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Mike Hammer #4
One Lonely Night
Nobody ever walked across the bridge at night. But on the foggy night that Hammer took that chance, his encounter with a gun-toting thug and a girl on the lam ended with both strangers dead. Soon Hammer is caught in a web of sinister gangsters and beautiful women the likes of which he's never seen -- and his only way out is to kill and kill again...even with his bare hands.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1951
56 people are currently reading
1005 people want to read
About the author
Mickey Spillane
314 books446 followersMickey Spillane was one of the world's most popular mystery writers. His specialty was tight-fisted, sadistic revenge stories, often featuring his alcoholic gumshoe Mike Hammer and a cast of evildoers who launder money or spout the Communist Party line.
His writing style was characterized by short words, lightning transitions, gruff sex and violent endings. It was once tallied that he offed 58 people in six novels.
Starting with "I, the Jury," in 1947, Mr. Spillane sold hundreds of millions of books during his lifetime and garnered consistently scathing reviews. Even his father, a Brooklyn bartender, called them "crud."
Mr. Spillane was a struggling comic book publisher when he wrote "I, the Jury." He initially envisioned it as a comic book called "Mike Danger," and when that did not go over, he took a week to reconfigure it as a novel.
Even the editor in chief of E.P. Dutton and Co., Mr. Spillane's publisher, was skeptical of the book's literary merit but conceded it would probably be a smash with postwar readers looking for ready action. He was right. The book, in which Hammer pursues a murderous narcotics ring led by a curvaceous female psychiatrist, went on to sell more than 1 million copies.
Mr. Spillane spun out six novels in the next five years, among them "My Gun Is Quick," "The Big Kill," "One Lonely Night" and "Kiss Me, Deadly." Most concerned Hammer, his faithful sidekick, Velda, and the police homicide captain Pat Chambers, who acknowledges that Hammer's style of vigilante justice is often better suited than the law to dispatching criminals.
Mr. Spillane's success rankled other critics, who sometimes became very personal in their reviews. Malcolm Cowley called Mr. Spillane "a homicidal paranoiac," going on to note what he called his misogyny and vigilante tendencies.
His books were translated into many languages, and he proved so popular as a writer that he was able to transfer his thick-necked, barrel-chested personality across many media. With the charisma of a redwood, he played Hammer in "The Girl Hunters," a 1963 film adaptation of his novel.
Spillane also scripted several television shows and films and played a detective in the 1954 suspense film "Ring of Fear," set at a Clyde Beatty circus. He rewrote much of the film, too, refusing payment. In gratitude, the producer, John Wayne, surprised him one morning with a white Jaguar sportster wrapped in a red ribbon. The card read, "Thanks, Duke."
Done initially on a dare from his publisher, Mr. Spillane wrote a children's book, "The Day the Sea Rolled Back" (1979), about two boys who find a shipwreck loaded with treasure. This won a Junior Literary Guild award.
He also wrote another children's novel, "The Ship That Never Was," and then wrote his first Mike Hammer mystery in 20 years with "The Killing Man" (1989). "Black Alley" followed in 1996. In the last, a rapidly aging Hammer comes out of a gunshot-induced coma, then tracks down a friend's murderer and billions in mob loot. For the first time, he also confesses his love for Velda but, because of doctor's orders, cannot consummate the relationship.
Late in life, he received a career achievement award from the Private Eye Writers of America and was named a grand master by the Mystery Writers of America.
In his private life, he neither smoked nor drank and was a house-to-house missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses. He expressed at times great disdain for what he saw as corrosive forces in American life, from antiwar protesters to the United Nations.
His marriages to Mary Ann Pearce and Sherri Malinou ended in divorce. His second wife, a model, posed nude for the dust jacket of his 1972 novel "The Erection Set."
Survivors include his third wife, Jane Rodgers Johnson, a former beauty queen 30 years his junior; and four children from the first marriage.
He also carried on a long epistolary flirtation with Ayn Rand, an admirer of his writing.
His writing style was characterized by short words, lightning transitions, gruff sex and violent endings. It was once tallied that he offed 58 people in six novels.
Starting with "I, the Jury," in 1947, Mr. Spillane sold hundreds of millions of books during his lifetime and garnered consistently scathing reviews. Even his father, a Brooklyn bartender, called them "crud."
Mr. Spillane was a struggling comic book publisher when he wrote "I, the Jury." He initially envisioned it as a comic book called "Mike Danger," and when that did not go over, he took a week to reconfigure it as a novel.
Even the editor in chief of E.P. Dutton and Co., Mr. Spillane's publisher, was skeptical of the book's literary merit but conceded it would probably be a smash with postwar readers looking for ready action. He was right. The book, in which Hammer pursues a murderous narcotics ring led by a curvaceous female psychiatrist, went on to sell more than 1 million copies.
Mr. Spillane spun out six novels in the next five years, among them "My Gun Is Quick," "The Big Kill," "One Lonely Night" and "Kiss Me, Deadly." Most concerned Hammer, his faithful sidekick, Velda, and the police homicide captain Pat Chambers, who acknowledges that Hammer's style of vigilante justice is often better suited than the law to dispatching criminals.
Mr. Spillane's success rankled other critics, who sometimes became very personal in their reviews. Malcolm Cowley called Mr. Spillane "a homicidal paranoiac," going on to note what he called his misogyny and vigilante tendencies.
His books were translated into many languages, and he proved so popular as a writer that he was able to transfer his thick-necked, barrel-chested personality across many media. With the charisma of a redwood, he played Hammer in "The Girl Hunters," a 1963 film adaptation of his novel.
Spillane also scripted several television shows and films and played a detective in the 1954 suspense film "Ring of Fear," set at a Clyde Beatty circus. He rewrote much of the film, too, refusing payment. In gratitude, the producer, John Wayne, surprised him one morning with a white Jaguar sportster wrapped in a red ribbon. The card read, "Thanks, Duke."
Done initially on a dare from his publisher, Mr. Spillane wrote a children's book, "The Day the Sea Rolled Back" (1979), about two boys who find a shipwreck loaded with treasure. This won a Junior Literary Guild award.
He also wrote another children's novel, "The Ship That Never Was," and then wrote his first Mike Hammer mystery in 20 years with "The Killing Man" (1989). "Black Alley" followed in 1996. In the last, a rapidly aging Hammer comes out of a gunshot-induced coma, then tracks down a friend's murderer and billions in mob loot. For the first time, he also confesses his love for Velda but, because of doctor's orders, cannot consummate the relationship.
Late in life, he received a career achievement award from the Private Eye Writers of America and was named a grand master by the Mystery Writers of America.
In his private life, he neither smoked nor drank and was a house-to-house missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses. He expressed at times great disdain for what he saw as corrosive forces in American life, from antiwar protesters to the United Nations.
His marriages to Mary Ann Pearce and Sherri Malinou ended in divorce. His second wife, a model, posed nude for the dust jacket of his 1972 novel "The Erection Set."
Survivors include his third wife, Jane Rodgers Johnson, a former beauty queen 30 years his junior; and four children from the first marriage.
He also carried on a long epistolary flirtation with Ayn Rand, an admirer of his writing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews
December 29, 2018
One Lonely Night has always been a favorite of mine among Spillane’s novels. That being said, a little of Mick goes a long way with me, so I usually only get around to re-reading him about once a year. When I do, I often return to One Lonely Night, mainly for the opening chapter. It is as atmospheric and splendid example of the hardboiled detective that you’ll ever read. It is a wonderful piece of writing in its own way, Spillane boiling everything down to the bare essentials. Spillane is rarely given credit for good writing, but this first chapter will knock your socks off.
On the surface this is a typical Mike Hammer novel. It is about Communists and the NKVD. There is violence so over the top that it begs comparisons with comic book stuff — which is how Hammer was originally conceived. The whole tale is so raw it nearly burns your hands. Mike Hammer and his .45 set out to avenge a girl’s death, and save society from Communism. But there is an underpinning to this one missing in the other Hammer novels. That underpinning begins from the opening moments, one lonely night on a bridge as Mike Hammer remembers what a judge said about him, and wonders if it’s true.
All that rumination takes a detour on said bridge, however, when Hammer comes to the rescue of a girl with his trusted .45. But Hammer is unable to prevent her death, as she goes over the side anyway. That’s when the reader is plunged head-first into a brutal Mike Hammer thriller about Commies in America and the NKVD. At one point late in the book, Velda is hanging naked while Hammer rescues her. One Lonely Night is violent, pulpy, and just raw enough to have a few faint of heart complain. But Hammer’s rumination on that bridge is returned to at the end, and that separates One Lonely Night from some of the others. In essence Hammer is trying to decide if he is as bad as the guys he enjoys taking out. His conclusion befits the character of Mike Hammer, and the persona of Mickey Spillane.
Spillane certainly had something, and he could write — whether people like it or not. It’s ironic that the great Ross Macdonald so disliked Spillane’s work, considering how hurt he was that Raymond Chandler was quite critical of Macdonald’s own early work. Many don’t care for Spillane’s narrative style — some say he didn’t even have one, but they’re wrong. Spillane was a pulp writer, through and through, and long after the other guys elevated the genre, he continued to write pulp. Even here, with Hammer more unhinged than usual, it reads at times like a violent and spicy comic, yet with flashes of some great pulp.
Mike Hammer was rooted in the blue collar, and Americanism. Ayn Rand was a fan, believing Spillane’s Hammer had greater meaning as a statement on the progressive threat to society than Spillane would ever cop to. In fact, he would have dismissed it, saying he just wrote for the bread. Yet the fact that Spillane ran a thread through One Lonely Night about Mike Hammer wondering if his soul was as black as those he fought, is heady stuff when you think about it. One might say it suggests that despite protests to the contrary, Spillane did have an inkling that what Hammer represented was a bit more than he ever let on.
Once accused of writing porn, that argument seems utterly ridiculous in today’s society. The argument that he wasn’t much of a writer can also be dismissed, considering Rand and a slew of modern writers, including Max Collins, greatly admire his work. That only leaves the Conservative tone of Spillane’s Mike Hammer. It is sometimes touched upon when critics discuss why Spillane is so loathed by some, and I think it rings true.
An example in point is how often, when people talk about a Spillane book, or a Richard Prather book, they mention it. It’s interesting to note, however, that Dashiell Hammett’s more subtle communist underpinnings to Red Harvest, and to a lesser degree, The Glass Key, are so rarely mentioned at all, even by the same folks. I can easily understand someone with a dislike of pulp cringing at Spillane’s raw narrative style of storytelling, but I do believe that all too often it is used as an excuse to mask the true reason for such a vehement reaction to his work. I think there is room for either viewpoint woven into a detective story, either along the peripheral edges, or in the story’s underpinnings. As long as it’s a good tale well-told, a great ride, I can enjoy it. If I could not, I'd never read Parker, or MacDonald, or the other Macdonald.
I do understand that Spillane isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and I usually get bombarded with snarky comments about him when I bring him up in some circles, but whether you like him as a writer or not, or dislike his politics or not, for whichever or whatever reason, once you read the opening chapter to One Lonely Night, if you're honest, you’re unlikely to be in the camp that declares Spillane’s incredible success a fluke, or opines that having at one time seven of the top ten best sellers world-wide in this genre, was just luck. I don't do the really hardboiled violent stuff myself, preferring a softer boil, but Spillane found a niche, and no one, and I do mean no one, ever did the thing he did any better. I sort of like it that I share a birthday with this cat, because it means I'm in good company.
