best work!!! I haven't read the Mike Hammer novels in many years, after finishing this one I plan to read again the first "classic six." (1947-1952)

"I laughed and laughed while I put the second clip in the gun. I went around the room and kicked them over on their backs, and if they had faces left I made sure they didn't."

Prognosis Negative by Floyd Mahannah

Prognosis Negative by Floyd Mahannah
Short Story in Manhunt March 1953

I always enjoy the PI stories that Manhunt published and this one is excellent. It's a story of a "two-bit dick" who finally shows some guts before he "punches out."

Jim Makin is a California PI, who was just informed that he has an inaccessible tumor in his brain and has about a year to live. He's in a middle of a case in which his client, a female illegal immigrant, has taken $60,000 from the racket boss-Ernie Fidako. The big guy wants the dough back, and knows Makin is hiding her. Makin is a bit scared of Ernie and his boys, but after his negative prognosis he musters up some courage and a "what the hell" attitude. He goes after Ernie. Eventually, Makin stubbles, and Ernie nabs him and the tamale. Ernie roughs both up, before Jim Makin makes his move and violently takes on the four of them.

"I'd crossed Ernie Fidako, and in this town that was poison. He left it lying there-the alternative-the slug in the back, the concrete coffin, the long sleep under the Bay."

I love these Manhunt short stories and this one is definitely hardboiled. Hell, Ernie Fidako even sets the girl's hair on fire to make her talk. A top-notch story, with an ending that is rough, violent and the bullets are flying. Jim Makin is an interesting PI character and too bad he only had a year left-would of loved to see him in a whole novel. The transition from a guy who yesterday would of been running scared, to the nothing-to-lose attitude Makin has now, is ingeniously handled by the author. A fine little noir short story.

As for Floyd Mahannah, a fine writer that wrote some excellent novels for Signet in the 50s. Bill Crider wrote a fine review for The Broken Body. (Signet 957)

As for this issue of Manhunt, check who else is inside:
Mickey Spillane (Part III of "Everybody's Watching Me")
Richard Prather (Scott Shell story)
Leslie Charteris (A Saint story)
Craig Rice (John J. Malone story)
Bruno Fischer
Frank Kane (Johnny Liddell story)
William Lindsay Gresham
Harold Masur (Scott Jordan story)
Evan Hunter (Matt Cordell story)
Robert Patrick Wilmot
Richard Marsten

The Erection Set by Mickey Spillane

The Erection Set by Mickey Spillane
Signet 5120, Copyright 1972

When I was in the U.S. Navy in the mid-70s, it seemed that wherever you went on the ship this paperback was laying around. Sailors being what they are, most of them were attracted to the paperback for the cover, the title, or both. Even though I read a few Mike Hammer and Tiger Mann novels prior, I was taken back at seeing Spillane’s name on “The Erection Set.” Well, somewhere probably in the Mediterranean Sea, I crawled in my rack and started it, and of course I’m glad I did. It’s was a true awakening.

Mickey Spillane brought this one up a big notch. He throws all into it and leaves little out. The main character, Dogeron Kelly, is possibly the toughest SOB in print. In fact he’s a bastard, but a "good guy" bastard. I have yet to find another character that comes close. It’s a violent story of a man with a secret past, out to make things right. Like the cab driver said looking at Kelly as they leave Kennedy Airport, “Shit, man, you’re loaded for bear.” Kelly has been away from New York City for a while, and returns to blow the town wide open. Bad guys beware! Strictly for the men of course. Was it controversial?-probably, I had no idea what the critics or Spillane fans thought of it at the time. And of course I didn’t care.

Almost like a magnet, I pick up this paperback every few years. Sometimes I read just a few choice pages and other times I’ll read it all. And I always thought it was just to bring back memories from a time when I was younger, careless, or remembering lonely days at sea. But of course I know that is not why, I read it because of one thing-the main character, Dogeron “Dog” Kelly. And thanks to the Mick, we have the original, ultimate, son-of-a-bitch, .45 packer, who do anything for the sake of justice….

“So I broke every finger on Bridey’s hands, too, then stitched him up the side of each cheek, so he’d never be invisible in a crowd again. I opened his belt, pulled his pants and shorts down, and waited the two minutes until he started to wake up, holding the point of the pick right over the two goodie sacs, and just as a groan wheezed through his lips and his eyes opened and rolled toward mine I drove the ice pick through those lumps of tissue into the rubber-tiled floor and the frenzied yell of horror he started never got past the sharp hiss of his sucked-in breath before he fainted.
The next person to go in that bathroom would do more than relieve his bladder or bowels.”

Of course later I had to read Mickey Spillane’s second “dirty little book” published a year later, “The Last Cop Out.” This I thought had the slightly better plot, with a similar type character in ex-cop Gillian “Gill” Burke. In this one Burke is asked to go up against a Mafia family alone. Violent and downright gross at times, but damn good. But Dog Kelly came first and left the impression that is forever etched upstairs.

Could these two novels be Mickey Spillane’s best pieces of work?
I believe so…