On the surface this is a typical Mike Hammer novel. It is about Communists and the NKVD. There is violence so over the top that it begs comparisons with comic book stuff — which is how Hammer was originally conceived. The whole tale is so raw it nearly burns your hands. Mike Hammer and his .45 set out to avenge a girl’s death, and save society from Communism. But there is an underpinning to this one missing in the other Hammer novels. That underpinning begins from the opening moments, one lonely night on a bridge as Mike Hammer remembers what a judge said about him, and wonders if it’s true.
All that rumination takes a detour on said bridge, however, when Hammer comes to the rescue of a girl with his trusted .45. But Hammer is unable to prevent her death, as she goes over the side anyway. That’s when the reader is plunged head-first into a brutal Mike Hammer thriller about Commies in America and the NKVD. At one point late in the book, Velda is hanging naked while Hammer rescues her. One Lonely Night is violent, pulpy, and just raw enough to have a few faint of heart complain. But Hammer’s rumination on that bridge is returned to at the end, and that separates One Lonely Night from some of the others. In essence Hammer is trying to decide if he is as bad as the guys he enjoys taking out. His conclusion befits the character of Mike Hammer, and the persona of Mickey Spillane.
Spillane certainly had something, and he could write — whether people like it or not. It’s ironic that the great Ross Macdonald so disliked Spillane’s work, considering how hurt he was that Raymond Chandler was quite critical of Macdonald’s own early work. Many don’t care for Spillane’s narrative style — some say he didn’t even have one, but they’re wrong. Spillane was a pulp writer, through and through, and long after the other guys elevated the genre, he continued to write pulp. Even here, with Hammer more unhinged than usual, it reads at times like a violent and spicy comic, yet with flashes of some great pulp.
Mike Hammer was rooted in the blue collar, and Americanism. Ayn Rand was a fan, believing Spillane’s Hammer had greater meaning as a statement on the progressive threat to society than Spillane would ever cop to. In fact, he would have dismissed it, saying he just wrote for the bread. Yet the fact that Spillane ran a thread through One Lonely Night about Mike Hammer wondering if his soul was as black as those he fought, is heady stuff when you think about it. One might say it suggests that despite protests to the contrary, Spillane did have an inkling that what Hammer represented was a bit more than he ever let on.
Once accused of writing porn, that argument seems utterly ridiculous in today’s society. The argument that he wasn’t much of a writer can also be dismissed, considering Rand and a slew of modern writers, including Max Collins, greatly admire his work. That only leaves the Conservative tone of Spillane’s Mike Hammer. It is sometimes touched upon when critics discuss why Spillane is so loathed by some, and I think it rings true.
An example in point is how often, when people talk about a Spillane book, or a Richard Prather book, they mention it. It’s interesting to note, however, that Dashiell Hammett’s more subtle communist underpinnings to Red Harvest, and to a lesser degree, The Glass Key, are so rarely mentioned at all, even by the same folks. I can easily understand someone with a dislike of pulp cringing at Spillane’s raw narrative style of storytelling, but I do believe that all too often it is used as an excuse to mask the true reason for such a vehement reaction to his work. I think there is room for either viewpoint woven into a detective story, either along the peripheral edges, or in the story’s underpinnings. As long as it’s a good tale well-told, a great ride, I can enjoy it. If I could not, I'd never read Parker, or MacDonald, or the other Macdonald.
I do understand that Spillane isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and I usually get bombarded with snarky comments about him when I bring him up in some circles, but whether you like him as a writer or not, or dislike his politics or not, for whichever or whatever reason, once you read the opening chapter to One Lonely Night, if you're honest, you’re unlikely to be in the camp that declares Spillane’s incredible success a fluke, or opines that having at one time seven of the top ten best sellers world-wide in this genre, was just luck. I don't do the really hardboiled violent stuff myself, preferring a softer boil, but Spillane found a niche, and no one, and I do mean no one, ever did the thing he did any better. I sort of like it that I share a birthday with this cat, because it means I'm in good company.
June 2, 2016
In a clean, well-lighted place, Mickey Spillane, Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway sit drinking cocktails and talking about, among many things, Spillane’s 1951 novel One Lonely Night.
Ernest: So what’s it about, Mick?
Mickey: What’s it about, Ernie? It’s a Mike Hammer book. It’s about death and violence and about Mike taking it to those no good Commie bastards like only he knows how.
Ernest: Please don’t call me Ernie, I’ve asked you before.
Ayn: It was magnificent, Mickey. Mike Hammer is a metaphor for what is best in man; he is simple and brutal and cuts to the heart of the matter. Your writing is vibrant and clean, yet you can write about dirty subjects without fear. Tell us, how you do it?
Ernest: Really?
Mickey: You don’t want advice from me, doll. I’m mud, and whatever I touched gets smeared with it. I don’t mind dirtying myself, but I don’t want any of it to rub off on you.
Ayn: Thank you darling, you’re fabulous. Your politics, especially for the 50s was strident and correct.
Mickey: Frankly, I don’t know a hoot about politics except that it’s a dirty game from any angle.
Ernest: That was a strawman production, Mickey, you propped up the Communist party for what our culture wanted us to believe. There’s more than what you described. My 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls describes a nobility to the communists struggle. They fought against extraordinary odds, knowing that they would likely loose.
Ayn: The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ernest: Does communism deny individual rights, or give the freedom to express one’s self without the constraints of economic sustainability? Who lets you decide what is best for everyone?
Ayn: The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. Tell us, Mickey, what is the secret to your great success?
Ernest: Success? Book sales? I won the Nobel Prize! I win this argument, damn it! I’m the success! I win, I beat him!
Ayn: A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Mickey: There it is, here’s to you and your big prize. Big-shot writers like you could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar. You’ll never be happy.
Ernest: Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ayn: So Mickey and I are not happy, not intelligent? Why, Ernest, because we sold books, because we enjoyed commercial success? And isn’t that the truest measure of success? Be an author, Ernest, Mickey and I were writers.
Ernest: May I quote Flannery O’Connor?
Ayn: O please! Not that country hick –
Ernest: “The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get in fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.”
Ayn: Repulsive! She was a common servant.
Ernest: There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
Mickey: Watch yer mouth, you mug! That’s a lady yer talkin to, why I outta – Yer drunk!
Ernest: Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
Mickey: What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Ernest: I drink to make other people more interesting.
Mickey: Whatever, pal. You’ve still got a chip on your shoulder about Chicago.
Ayn: What happened in Chicago?
Mickey: Now what happened with Ernest was that he wrote this nasty piece about me. I never say anything bad about a writer. Some are better than others, that’s all. And some make more money. But anyway, I got aggravated at him writing that piece about me, cause none of it was true. So I was on a show in Chicago, a live TV show. It was in a big theatre and there was a stage audience, and the guy who was interviewing me said, “Did you read that piece that Hemingway wrote about you?” And I said, “Hemingway who?” It brought the house down, but he hated my guts after that.
Ayn: Wonderful, Mickey! Let’s get out of here and go spend some money.
[Mickey and Ayn exit, laughing]
Ernest sits drinking and lost in thought. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread, It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order.
Ernest: So what’s it about, Mick?
Mickey: What’s it about, Ernie? It’s a Mike Hammer book. It’s about death and violence and about Mike taking it to those no good Commie bastards like only he knows how.
Ernest: Please don’t call me Ernie, I’ve asked you before.
Ayn: It was magnificent, Mickey. Mike Hammer is a metaphor for what is best in man; he is simple and brutal and cuts to the heart of the matter. Your writing is vibrant and clean, yet you can write about dirty subjects without fear. Tell us, how you do it?
Ernest: Really?
Mickey: You don’t want advice from me, doll. I’m mud, and whatever I touched gets smeared with it. I don’t mind dirtying myself, but I don’t want any of it to rub off on you.
Ayn: Thank you darling, you’re fabulous. Your politics, especially for the 50s was strident and correct.
Mickey: Frankly, I don’t know a hoot about politics except that it’s a dirty game from any angle.
Ernest: That was a strawman production, Mickey, you propped up the Communist party for what our culture wanted us to believe. There’s more than what you described. My 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls describes a nobility to the communists struggle. They fought against extraordinary odds, knowing that they would likely loose.
Ayn: The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ernest: Does communism deny individual rights, or give the freedom to express one’s self without the constraints of economic sustainability? Who lets you decide what is best for everyone?
Ayn: The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. Tell us, Mickey, what is the secret to your great success?
Ernest: Success? Book sales? I won the Nobel Prize! I win this argument, damn it! I’m the success! I win, I beat him!
Ayn: A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Mickey: There it is, here’s to you and your big prize. Big-shot writers like you could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar. You’ll never be happy.
Ernest: Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ayn: So Mickey and I are not happy, not intelligent? Why, Ernest, because we sold books, because we enjoyed commercial success? And isn’t that the truest measure of success? Be an author, Ernest, Mickey and I were writers.
Ernest: May I quote Flannery O’Connor?
Ayn: O please! Not that country hick –
Ernest: “The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get in fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.”
Ayn: Repulsive! She was a common servant.
Ernest: There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
Mickey: Watch yer mouth, you mug! That’s a lady yer talkin to, why I outta – Yer drunk!
Ernest: Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
Mickey: What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Ernest: I drink to make other people more interesting.
Mickey: Whatever, pal. You’ve still got a chip on your shoulder about Chicago.
Ayn: What happened in Chicago?
Mickey: Now what happened with Ernest was that he wrote this nasty piece about me. I never say anything bad about a writer. Some are better than others, that’s all. And some make more money. But anyway, I got aggravated at him writing that piece about me, cause none of it was true. So I was on a show in Chicago, a live TV show. It was in a big theatre and there was a stage audience, and the guy who was interviewing me said, “Did you read that piece that Hemingway wrote about you?” And I said, “Hemingway who?” It brought the house down, but he hated my guts after that.
Ayn: Wonderful, Mickey! Let’s get out of here and go spend some money.
[Mickey and Ayn exit, laughing]
Ernest sits drinking and lost in thought. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread, It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order.
March 20, 2021
This is Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer #4, published in 1951, when America's fear of communism was again on the rise - the second red scare was at its beginning. Spillane really goes to town in this novel with the secretive reds, working in the background of society to undermine America.
It is a well woven thread in this story, with high pace and a good twist at the end, of which I admit I had picked the easy part, but not some of the important detail.
There is much of the Hammer we know - picking up women who love him, despite now being 'engaged to be engaged' to the lovely Velda, who again plays a much larger role in this story. There are no real surprises in the rest of Hammer's activities - pushing beyond the boundaries of the law, taking advantage of his friendship with Pat (and continually pushing his buttons), drinking (and driving) and smoking like a train. Clearly not a book you want to be judging by today's moral standards, but separate yourself from that and it is action packed. It is perhaps a little more brutal than the previous books, certainly the kill count is higher!
To try and explain the plot would be unhelpful, but there are a couple of threads at the start which fairly quickly wind together and become one, a well paid job (for once), and a lot going on that Pat doesn't know about.
Look, it's not Raymond Chandler, but it is still easy, accessible and pretty funny in places.
A solid 3 stars - probably 4 if you haven't read Chandler!
It is a well woven thread in this story, with high pace and a good twist at the end, of which I admit I had picked the easy part, but not some of the important detail.
There is much of the Hammer we know - picking up women who love him, despite now being 'engaged to be engaged' to the lovely Velda, who again plays a much larger role in this story. There are no real surprises in the rest of Hammer's activities - pushing beyond the boundaries of the law, taking advantage of his friendship with Pat (and continually pushing his buttons), drinking (and driving) and smoking like a train. Clearly not a book you want to be judging by today's moral standards, but separate yourself from that and it is action packed. It is perhaps a little more brutal than the previous books, certainly the kill count is higher!
To try and explain the plot would be unhelpful, but there are a couple of threads at the start which fairly quickly wind together and become one, a well paid job (for once), and a lot going on that Pat doesn't know about.
Look, it's not Raymond Chandler, but it is still easy, accessible and pretty funny in places.
A solid 3 stars - probably 4 if you haven't read Chandler!
January 19, 2023
"It was the way I liked it. No arguing, no talking to the stupid peasants. I just walked into that room with a tommy gun and shot their guts out".
It's Mike Hammer vs. the backwards ideology of filthy Commie foreigners hell bent on ruining the god-blessed U S of A!
If you couldn't guess, Mike Hammer's fourth adventure is cringingly dated in places but what a goddamn ending in this one! It was so tense and brutal it had me out of my seat and pacing the room.
It's Mike Hammer vs. the backwards ideology of filthy Commie foreigners hell bent on ruining the god-blessed U S of A!
If you couldn't guess, Mike Hammer's fourth adventure is cringingly dated in places but what a goddamn ending in this one! It was so tense and brutal it had me out of my seat and pacing the room.
October 7, 2024
This should be Mike Hammer #1 instead of #4. I suspect that many Hammer-curious readers never get past I, the Jury. One Lonely Night is a better introduction to Mike Hammer's mentality. He broods on his murderous past:
Although the plot was a couple of twists too complicated for me, Mickey Spillane kept me hooked with his souped-up storytelling.
But be warned, comrades, if your sympathies lean a little lefty, you probably won't like how Hammer treats the bad guys:
"Maybe I was twisted and rotted inside. Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of all the rottenness sometime."
Although the plot was a couple of twists too complicated for me, Mickey Spillane kept me hooked with his souped-up storytelling.
But be warned, comrades, if your sympathies lean a little lefty, you probably won't like how Hammer treats the bad guys:
"I had one, good, efficient, enjoyable way of getting rid of cancerous Commies. I killed them."
January 11, 2024
Mike Hammer is forced to do some soul searching after a judge’s summing up of his trigger happy approach to solving investigations. The judge calls it murder in all but name as Hammer had acted in self defence and means it was justified homicide.
He goes for a late night walk to reflect and remains troubled by the cutting closing remarks.
He then finds a case literally under his nose and this and the attempt to undermine a local politician form the drivers for his next investigation.
When both strands of his cases seemingly come together Mike leaves all his change of emphasis to pick up his 45 and hunt down some communists.
A clever all action thriller which has relentless pace and a terrific number of set pieces.
I liked especially the ending of the book that brings the story full circle from where it all started.
He goes for a late night walk to reflect and remains troubled by the cutting closing remarks.
He then finds a case literally under his nose and this and the attempt to undermine a local politician form the drivers for his next investigation.
When both strands of his cases seemingly come together Mike leaves all his change of emphasis to pick up his 45 and hunt down some communists.
A clever all action thriller which has relentless pace and a terrific number of set pieces.
I liked especially the ending of the book that brings the story full circle from where it all started.
January 22, 2021
3.5 stars. Certainly an improvement from earlier Hammer novels, with writing that is more introspective and impactful, especially during the memorable opening sequence as Hammer is struggling to come to grips with his true nature...
"Maybe I did have a taste for death. Maybe I liked it too much to taste anything else. Maybe I was twisted and rotted inside. Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of all the rottenness sometime. What was stopping it from happening now? Why was I me with some kind of lucky charm around my neck that kept me going when I was better off dead?"
Although Hammer does some detective work, this is more of a macho fueled, good vs evil vigilante war against the "commies", with a heap of bodies piling up along the way. There are too many twists and red herrings thrown in, and the denouement feels hastily manufactured. I'm amazed by his continued womanizing, even after his engagement to his long time secretary/girlfriend. Apparently the guy's got a lotta love to give.
"Maybe I did have a taste for death. Maybe I liked it too much to taste anything else. Maybe I was twisted and rotted inside. Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of all the rottenness sometime. What was stopping it from happening now? Why was I me with some kind of lucky charm around my neck that kept me going when I was better off dead?"
Although Hammer does some detective work, this is more of a macho fueled, good vs evil vigilante war against the "commies", with a heap of bodies piling up along the way. There are too many twists and red herrings thrown in, and the denouement feels hastily manufactured. I'm amazed by his continued womanizing, even after his engagement to his long time secretary/girlfriend. Apparently the guy's got a lotta love to give.
February 24, 2015
With a flying fist and a .45 loaded with slugs, Mike Hammer is back to smash the commies!
The usual violence and the licentious sexism is in place - although in this book his rage at the world reaches almost psychotic levels.
I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but it is a brutally effective thriller.
The usual violence and the licentious sexism is in place - although in this book his rage at the world reaches almost psychotic levels.
I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but it is a brutally effective thriller.
May 27, 2018
Communism. Meh. Never been that interested in the “red scare”, even when it came to the blacklist in Hollywood. That’s just me. Aside from that, Spillane delivers the gritty narrative, and the violence is much heavier here. Mike Hammer is the vigilante you don’t want to piss off.
October 24, 2018
The inner-monologuing and third person narration is more frequent than in previous volumes, but it works with the character, and 1950s NYC once again comes alive as a character in its own right, with a plot just as relevant now as the day it was printed.
April 16, 2018
The one where the baddies are communists. Interesting period piece from the 1950s but pretty dated now. Not quite the standard of his earlier books.
July 21, 2017
"One Lonely Night" is the fourth Mike Hammer novel. If you have been reading these books in order, you might wonder if Hammer ever has a paying client since he has been involved in cases concerning a cop who was his best friend, a streetwalker he ran into in a hash house, and a friend from out of town who didn't wake up after a bullet lodged in his chest. This novel is no exception. Although Hammer eventually gets a client, he gets involved simply because he stumbled on murder and death.
The book opens with Spillane's patented spare prose that has Hammer walking on a lonely bridge after a judge tore into him for doing what organized law enforcement could not: putting an end to murderous scum. Hammer is quite introspective here, noting that the judge called him a murderer even though what should Hammer have done "when the bastard had a rod in his hand and it was pointing right at my gut."
This is without question first and foremost a detective novel and a truly top-notch detective novel at that. Spillane wrote better than most other authors could dream of.
It is also part and parcel of a tender love story between Hammer and Velda, although even now Hammer cannot resist temptation. "The eyes swept from her black pumps to legs and body and shoulders that were almost too good to be real." And, when someone messes with Velda: "A .45 can make an awful nasty sound in a quiet room when you pull the hammer back. It's just a tiny little click, but it can stop a dozen guys when they hear it. Weasel Face couldn't take his eyes off it. I let him have a good look and smashed it across his nose." No one else has ever written about this kind of explosion of violence, not written about it this well.
Of course, it wouldn't be a Hammer story without a dame, including one that kicks off the only thing she's wearing, her shoes, and sinks to the softness of the bearskin rug, "a beautiful naked creature of soft round flesh and lustrous hair that changed color with each leap of the vivid red flame behind her."
With this fourth Hammer book, Spillane somehow managed to continue the high quality work that epitomizes this series. Highly recommended.
The book opens with Spillane's patented spare prose that has Hammer walking on a lonely bridge after a judge tore into him for doing what organized law enforcement could not: putting an end to murderous scum. Hammer is quite introspective here, noting that the judge called him a murderer even though what should Hammer have done "when the bastard had a rod in his hand and it was pointing right at my gut."
This is without question first and foremost a detective novel and a truly top-notch detective novel at that. Spillane wrote better than most other authors could dream of.
It is also part and parcel of a tender love story between Hammer and Velda, although even now Hammer cannot resist temptation. "The eyes swept from her black pumps to legs and body and shoulders that were almost too good to be real." And, when someone messes with Velda: "A .45 can make an awful nasty sound in a quiet room when you pull the hammer back. It's just a tiny little click, but it can stop a dozen guys when they hear it. Weasel Face couldn't take his eyes off it. I let him have a good look and smashed it across his nose." No one else has ever written about this kind of explosion of violence, not written about it this well.
Of course, it wouldn't be a Hammer story without a dame, including one that kicks off the only thing she's wearing, her shoes, and sinks to the softness of the bearskin rug, "a beautiful naked creature of soft round flesh and lustrous hair that changed color with each leap of the vivid red flame behind her."
With this fourth Hammer book, Spillane somehow managed to continue the high quality work that epitomizes this series. Highly recommended.
December 7, 2020
So, today history is repeating itself, as it is want to do when radical fringe elements try to sweep it away. Very violent (so beware) but entertaining book for the patriots among us who can tolerate the type (understand those who choose a less violent read). The hysteria you here is from the fringe covering their tracks.
October 22, 2013
The Spillane work I knew was limited to the film "Kiss me deadly", and the 80's TV-series "Mike Hammer" featuring actor Stacey Keach. Hadn't read a single Spillane book until now, just associated his work with hard-boiled detective type of stuff, which I generally am a big fan of (Willeford, Chandler, Thompson, Hammett). But hmmm, partway through this book I was compelled to stop in the midst of the bravado, McCarthy-era American patriotism and paranoia, Commie-hating, and Wikipedia this guy to seek an answer to why this just doesn't do it for me. It turns out he was both an American hard-core conservative + a Jehova's witness, and declared he only writes what people want to read, well go figure - three strikes - you're out!
"One lonely night" was published in the early 50's and in it Private investigator Mike Hammer gets to solve a subversive commie-plot, gladly commit several commie-murders, and generally show his disdain for anybody who disagrees. There are echoes in "Kiss me deadly"; the idea of world-altering ideologies and political power play, and the unbearable fear of letting the enemy get the upper hand, classic stuff, but this is pretty shallow stuff compared to other "pulp" writers of the era.
The subject matter and attitude has echoes in Hollywood movies (and other film industries) from cowboy films up to this day, wherein terrorists, scum, and other general bad guys often are portrayed as political enemies not beyond the times they're made in. Looking sideways. It was a pretty good plot though.
"One lonely night" was published in the early 50's and in it Private investigator Mike Hammer gets to solve a subversive commie-plot, gladly commit several commie-murders, and generally show his disdain for anybody who disagrees. There are echoes in "Kiss me deadly"; the idea of world-altering ideologies and political power play, and the unbearable fear of letting the enemy get the upper hand, classic stuff, but this is pretty shallow stuff compared to other "pulp" writers of the era.
The subject matter and attitude has echoes in Hollywood movies (and other film industries) from cowboy films up to this day, wherein terrorists, scum, and other general bad guys often are portrayed as political enemies not beyond the times they're made in. Looking sideways. It was a pretty good plot though.
January 29, 2013
After an almost 50 year hiatus from Mickey Spillane novels, I've picked up a few lately. Gritty Mike Hammer bears little resemblance to Stacey Keach's character in the old TV series. This guy got psychologically twisted in the horrors of jungle warfare in the Pacific theater in WWII and stayed that way. His killing isn't so much emotionless as it is self-righteously gleeful. This book also gives a glimpse of the hatred for communism which was intense and prevalent in the early years of the cold war for those not old enough to remember it. Spillane's tales are always entertaining reads and reflections of a simpler time in which there were fewer shades of grey.
August 2, 2008
I was really looking forward to enjoying my first Mickey Spillane book. I'm still waiting. This one was awful. Personally, I found it nearly illiterate. He's got only the tiniest fragment of the style of Chandler and Hammett but without even a sliver of their talent. I won't be reading another Spillane for a long, long time.
May 24, 2018
This is some hard-boiled, rough-talking, no wasted words kind of PI...
Mike Hammer's all that and more! And his dame, Velda, is a gun-toting, hard-case herself...yet feminine and sweet too!
Hammer's all action, and I dig that about him! Need more like him today.
It's a fun, wild ride, to be sure, when he's at the helm!
Mike Hammer's all that and more! And his dame, Velda, is a gun-toting, hard-case herself...yet feminine and sweet too!
Hammer's all action, and I dig that about him! Need more like him today.
It's a fun, wild ride, to be sure, when he's at the helm!
December 26, 2022
ONE LONELY NIGHT is an objectively stupid novel. Which is genuinely impressive since I love Mickey Spillane's writing style but, from start to finish, this book is pretty much pure idiocy. Actually, no, the opening is incredible. Mike is feeling suicidal and broken after a judge tears apart his "righteous avenger" persona in a courtroom. He meets a beautiful woman on a bridge, saves her from an attacker, and then she throws herself off to her death. It's incredibly well-written and everything else afterward is moronic.
It involves twin brothers, one of whom is an escaped mental patient while the other is a messianic politician, plus the dreaded Red Menace. This was written in 1951 at the start of the Second Red Scare and anyone who knows my politics, knows I have severe issues with communism (theistic anarchist and all) but somehow Spillane fails to make a good anti-communist yarn action drama ala James Bond and instead invokes "Get off my lawn!" paranoid stupidity.
There's actually a scene where Mike Hammer sees a bunch of protestors and cheers on a guy who says, "if you don't like America, leave it!" Apparently, the protestors are protesting American foreign policy? What foreign policy? Doesn't matter. Mike also describes them as a bunch of dirty unwashed bums and cartoon caricature-looking people except for the one sexy communist girl he immediately seduces despite being in a relationship with Velda at last. She's a stupid rich girl who has bought into the EVIL philosophy. Somehow Mike's babble is so badly handled, he offends me the guy who agrees with hating authoritarian regimes and apologists for them.
I'm going to spoil what was obvious too about the plot: the escaped mental patient twin brother of the politician is a communist agent. Yes, apparently the Kremlin hired f-ing Michael Myers to be their spokesman. This is probably the dumbest plot involving communists since they funded a bunch of Nazis to blow up London in Moonraker.
I normally give 1 star to anyone stupid enough to use the plot of, "the villain hires the world's greatest detective to investigate his evil plot, certain he will be smarter than him." However, there's some good character building with Mike Hammer embracing his dark side and aware he is no better than those he fights.
It involves twin brothers, one of whom is an escaped mental patient while the other is a messianic politician, plus the dreaded Red Menace. This was written in 1951 at the start of the Second Red Scare and anyone who knows my politics, knows I have severe issues with communism (theistic anarchist and all) but somehow Spillane fails to make a good anti-communist yarn action drama ala James Bond and instead invokes "Get off my lawn!" paranoid stupidity.
There's actually a scene where Mike Hammer sees a bunch of protestors and cheers on a guy who says, "if you don't like America, leave it!" Apparently, the protestors are protesting American foreign policy? What foreign policy? Doesn't matter. Mike also describes them as a bunch of dirty unwashed bums and cartoon caricature-looking people except for the one sexy communist girl he immediately seduces despite being in a relationship with Velda at last. She's a stupid rich girl who has bought into the EVIL philosophy. Somehow Mike's babble is so badly handled, he offends me the guy who agrees with hating authoritarian regimes and apologists for them.
I'm going to spoil what was obvious too about the plot: the escaped mental patient twin brother of the politician is a communist agent. Yes, apparently the Kremlin hired f-ing Michael Myers to be their spokesman. This is probably the dumbest plot involving communists since they funded a bunch of Nazis to blow up London in Moonraker.
I normally give 1 star to anyone stupid enough to use the plot of, "the villain hires the world's greatest detective to investigate his evil plot, certain he will be smarter than him." However, there's some good character building with Mike Hammer embracing his dark side and aware he is no better than those he fights.
November 2, 2021
The first chapter is some of Spillane's best writing, and it starts the story off with a bang. Throughout the tale, we get a better picture of the character of Hammer than we got in the first three Hammer novels. In this one, he's up against the Communists of the early 1950s, and to say he hates them is a huge understatement. Spillane understood the harm socialism causes a society, and makes no bones about telling it like it is. Of course, here in 21st century America, at least half the country is clueless to the evils of this corrupt system, as many reviewers of this book display by calling it dated. One such reviewer wrote that it was too anti-communist. If you like the freedoms you enjoy in your pursuit of happiness in this country, you might want to pull your head out of the sand, and recognize that socialism in all its forms is bad, and we're almost up to our necks in it now. Well, off the soap box now. This is supposed to be a review. If you're PC, you won't like this book. Mike Hammer doesn't see gray areas. There's good, and there's bad, and he battles against the bad, making a thrilling read.
March 12, 2019
Gangsters, lovely ladies, murder, mystery and of course an author that knows how to engage readers in thrillers.
March 13, 2011
My first run-in with Mike Hammer happened when I eight or so. I was flipping channels, and came across a cops and robbers show featuring a guy in a long trench coat and a gruff attitude. His name was Hammer, and it fit with his direct approach to crime-busting. I liked what I saw, and settled on that channel whenever I ran into it again. And though this wasn't my first experience with the PI stereotype (probably that credit goes to cartoons), I've since pictured that same, pugnacious, whiskered face (whom I now know was Stacy Keach: what an inspired choice) and that heavy trencher.
Years later, I came across the Economist's obituary for a writer named Mickey Spillane. The show came back to me, a few pieces in the cultural landscape lined up, and I filed away his name and his work in that to-do region that's brimming with other books and movies and hobbies and what not. So when I happened across a slim, gently worn copy of "One Lonely Night" at a used book store, I was primed for the bait. Besides, the book itself was old and smelled just like a book should; what's not to like?
Mickey Spillane wrote violent crime fiction. His hero speaks to us in the first person, and, in this work at least, he is pre-occupied with killing. Literally. The very word comes up so often that I really did start to question the guy's sanity. The book opens with a killing, and as Hammer navigates his case, he metes out more deaths and beatings, sometimes commenting on his own state of mind with exclamation points.
Is it any surprise that Hammer was originally a funny book character?
I'm giving this the "ok" rating because all of this violence and sex blurred together, the plot was rife with straw men that Hammer tore apart, and none of secondary characters stood out. You read Hammett or Chandler, and there's more than the Op or Marlowe to get into; here, it's all about Hammer's appetite. He wants booze; he wants babes; he wants blood; he wants justice - and boy is he gonna get it all.
One scene did give me the willies: Hammer is closing in on the biggest and baddest in the caper, and as he creeps into their den, he smears dirt and mud on his face while reminiscing about his war days. Spillane just nailed the character's history and mood in those lines, and I found myself leaning closer to the page.
Years later, I came across the Economist's obituary for a writer named Mickey Spillane. The show came back to me, a few pieces in the cultural landscape lined up, and I filed away his name and his work in that to-do region that's brimming with other books and movies and hobbies and what not. So when I happened across a slim, gently worn copy of "One Lonely Night" at a used book store, I was primed for the bait. Besides, the book itself was old and smelled just like a book should; what's not to like?
Mickey Spillane wrote violent crime fiction. His hero speaks to us in the first person, and, in this work at least, he is pre-occupied with killing. Literally. The very word comes up so often that I really did start to question the guy's sanity. The book opens with a killing, and as Hammer navigates his case, he metes out more deaths and beatings, sometimes commenting on his own state of mind with exclamation points.
Is it any surprise that Hammer was originally a funny book character?
I'm giving this the "ok" rating because all of this violence and sex blurred together, the plot was rife with straw men that Hammer tore apart, and none of secondary characters stood out. You read Hammett or Chandler, and there's more than the Op or Marlowe to get into; here, it's all about Hammer's appetite. He wants booze; he wants babes; he wants blood; he wants justice - and boy is he gonna get it all.
One scene did give me the willies: Hammer is closing in on the biggest and baddest in the caper, and as he creeps into their den, he smears dirt and mud on his face while reminiscing about his war days. Spillane just nailed the character's history and mood in those lines, and I found myself leaning closer to the page.
September 2, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime - Top 50
BOOK 48 (of 250)
Amazingly relevant: a politician utilizes Russian resources and money to fund his career.
HOOK - 3 stars: "Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost fog-like, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by." Shortly, Hammer kills a man on the bridge, and the woman being chased by that man jumps. But I'm not much of a fan of novels opening with weather reports: too much of a cliche, too easy it seems to me. But great action follows fast.
PACE - 5: Sensational.
PLOT - 4: Perhaps this novel is just too relevant: one of the reasons I read older fiction is to escape the news of the day. This plot/novel could have been written yesterday as it is ripped right from social media headlines. A senator (Lee Deamer) campaigns as such: "...if elected his first order would be to sign warrants of arrest for certain political joes who are draining the state dry." (Don't we hear these same words/campaign promises often?) Deamer is using a Russian mob, their money and resources, to fund his fight for ultimate power. A bit too realistic for escapist reading for me.
CHARACTERS -4: Hammer and Velda are here, always great. Deamer is the evil, bad politician you know, it's (insert a name of your preference) on a rampage to clean up the government, but we know the opposite is true. There is Pat, captian of homicide and Marty Kooperman, City Editor. Ethel Brighton is a well-known society woman, Oscar Deamer is Lee Deamer's twin brother. There are other characters, all well-drawn, but it seems I read about these same people everyday in today's news, and I'd really rather not.
ATMOSPHERE - 4: Ugly political corruption everywhere. Unpleasant, but still nicely done. And oh so familiar.
SUMMARY - My rating is 4.0. At any other time, I'd have enjoyed this more. It's very good, one of Spillane's best, but it's just to close to reality for my taste right now. Besides, there are more Spillane novels in my Top 50, coming up!
BOOK 48 (of 250)
Amazingly relevant: a politician utilizes Russian resources and money to fund his career.
HOOK - 3 stars: "Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost fog-like, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by." Shortly, Hammer kills a man on the bridge, and the woman being chased by that man jumps. But I'm not much of a fan of novels opening with weather reports: too much of a cliche, too easy it seems to me. But great action follows fast.
PACE - 5: Sensational.
PLOT - 4: Perhaps this novel is just too relevant: one of the reasons I read older fiction is to escape the news of the day. This plot/novel could have been written yesterday as it is ripped right from social media headlines. A senator (Lee Deamer) campaigns as such: "...if elected his first order would be to sign warrants of arrest for certain political joes who are draining the state dry." (Don't we hear these same words/campaign promises often?) Deamer is using a Russian mob, their money and resources, to fund his fight for ultimate power. A bit too realistic for escapist reading for me.
CHARACTERS -4: Hammer and Velda are here, always great. Deamer is the evil, bad politician you know, it's (insert a name of your preference) on a rampage to clean up the government, but we know the opposite is true. There is Pat, captian of homicide and Marty Kooperman, City Editor. Ethel Brighton is a well-known society woman, Oscar Deamer is Lee Deamer's twin brother. There are other characters, all well-drawn, but it seems I read about these same people everyday in today's news, and I'd really rather not.
ATMOSPHERE - 4: Ugly political corruption everywhere. Unpleasant, but still nicely done. And oh so familiar.
SUMMARY - My rating is 4.0. At any other time, I'd have enjoyed this more. It's very good, one of Spillane's best, but it's just to close to reality for my taste right now. Besides, there are more Spillane novels in my Top 50, coming up!
November 21, 2011
Written and published in 1951, during increasing anti-communist sentiment, Maike Hammer's hatred of them is white hot in this novel.
It begins on a lonely bridge late at night. Hammer is on a long walk while his anger is cooling. A judge had dressed him down in court earlier for his proclivity for violence. Never mind that it was self-defense, the judge had made no bones about his dislike for the PI.
Mike first hears the hurrying footsteps, the harsh breathing, and sees a young woman hurrying up to him, terror in her face. Someone is after her. The man comes up and, not recognizing Hammer, starts to pull his gun from a coat pocket.
He's not fast enough!
The young woman, seeing the look of a wolf in Mike's face, fears she's in a worse predicament and suddenly flings herself over the bridge. Mike grabs at her at gets only a piece of jacket, the pocket, as she goes to her death in the river.
A pack of cigarettes is all he saves. When he searches the man, no identification, only a green card with odd, sharp edges. The cigarette pack has a similar card and arouses Mike's curiosity.
He soon learns it's an identification of the Communist party and finds himself in the middle of a plot to take over the country. Also, someone is looking for something. the young woman's apartment, when he learns her identity, has been torn apart. Another man, killed by a patriot and having one of those ID cards, has his place ripped apart.
As Mike slowly pieces it altogether, and takes out a number of commie sympathizers, the action and violence ramps up. The climax, Mike armed with his trusty .45, old Betsy, and a Tommy gun, reveals a lot about Hammer's psyche as he goes on a rescue mission.
The reviews for this one are all over the place here on Goodreads, from one star to five. This sort of stuff is not for everyone.
It begins on a lonely bridge late at night. Hammer is on a long walk while his anger is cooling. A judge had dressed him down in court earlier for his proclivity for violence. Never mind that it was self-defense, the judge had made no bones about his dislike for the PI.
Mike first hears the hurrying footsteps, the harsh breathing, and sees a young woman hurrying up to him, terror in her face. Someone is after her. The man comes up and, not recognizing Hammer, starts to pull his gun from a coat pocket.
He's not fast enough!
The young woman, seeing the look of a wolf in Mike's face, fears she's in a worse predicament and suddenly flings herself over the bridge. Mike grabs at her at gets only a piece of jacket, the pocket, as she goes to her death in the river.
A pack of cigarettes is all he saves. When he searches the man, no identification, only a green card with odd, sharp edges. The cigarette pack has a similar card and arouses Mike's curiosity.
He soon learns it's an identification of the Communist party and finds himself in the middle of a plot to take over the country. Also, someone is looking for something. the young woman's apartment, when he learns her identity, has been torn apart. Another man, killed by a patriot and having one of those ID cards, has his place ripped apart.
As Mike slowly pieces it altogether, and takes out a number of commie sympathizers, the action and violence ramps up. The climax, Mike armed with his trusty .45, old Betsy, and a Tommy gun, reveals a lot about Hammer's psyche as he goes on a rescue mission.
The reviews for this one are all over the place here on Goodreads, from one star to five. This sort of stuff is not for everyone.
September 19, 2014
This is another Mike Hammer novel. In this story Mike tries to save a woman from murder but this woman mistakes Mike as a bad guy and she leaps to her death. Mike follows the trail and it leads to a Communist sect.
This novel started with one of the best opening scenes I have read. Immediately I was enthralled as this opening scene puts the reader in the setting and the atmosphere of the era. The middle of the book did fizzle though as it was more of the author's tirade against communism. This book was written in the days of Senator McCarthy and this concept was probably more poignant. But as of today it loses its message. The finale was excellent and you fill find yourself cheering for Mike Hammer. I did not see the twist at the end.
I enjoyed Mike's character growth in this book. The author has him moving forward in his life and has Mike realizing his way of dealing with situations might not be the best way. It is nice to see when a character isn't just doing the same thing over and over.
This isn't the best Mike Hammer novel but if you are reading the whole series there are important events. I have a little warning. If you are new to this series there are violent and sexist scenes and this book would probably not be written today with today's politically correct society.
This novel started with one of the best opening scenes I have read. Immediately I was enthralled as this opening scene puts the reader in the setting and the atmosphere of the era. The middle of the book did fizzle though as it was more of the author's tirade against communism. This book was written in the days of Senator McCarthy and this concept was probably more poignant. But as of today it loses its message. The finale was excellent and you fill find yourself cheering for Mike Hammer. I did not see the twist at the end.
I enjoyed Mike's character growth in this book. The author has him moving forward in his life and has Mike realizing his way of dealing with situations might not be the best way. It is nice to see when a character isn't just doing the same thing over and over.
This isn't the best Mike Hammer novel but if you are reading the whole series there are important events. I have a little warning. If you are new to this series there are violent and sexist scenes and this book would probably not be written today with today's politically correct society.
April 23, 2017
This was supposed to be a palette cleanser - just a fun book to sit back and watch Mike Hammer kick some ass but it did nothing for me.
Mike Hammer gets caught up in communist groups and murder. It felt dated and held no interest for me.
Oh well.
Mike Hammer gets caught up in communist groups and murder. It felt dated and held no interest for me.
Oh well.
February 24, 2018
If you like your crime fiction hardboiled, then Spillane’s Mike Hammer is up there with the best (or should that be worst).
Read
August 16, 2014They say pop-culture novels reflect the worries and hopes of their societies. Judging from this
1950's piece of hard boiled/"mystery"/propaganda, America was in serious danger of soiling its shorts from the communist threat.
I'm warning you now, don't read it. There are superior books in this genre. Spillaine even wrote some himself. But, if you just have to know the plot to this turkey, I've read it so you don't have to:
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!
This wretched book opens with Mike Hammer having an uncharacteristic mope on a bridge at
night in the middle of a snowstorm.
Mike is pissyfaced, but he doesn't know why. Is he having a mid-life crisis? Is his manhood wilting from low T levels? It seems that everyone calling him a mad-dog killer depresses him. There is that one particular judge who referred to him as a homicidal maniac.
Nobody does that to Hammer!
So Hammer proceeds to act like a homicidal maniac by killing a guy on the bridge and watching a woman commit suicide.
Still irked, Hammer opts to desecrate the guy's corpse and kick it over the bridge. Before he does, he discovers both of the deceased people possessed green cards with strangely cut corners.
What are these cards for? They allow a nest of commie spies to identify each other. (That's right, they're green-card-carrying commies!)
Oh, there has also been a murder allegedly committed by a populist political candidate where the victim was clutching a similar green card.
Anyways, Mike decides to check out the commies, who apparently hang out on street corners trying to proselytize the masses, (because that's how they roll). They are also spies with zero trade-craft.
Hammer keeps saying how dumb the commies are, and he is able to follow them to their commie hidey-hole and just walk right in. Guess they make convenient strawmen to advance the plot.
After intimidating the commies with his sheer manliness, Hammer is mistaken for somebody's replacement.
Mike decides he's pissed at the commies, or the beatniks, or whatever the hell they are. (He's a little vague as to their actual political philosophies, so you could consider him to be ranting against the nascent counter-culture movement.)
Somehow Hammer determines these commies get their instructions straight from Moscow.
A beautiful blond socialite visits the commies. Impressed by Hammer's manliness, she lets him drive her home in her car.
Then a subplot about the twin psychotic brother of that much-loved populist politician being the murderer pops up.
While trying to help the politician catch his psycho brother, Mike, his police buddy Pat, and his secretary Velda are involved in a subway death. Hammer isn't convinced that death was suicide. But at least Hammer wasn't moping and whining about commies during this part, and we don't have to listen to Hammer sounding like Travis Bickle and whining about the filth of the city, hoping the rain will wash it away. (I thought Hammer was going to whinge his enemies to death.)
Hammer then calls the blond socialite and impresses her with his manliness. Then he starts moping about commies.
He and the socialite get drunk in his attempt to get her tipsy to answer some questions. They fornicate in a Harlequin Romance interlude which left me bored. And this only 50 pages after Mike spent two pages saying how important Velda was to him. (Imagine that.)
Hammer visits the politician and impresses that politico's secretary with his manliness enough for her to reveal important medical information about her boss to a complete stranger.
Hammer returns to the commie spy nest and realizes he's been mistaken for an MKV tough. At least it gives him more time to do valuable anti-commie moping. Apparently there are no librarians or reporters in this spy nest. They don't recognize a noted killer like Hammer, who has had recent brushes with the law, enough for a judge to proclaim him a homicidal maniac.
All the commies are ugly, and even their secretary is plain. Hammer gloats over how much smarter he is that they.
Hammer and Velda decide to investigate the politician's alleged murder victim. Mike thinks this is victim is a commie spy. His new theory is that this victim was used by the commies as courier, and was killed by the politician's psycho brother who stole the MacGuffin paper.
Now Mike thinks the guy he killed on the bridge was the MVD agent assigned to find the MacGuffin papers. This leads to another commie moping session where Mike whines that the US is too open with its information.
There is an assassination attempt on Hammer after the commie meeting. Hammer blames the socialite for searching his wallet while he was conked out. (He's only been giving out his phone number to half the commies.)
Reporters come to Hammer for his assassination story. Then the ugly commie girl visits. Out go the reporters. At least Hammer likes her body, leading to another half-assed Harlequin interlude of shtupping.
A second murder attempt against Hammer is thwarted (again by stupidity).
Afraid that the commies will smear the great American populist politician he's working for, Mike indulges in more anti-commie whingeing. He alone is man enough to see the threat.
Now Hammer just wants to kill commies. Velda wants to deport anyone she merely suspects is a commie. This leads to a make out session with Velda, and a proposal of marriage from Mike.
They also speak about the politician, who seems to be a stand-in for McCarthy. This allows for a self-indulgent rant of how Hammer is never going to die, will beat the reaper, and he'll take a lot of people out when he does die.
The radio announces a current national security breach (dream on Spillane. BTW, isn't that being too open with the information?); the dead the psycho brother stole the security papers.
Hammer and Velda search the last hideout of the psycho brother. This leads to a commie ambush, with an action scene written in confuse-o-ese.
(What is the layout of the building?) Velda kills one of the commies, leading to a discussion of how Hammer and Velda enjoy killing.
Mike plays with his gun for what must be the fourth time this novel. Hammer gets an illegal gun for Velda.
Hammer is called in by the cops, where it is revealed that the commies he killed last night all had criminal records, so killing them was okay. (Guess commies then are like child molesters now - convenient objects for the protagonist to slay without moral qualms.)
Mike whines that the cops have to wait for bad things to happen (unlike the "cops" in the USSR?).
More commie moping time about a trial over something communist related.
Hammer thinks he sees commies making a cash payoff at the trial.
The socialite is also at the trial, and Mike has spanking fantasies about her, thinking she fingered him for the attempted assassinations. Hammer meets up with the socialite, and they drive to her love-shack in the woods. A car following them rolls off the hill. (It seems to be a long way to go for Hammer to get a tommygun.)
When he arrives at the socialite's lovers nest, Hammer pushes her down, strips her, and ties her up, (which in more enlightened times is called sexual assault). She is shot before he can start whipping her with his belt.
Hammer realizes the socialite was the target of the hitman, not him. So he figures that his beating the socialite actually saved her life because she twisted when the shot was fired. The shot just missed her heart. (In more enlightened times this would be called justifying a criminal act.)
From her pained whispering, Hammer learns that his manliness convinced of the socialite of the wrongness of communism. He is also able to find a doctor who makes house calls.
Hammer now realizes the socialite did not finger him. (He's only been fingering himself throughout the book.)
Hammer tries ot frighten the doctor into keeping silent about Hammer's involvement. Doctor is
apparently impressed by Hammer's manliness, and allows Hammer to run away so as to not be involved with the police. (If only the police had not waited until after the attempted rape had occurred?)
It turns out the socialite had turned the commies, and Hammer, into the FBI. It was FBI agents who were in that car which rolled over.
Mike and Velda now search the murder victim's room. They make a connection; there is a picture of the suicide girl in the room. She was the nurse to the psycho brother.
Velda comes onto Hammer using a sheer neglige. He turns her down.
The cops finally get fingerprints off the cigarette pack of the suicide girl. She was a nurse at psycho brothers Ward, and also a commie
Hammer goes to suicide girl's apartment, figuring she must have had the MacGuffin papers mailed to her. Men are leaving with her mailbox. Are they commies? Fortunately the landlady has the letter anyway.
Mike thinks he's got the case figured out. (Which is good. I'm glad one of us is making sense of this convoluted mess. At least while he's theorizing Hammer is not moping about commies.)
Meanwhile the radio is still announcing the security breach. Mike laughs as he has the MacGuffin papers, and things look bad for the commies.
Velda is sent off to investigate the psycho brother's/suicide girl's hospital stay. When she returns Velda is kidnapped.
Hammer calls the number on the ransom note left for him. He learns from the cops that the number is for a pay phone at the train station.
Hammer camps out at a payphone opposite the abductor/spy/commie's payphone.
This spy has no spy-craft, and Mike is able to trail him to a bad part of town. This gives us several pages of a Mike-mope about how the judge is right and he is kill-happy.
Inside the burnt-out factory the commies have the naked Velda tied up. They are leering at her and whipping her. (Hmmm, I seem to recall a scene just like this. Now where was it?)
Now Hammer gets to use his purloined tommygun.
He goes medieval in the factory in the mopiest commando raid ever. He kills everybody, somehow missing Velda with the tommygun's bullets.
Hammer continues butchering the dead while the tortured Velda still hangs there. He finally cuts her down, sets fire to the place, brings her back to his place.
Hammer now calls the politician. They go to the bridge where it all started. Mike burns the MacGuffin papers. He tells the politician how much he likes killing commies. Hammer has it all figured out; the politician is actually the psycho brother, who is also a commie. (Thus, by the power of association, all commies are mentally ill, which ironically is what Communists said about their democratic dissidents).
Hammer gives a convoluted wrap-up of who killed who and why, (plastering over obvious plot holes, leaving me disinclined to care).
Eventually the torturing of the guilty starts. Mike kills the politician, (allowing Hammer to make America safe to be an amoral cesspit of capitalism).
The big question about this novel is, are these real representations of Spillane's beliefs? Is Spillane numb enough not to see the self mocking irony of his anger? Was he mentally sodomized by his own hatred?
Or is this novel a cynical attempt to give the money-spending suckers of that time what they wanted; hot-blooded, anti-Communist diatribes and self righteous blood shed? Are those rants just padding to create the proper contractual word length?
This is an idiot novel; everyone must act like an idiot in order for the plot to proceed. We are stuck with an Ayn Rand superman being kept down by the forces of fools in society. Hammer's manliness cannot be contained by the law or society. As he says, "I make my own rules. I don't have to account to anybody." I'm glad he didn't miss with any of his shots and accidentally kill a child during those assassination attempts.
It is also impressive how hopped up Hammer gets over the Commie subversion of America while he's so proud of how he doesn't vote and doesn't believe in American politics.
At least this novel answered one major question that hangs over all Mike Hammer novels; how the hell does Hammer manage to make a living? He never seems to investigate anything for anyone else. Hammer is always on the vengeance trail, and the pay usually sucks. But in this case, he's taking payment from the politician. Guess Velda gets to eat this month.
Which leads to another thought; Hammer does not like women. They exist for him to copulate with. Some, like Velda, are capable. Yet none are any match for Hammer's manliness.
While Velda is supposedly special to him, Hammer ruthlessly cheats on her.
Does Spillane really believe any of this? Or is the book a joke, a stroke job for the paranoid right, allowing Spillaine to seem sympathetic to them while he takes their money.
I've read to other books by Spillane starring Hammer, and they were passable.
This one is one hundred and seventy-six pages of some action and pure shite. Part lyrical ode for psychotic machismo, part harlequin romance for men.
If you want to read about communist thugs who get into situations over their heads, read John leCarre's "Smiley's People".
If you want to read about an insane amount of killing and the metaphysical angst it causes those trying to sort it out, read Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest".
Stay away from this one. It's a stinker. There is a reason it's out of print.
1950's piece of hard boiled/"mystery"/propaganda, America was in serious danger of soiling its shorts from the communist threat.
I'm warning you now, don't read it. There are superior books in this genre. Spillaine even wrote some himself. But, if you just have to know the plot to this turkey, I've read it so you don't have to:
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!
This wretched book opens with Mike Hammer having an uncharacteristic mope on a bridge at
night in the middle of a snowstorm.
Mike is pissyfaced, but he doesn't know why. Is he having a mid-life crisis? Is his manhood wilting from low T levels? It seems that everyone calling him a mad-dog killer depresses him. There is that one particular judge who referred to him as a homicidal maniac.
Nobody does that to Hammer!
So Hammer proceeds to act like a homicidal maniac by killing a guy on the bridge and watching a woman commit suicide.
Still irked, Hammer opts to desecrate the guy's corpse and kick it over the bridge. Before he does, he discovers both of the deceased people possessed green cards with strangely cut corners.
What are these cards for? They allow a nest of commie spies to identify each other. (That's right, they're green-card-carrying commies!)
Oh, there has also been a murder allegedly committed by a populist political candidate where the victim was clutching a similar green card.
Anyways, Mike decides to check out the commies, who apparently hang out on street corners trying to proselytize the masses, (because that's how they roll). They are also spies with zero trade-craft.
Hammer keeps saying how dumb the commies are, and he is able to follow them to their commie hidey-hole and just walk right in. Guess they make convenient strawmen to advance the plot.
After intimidating the commies with his sheer manliness, Hammer is mistaken for somebody's replacement.
Mike decides he's pissed at the commies, or the beatniks, or whatever the hell they are. (He's a little vague as to their actual political philosophies, so you could consider him to be ranting against the nascent counter-culture movement.)
Somehow Hammer determines these commies get their instructions straight from Moscow.
A beautiful blond socialite visits the commies. Impressed by Hammer's manliness, she lets him drive her home in her car.
Then a subplot about the twin psychotic brother of that much-loved populist politician being the murderer pops up.
While trying to help the politician catch his psycho brother, Mike, his police buddy Pat, and his secretary Velda are involved in a subway death. Hammer isn't convinced that death was suicide. But at least Hammer wasn't moping and whining about commies during this part, and we don't have to listen to Hammer sounding like Travis Bickle and whining about the filth of the city, hoping the rain will wash it away. (I thought Hammer was going to whinge his enemies to death.)
Hammer then calls the blond socialite and impresses her with his manliness. Then he starts moping about commies.
He and the socialite get drunk in his attempt to get her tipsy to answer some questions. They fornicate in a Harlequin Romance interlude which left me bored. And this only 50 pages after Mike spent two pages saying how important Velda was to him. (Imagine that.)
Hammer visits the politician and impresses that politico's secretary with his manliness enough for her to reveal important medical information about her boss to a complete stranger.
Hammer returns to the commie spy nest and realizes he's been mistaken for an MKV tough. At least it gives him more time to do valuable anti-commie moping. Apparently there are no librarians or reporters in this spy nest. They don't recognize a noted killer like Hammer, who has had recent brushes with the law, enough for a judge to proclaim him a homicidal maniac.
All the commies are ugly, and even their secretary is plain. Hammer gloats over how much smarter he is that they.
Hammer and Velda decide to investigate the politician's alleged murder victim. Mike thinks this is victim is a commie spy. His new theory is that this victim was used by the commies as courier, and was killed by the politician's psycho brother who stole the MacGuffin paper.
Now Mike thinks the guy he killed on the bridge was the MVD agent assigned to find the MacGuffin papers. This leads to another commie moping session where Mike whines that the US is too open with its information.
There is an assassination attempt on Hammer after the commie meeting. Hammer blames the socialite for searching his wallet while he was conked out. (He's only been giving out his phone number to half the commies.)
Reporters come to Hammer for his assassination story. Then the ugly commie girl visits. Out go the reporters. At least Hammer likes her body, leading to another half-assed Harlequin interlude of shtupping.
A second murder attempt against Hammer is thwarted (again by stupidity).
Afraid that the commies will smear the great American populist politician he's working for, Mike indulges in more anti-commie whingeing. He alone is man enough to see the threat.
Now Hammer just wants to kill commies. Velda wants to deport anyone she merely suspects is a commie. This leads to a make out session with Velda, and a proposal of marriage from Mike.
They also speak about the politician, who seems to be a stand-in for McCarthy. This allows for a self-indulgent rant of how Hammer is never going to die, will beat the reaper, and he'll take a lot of people out when he does die.
The radio announces a current national security breach (dream on Spillane. BTW, isn't that being too open with the information?); the dead the psycho brother stole the security papers.
Hammer and Velda search the last hideout of the psycho brother. This leads to a commie ambush, with an action scene written in confuse-o-ese.
(What is the layout of the building?) Velda kills one of the commies, leading to a discussion of how Hammer and Velda enjoy killing.
Mike plays with his gun for what must be the fourth time this novel. Hammer gets an illegal gun for Velda.
Hammer is called in by the cops, where it is revealed that the commies he killed last night all had criminal records, so killing them was okay. (Guess commies then are like child molesters now - convenient objects for the protagonist to slay without moral qualms.)
Mike whines that the cops have to wait for bad things to happen (unlike the "cops" in the USSR?).
More commie moping time about a trial over something communist related.
Hammer thinks he sees commies making a cash payoff at the trial.
The socialite is also at the trial, and Mike has spanking fantasies about her, thinking she fingered him for the attempted assassinations. Hammer meets up with the socialite, and they drive to her love-shack in the woods. A car following them rolls off the hill. (It seems to be a long way to go for Hammer to get a tommygun.)
When he arrives at the socialite's lovers nest, Hammer pushes her down, strips her, and ties her up, (which in more enlightened times is called sexual assault). She is shot before he can start whipping her with his belt.
Hammer realizes the socialite was the target of the hitman, not him. So he figures that his beating the socialite actually saved her life because she twisted when the shot was fired. The shot just missed her heart. (In more enlightened times this would be called justifying a criminal act.)
From her pained whispering, Hammer learns that his manliness convinced of the socialite of the wrongness of communism. He is also able to find a doctor who makes house calls.
Hammer now realizes the socialite did not finger him. (He's only been fingering himself throughout the book.)
Hammer tries ot frighten the doctor into keeping silent about Hammer's involvement. Doctor is
apparently impressed by Hammer's manliness, and allows Hammer to run away so as to not be involved with the police. (If only the police had not waited until after the attempted rape had occurred?)
It turns out the socialite had turned the commies, and Hammer, into the FBI. It was FBI agents who were in that car which rolled over.
Mike and Velda now search the murder victim's room. They make a connection; there is a picture of the suicide girl in the room. She was the nurse to the psycho brother.
Velda comes onto Hammer using a sheer neglige. He turns her down.
The cops finally get fingerprints off the cigarette pack of the suicide girl. She was a nurse at psycho brothers Ward, and also a commie
Hammer goes to suicide girl's apartment, figuring she must have had the MacGuffin papers mailed to her. Men are leaving with her mailbox. Are they commies? Fortunately the landlady has the letter anyway.
Mike thinks he's got the case figured out. (Which is good. I'm glad one of us is making sense of this convoluted mess. At least while he's theorizing Hammer is not moping about commies.)
Meanwhile the radio is still announcing the security breach. Mike laughs as he has the MacGuffin papers, and things look bad for the commies.
Velda is sent off to investigate the psycho brother's/suicide girl's hospital stay. When she returns Velda is kidnapped.
Hammer calls the number on the ransom note left for him. He learns from the cops that the number is for a pay phone at the train station.
Hammer camps out at a payphone opposite the abductor/spy/commie's payphone.
This spy has no spy-craft, and Mike is able to trail him to a bad part of town. This gives us several pages of a Mike-mope about how the judge is right and he is kill-happy.
Inside the burnt-out factory the commies have the naked Velda tied up. They are leering at her and whipping her. (Hmmm, I seem to recall a scene just like this. Now where was it?)
Now Hammer gets to use his purloined tommygun.
He goes medieval in the factory in the mopiest commando raid ever. He kills everybody, somehow missing Velda with the tommygun's bullets.
Hammer continues butchering the dead while the tortured Velda still hangs there. He finally cuts her down, sets fire to the place, brings her back to his place.
Hammer now calls the politician. They go to the bridge where it all started. Mike burns the MacGuffin papers. He tells the politician how much he likes killing commies. Hammer has it all figured out; the politician is actually the psycho brother, who is also a commie. (Thus, by the power of association, all commies are mentally ill, which ironically is what Communists said about their democratic dissidents).
Hammer gives a convoluted wrap-up of who killed who and why, (plastering over obvious plot holes, leaving me disinclined to care).
Eventually the torturing of the guilty starts. Mike kills the politician, (allowing Hammer to make America safe to be an amoral cesspit of capitalism).
The big question about this novel is, are these real representations of Spillane's beliefs? Is Spillane numb enough not to see the self mocking irony of his anger? Was he mentally sodomized by his own hatred?
Or is this novel a cynical attempt to give the money-spending suckers of that time what they wanted; hot-blooded, anti-Communist diatribes and self righteous blood shed? Are those rants just padding to create the proper contractual word length?
This is an idiot novel; everyone must act like an idiot in order for the plot to proceed. We are stuck with an Ayn Rand superman being kept down by the forces of fools in society. Hammer's manliness cannot be contained by the law or society. As he says, "I make my own rules. I don't have to account to anybody." I'm glad he didn't miss with any of his shots and accidentally kill a child during those assassination attempts.
It is also impressive how hopped up Hammer gets over the Commie subversion of America while he's so proud of how he doesn't vote and doesn't believe in American politics.
At least this novel answered one major question that hangs over all Mike Hammer novels; how the hell does Hammer manage to make a living? He never seems to investigate anything for anyone else. Hammer is always on the vengeance trail, and the pay usually sucks. But in this case, he's taking payment from the politician. Guess Velda gets to eat this month.
Which leads to another thought; Hammer does not like women. They exist for him to copulate with. Some, like Velda, are capable. Yet none are any match for Hammer's manliness.
While Velda is supposedly special to him, Hammer ruthlessly cheats on her.
Does Spillane really believe any of this? Or is the book a joke, a stroke job for the paranoid right, allowing Spillaine to seem sympathetic to them while he takes their money.
I've read to other books by Spillane starring Hammer, and they were passable.
This one is one hundred and seventy-six pages of some action and pure shite. Part lyrical ode for psychotic machismo, part harlequin romance for men.
If you want to read about communist thugs who get into situations over their heads, read John leCarre's "Smiley's People".
If you want to read about an insane amount of killing and the metaphysical angst it causes those trying to sort it out, read Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest".
Stay away from this one. It's a stinker. There is a reason it's out of print.
June 19, 2015
One Lonely Night is Mickey Spillane’s fourth novel, and it represents a partial transition from the comic book tradition that launched his career as a novelist. His early novels — especially the first, I, the Jury — cannot be understood without reference to Spillane’s comic book background.
In that first novel, Mike Hammer is introduced as over-the-top tough guy who accepts no restrictions on his pursuit of justice. Whereas the police are tied down by rules, Hammer the private investigator is free to use whatever rough means he finds necessary to hunt down the criminals. And his best friend, Police Captain Pat Chambers looks the other way when he isn’t actively assisting Hammer.
Both Hammer’s ruthlessness and Chambers’ acquiescence are so far removed from reality that they’re laughable to a reader of straight fiction. But Spillane struck a chord with men who felt the justice system went too easy on criminals. Such readers liked two-dimensional comic book heroes who operated in a fictional reality where right and wrong is often determined by the actor rather than the action.
While Spillane lacked the desire or the craft for three-dimensional characterization, he nonetheless possessed abundant narrative skill. He knew how to tell a story. And while moral principles may not have infiltrated his means, they defined his ends — at least to readers longing for the simple triumph of good over evil. And Spillane delivered that triumph by wrapping the final showdown and denouement together into a tight ending that was at once punchy and satisfying.
In this fourth novel, Mike Hammer no longer intimidates or threatens violence on any and all who might stand in his path to uncovering evidence. He breaks the rules and strays from self defense to outright vigilantism, but much of the cartoonish brutality that serves no other purpose than to define a two-dimensional character disappears. Still, Hammer’s self reflection on his violent ways is not far removed from the stereotypically wounded hero, and he is cartoonishly efficient at wiping out a nest of bad guys.
Mike Hammer’s partial evolution from a comic-book hero, however, did not satisfy the many critics of Spillane’s novels. They still faulted Spillane for his simplistic characterization and his simplistic juxtaposition of good and evil. And for his use of sex.
It is perhaps in the criticism of sex that Spillane’s critics reveal something about themselves. In the late 1940s and the early 1950s — the time of Spillane’s ascendency — sex in fiction belonged to the liberals. It partly reflected their looser views on sexuality, and it partly represented their political strategy. They used sex as the bait to promote their political views. Readers couldn’t get one without the other. If they craved titillating exposure, they had to first open themselves to the liberal message woven into the story. But that uncouth and unliterary Spillane gave them sex without the liberal message!
Spillane not only dispensed with the liberal message of the day — he outright denounced it. And in One Lonely Night, he took on the most sacred of liberal positions — that Communists never infiltrated American government.
Unfortunately, Mike Hammer’s anti-Communism does not stray far from the simplicity of a comic book hero. “Some day I’d stand on the steps of the Kremlin with a gun in my fist, and I’d yell for them to come out, and if they wouldn’t, I’d go in and get them, and when I had them lined up against the wall, I’d start shooting until all I had left was a row of corpses that bled on the cold floors and in whose thick red blood would be the promise of a peace that would stick for more generations than I’d live to see.”
While observing groupings of Communist agitators, Hammer notes that “they all had something in common. The same thing you find in a slaughterhouse. The lump of vomit in the center of each crowd was a Judas sheep trying to lead the rest to the ax....The sheep were asking for it too. They were a seedy bunch in shapeless clothes, heavy with the smell of the rot they had asked for and gotten. They had a jackal look of discontent and cowardice, a hungry look that said, ‘You kill while we loot, then all will be well with the world’.”
With a message squarely opposed to liberal sensibilities, Spillane was not going to be a critic’s darling no matter his skill at storytelling nor his facility for creating reader identification with his protagonist. In Spillane’s heyday, as in our times, the critical establishment sought ideological bedfellows. So Spillane was panned while the critic’s audience was favorably reminded of the earlier work of Dashiell Hammett.
Hammett, of course, created his own hard-boiled Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and his more-bending Nick Charles in The Thin Man. Both demonstrate Hammett’s skill as an entertaining writer, but both are compatible with the aims of cultural Marxism as neither shows much respect for bourgeois manners and mores.
Hammett himself was the leftist the critics could support, and with his Communist girlfriend Lillian Hellman, he made just the ideological showing that critics and scholars openly or covertly supported. Indeed during the time of Spillane’s critically despised One Lonely Night, Hammett and Hellman were hostile witnesses in investigations of Communism and before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Interestingly, Hellman’s support of the Communist cause included an explicit denunciation of HUAC’s friendly witnesses entitled "The Judas Goats." No doubt, Hellman’s vituperation on behalf of Communism struck critics and scholars as evidence of her polished craft whereas those who lost their temper opposing Communism were but hacks. Predictably, Spillane’s reference to Judas sheep didn’t engage their intellect as had Hellman’s reference to Judas goats.
The double standards of Spillane’s critics may have driven him to push his Mike Hammer even farther from their ideology. In One Lonely Night, Hammer’s hatred of Communism seems partly grounded in the leftist penchant for preaching love, tolerance, and equality until it assumes power at which time it governs with a short list of rights and a long list of prohibitions.
Supporting Spillane’s view is the history of the left supposedly promoting the 1st Amendment during the period of One Lonely Night but now girdling government, schools, and corporations with speech codes. Predictably, tolerance revealed itself as Zero Tolerance while equality came out of the closet as Affirmative Action.
While Spillane’s anti-Communism is partly informed of the contrast between its promised utopia and its delivered dystopia, Spillane was overly optimistic about his fellow Americans’ ability to discern the difference. In One Lonely Night, he repeatedly references the then contemporary anti-Communist movement. But he foresees a happy end to it — even in supplying this novel with one of his most ingenious endings. Spillane clearly does not predict that in decades hence, the universal message taught by schools and all other American institutions would be that the anti-Communism of the early 1950s arose from hysteria and functioned as a witch hunt against the innocent and the helpless.
Spillane’s naivete about the ideological direction of America may flow from a flawed understanding of American government. The edition of One Lonely Night being reviewed here comes from a three-novel collection issued in 2001. If it accurately reproduces the original, Spillane needed a lesson in civics.
On page 22 of One Lonely Night, the character Lee Deamer is said to be running for State Senator. But it turns out that he’s running for US Senator from New York. This is reinforced by his trips to, and contacts in, Washington DC. Then the dialog on page 97 indicates that if he’s elected, his first order of business will be to sign warrants of arrest for various crooks. It’s difficult to believe Spillane could have written this if he understood the principles of federalism and separation of powers embodied in the Constitution.
And so, Mike Hammer might be viewed as the creation of an author who never learned the roots of American ideals. Hammer simply believes that good must destroy evil. Even as he realizes the Communist penchant for wrapping itself in the vocabulary of goodness, he fails to appreciate the Constitutional structure our Founders created to limit the power of evil men who falsely proclaim their noble intentions. When it’s merely presented as a contest of good versus evil, crafty liars will conquer and lord over honest men who try to mind their own business.
Given the significant stylistic problem with Spillane’s two-dimensional characterization and the serious moral problem with his protagonist’s vigilantism, a neutral reader might be tempted to abandon the book early on. But for those who stick it out, Spillane delivers a rare treat. He uses one of his weaknesses to increase the narrative strength. Specifically, Spillane’s two-dimensional characterization allows him to hide the antagonist in plain sight. Then after Hammer uncovers the antagonist, Hammer’s inevitable vigilantism transcends two-dimensionality with a sophistication that is at once ironic and clever.
Spillane often said that an ending sells the next book. In the case of One Lonely Night, it may have also sold an extra few million of the current book.
In that first novel, Mike Hammer is introduced as over-the-top tough guy who accepts no restrictions on his pursuit of justice. Whereas the police are tied down by rules, Hammer the private investigator is free to use whatever rough means he finds necessary to hunt down the criminals. And his best friend, Police Captain Pat Chambers looks the other way when he isn’t actively assisting Hammer.
Both Hammer’s ruthlessness and Chambers’ acquiescence are so far removed from reality that they’re laughable to a reader of straight fiction. But Spillane struck a chord with men who felt the justice system went too easy on criminals. Such readers liked two-dimensional comic book heroes who operated in a fictional reality where right and wrong is often determined by the actor rather than the action.
While Spillane lacked the desire or the craft for three-dimensional characterization, he nonetheless possessed abundant narrative skill. He knew how to tell a story. And while moral principles may not have infiltrated his means, they defined his ends — at least to readers longing for the simple triumph of good over evil. And Spillane delivered that triumph by wrapping the final showdown and denouement together into a tight ending that was at once punchy and satisfying.
In this fourth novel, Mike Hammer no longer intimidates or threatens violence on any and all who might stand in his path to uncovering evidence. He breaks the rules and strays from self defense to outright vigilantism, but much of the cartoonish brutality that serves no other purpose than to define a two-dimensional character disappears. Still, Hammer’s self reflection on his violent ways is not far removed from the stereotypically wounded hero, and he is cartoonishly efficient at wiping out a nest of bad guys.
Mike Hammer’s partial evolution from a comic-book hero, however, did not satisfy the many critics of Spillane’s novels. They still faulted Spillane for his simplistic characterization and his simplistic juxtaposition of good and evil. And for his use of sex.
It is perhaps in the criticism of sex that Spillane’s critics reveal something about themselves. In the late 1940s and the early 1950s — the time of Spillane’s ascendency — sex in fiction belonged to the liberals. It partly reflected their looser views on sexuality, and it partly represented their political strategy. They used sex as the bait to promote their political views. Readers couldn’t get one without the other. If they craved titillating exposure, they had to first open themselves to the liberal message woven into the story. But that uncouth and unliterary Spillane gave them sex without the liberal message!
Spillane not only dispensed with the liberal message of the day — he outright denounced it. And in One Lonely Night, he took on the most sacred of liberal positions — that Communists never infiltrated American government.
Unfortunately, Mike Hammer’s anti-Communism does not stray far from the simplicity of a comic book hero. “Some day I’d stand on the steps of the Kremlin with a gun in my fist, and I’d yell for them to come out, and if they wouldn’t, I’d go in and get them, and when I had them lined up against the wall, I’d start shooting until all I had left was a row of corpses that bled on the cold floors and in whose thick red blood would be the promise of a peace that would stick for more generations than I’d live to see.”
While observing groupings of Communist agitators, Hammer notes that “they all had something in common. The same thing you find in a slaughterhouse. The lump of vomit in the center of each crowd was a Judas sheep trying to lead the rest to the ax....The sheep were asking for it too. They were a seedy bunch in shapeless clothes, heavy with the smell of the rot they had asked for and gotten. They had a jackal look of discontent and cowardice, a hungry look that said, ‘You kill while we loot, then all will be well with the world’.”
With a message squarely opposed to liberal sensibilities, Spillane was not going to be a critic’s darling no matter his skill at storytelling nor his facility for creating reader identification with his protagonist. In Spillane’s heyday, as in our times, the critical establishment sought ideological bedfellows. So Spillane was panned while the critic’s audience was favorably reminded of the earlier work of Dashiell Hammett.
Hammett, of course, created his own hard-boiled Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and his more-bending Nick Charles in The Thin Man. Both demonstrate Hammett’s skill as an entertaining writer, but both are compatible with the aims of cultural Marxism as neither shows much respect for bourgeois manners and mores.
Hammett himself was the leftist the critics could support, and with his Communist girlfriend Lillian Hellman, he made just the ideological showing that critics and scholars openly or covertly supported. Indeed during the time of Spillane’s critically despised One Lonely Night, Hammett and Hellman were hostile witnesses in investigations of Communism and before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Interestingly, Hellman’s support of the Communist cause included an explicit denunciation of HUAC’s friendly witnesses entitled "The Judas Goats." No doubt, Hellman’s vituperation on behalf of Communism struck critics and scholars as evidence of her polished craft whereas those who lost their temper opposing Communism were but hacks. Predictably, Spillane’s reference to Judas sheep didn’t engage their intellect as had Hellman’s reference to Judas goats.
The double standards of Spillane’s critics may have driven him to push his Mike Hammer even farther from their ideology. In One Lonely Night, Hammer’s hatred of Communism seems partly grounded in the leftist penchant for preaching love, tolerance, and equality until it assumes power at which time it governs with a short list of rights and a long list of prohibitions.
Supporting Spillane’s view is the history of the left supposedly promoting the 1st Amendment during the period of One Lonely Night but now girdling government, schools, and corporations with speech codes. Predictably, tolerance revealed itself as Zero Tolerance while equality came out of the closet as Affirmative Action.
While Spillane’s anti-Communism is partly informed of the contrast between its promised utopia and its delivered dystopia, Spillane was overly optimistic about his fellow Americans’ ability to discern the difference. In One Lonely Night, he repeatedly references the then contemporary anti-Communist movement. But he foresees a happy end to it — even in supplying this novel with one of his most ingenious endings. Spillane clearly does not predict that in decades hence, the universal message taught by schools and all other American institutions would be that the anti-Communism of the early 1950s arose from hysteria and functioned as a witch hunt against the innocent and the helpless.
Spillane’s naivete about the ideological direction of America may flow from a flawed understanding of American government. The edition of One Lonely Night being reviewed here comes from a three-novel collection issued in 2001. If it accurately reproduces the original, Spillane needed a lesson in civics.
On page 22 of One Lonely Night, the character Lee Deamer is said to be running for State Senator. But it turns out that he’s running for US Senator from New York. This is reinforced by his trips to, and contacts in, Washington DC. Then the dialog on page 97 indicates that if he’s elected, his first order of business will be to sign warrants of arrest for various crooks. It’s difficult to believe Spillane could have written this if he understood the principles of federalism and separation of powers embodied in the Constitution.
And so, Mike Hammer might be viewed as the creation of an author who never learned the roots of American ideals. Hammer simply believes that good must destroy evil. Even as he realizes the Communist penchant for wrapping itself in the vocabulary of goodness, he fails to appreciate the Constitutional structure our Founders created to limit the power of evil men who falsely proclaim their noble intentions. When it’s merely presented as a contest of good versus evil, crafty liars will conquer and lord over honest men who try to mind their own business.
Given the significant stylistic problem with Spillane’s two-dimensional characterization and the serious moral problem with his protagonist’s vigilantism, a neutral reader might be tempted to abandon the book early on. But for those who stick it out, Spillane delivers a rare treat. He uses one of his weaknesses to increase the narrative strength. Specifically, Spillane’s two-dimensional characterization allows him to hide the antagonist in plain sight. Then after Hammer uncovers the antagonist, Hammer’s inevitable vigilantism transcends two-dimensionality with a sophistication that is at once ironic and clever.
Spillane often said that an ending sells the next book. In the case of One Lonely Night, it may have also sold an extra few million of the current book.
June 21, 2025
"I was back in the jungle again. I had that feeling. There was a guy at my shoulder in deeper black than the night and he carried a scythe and a map to point out the long road. I didn't walk, I stalked and the guy stalked with me, waiting patiently for that one fatal misstep."
Long before that ominous intro to a sequence later in the novel, Mike Hammer was walking alone on a NYC street, turning over in his mind a talking down he received from a judge who called him a dirty low-down killer. As the light rain turned to soft snow, Mike crossed a bridge and came across a female in peril, being chased by a gun-toting jerk. Mike killed the jerk but the woman fell off the bridge, and then Mike was even more resentful of his path in life and decided to take a vacation from his private eye business.
But a vacation for Mike Hammer is a lot different than a vacation would be for you or me. He finds that the two dead folks are card-carrying members of the Communist party (this is 1951 New York City) and that a local hero politician has been accused of their murder.
The street vengeance noir comic book vibe ratchets up further when Mike Hammer finds himself tangled in this group of pre-hippie Reds, him (and the author Spillane) being a proud WWII vet not impressed with those who stayed behind and now call soldiers lackeys and warmongers and are also organizing in secret to push politically for a communist America where some are more equal than others.
And THEN, after all that has us jumping from a possible murder and blackmail scheme to a (spoiler removed) conspiracy, Mike's secretary Velda joins the fray, the classic perfect female sidekick and partner, now on a righteous and angry mission not just to defend right but to kill wrong, and that's when "One Lonely Night" turns into a full-fledged hard boiled and exciting noir crime classic.
Verdict: I got wordy above and apologize - lets just say "One Lonely Night" (1951) is surprisingly and perfectly awesome and I loved it. A murky, twist and turny, and explosive vengeance thrill ride from start to finish with a classically black-and-white love tale to boot.
Jeff's Rating: 5 / 5 (Excellent)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
Long before that ominous intro to a sequence later in the novel, Mike Hammer was walking alone on a NYC street, turning over in his mind a talking down he received from a judge who called him a dirty low-down killer. As the light rain turned to soft snow, Mike crossed a bridge and came across a female in peril, being chased by a gun-toting jerk. Mike killed the jerk but the woman fell off the bridge, and then Mike was even more resentful of his path in life and decided to take a vacation from his private eye business.
But a vacation for Mike Hammer is a lot different than a vacation would be for you or me. He finds that the two dead folks are card-carrying members of the Communist party (this is 1951 New York City) and that a local hero politician has been accused of their murder.
The street vengeance noir comic book vibe ratchets up further when Mike Hammer finds himself tangled in this group of pre-hippie Reds, him (and the author Spillane) being a proud WWII vet not impressed with those who stayed behind and now call soldiers lackeys and warmongers and are also organizing in secret to push politically for a communist America where some are more equal than others.
And THEN, after all that has us jumping from a possible murder and blackmail scheme to a (spoiler removed) conspiracy, Mike's secretary Velda joins the fray, the classic perfect female sidekick and partner, now on a righteous and angry mission not just to defend right but to kill wrong, and that's when "One Lonely Night" turns into a full-fledged hard boiled and exciting noir crime classic.
Verdict: I got wordy above and apologize - lets just say "One Lonely Night" (1951) is surprisingly and perfectly awesome and I loved it. A murky, twist and turny, and explosive vengeance thrill ride from start to finish with a classically black-and-white love tale to boot.
Jeff's Rating: 5 / 5 (Excellent)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
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