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Mike Hammer #10
The Body Lovers
PI Mike Hammer is moving through the dark streets of New York City when he hears a child's terrible scream. When he finds the child, he also discovers the naked body of a beautiful woman who has been beaten to death with a whip.
So begins a complicated and baffling case, involving the deaths of other women and a newspaper reporter, who was tracking aspects of the case as well as following the lives of the city's prostitutes. Mike uncovers a sadistic ring of international figures, where women risk their lives for a fortune in an attempt to pull themselves out of despair.
Can Mike, with the help of his beloved Velda, break the ring that is crushing the lives of vulnerable women?
So begins a complicated and baffling case, involving the deaths of other women and a newspaper reporter, who was tracking aspects of the case as well as following the lives of the city's prostitutes. Mike uncovers a sadistic ring of international figures, where women risk their lives for a fortune in an attempt to pull themselves out of despair.
Can Mike, with the help of his beloved Velda, break the ring that is crushing the lives of vulnerable women?
247 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 1967
13 people are currently reading
264 people want to read
About the author
Mickey Spillane
316 books447 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 38 reviews
October 5, 2024
"The Body Lovers" is the tenth book in Spillane's long-running Mike Hammer series. It is solid, vintage Spillane and filled with all the action that readers expect from Spillane's writing. Anyone who likes Spillane would be happy adding this volume to their collection.
The story starts with strong and continues strong all the way throughout. At the beginning, Hammer is just driving along, minding his own business, when he "heard the screams through the thin mist of the night and kicked the car to a stop at the curb." He finds a hysterical child sitting in a pile of rubble and then sees what the kid was screaming about: "the mutilated body of what had been a redheaded woman. At one time she had been beautiful, but death had erased all that." "She had been in her later twenties, but now time had ended for her. She lay there on her back, naked except for the remnants of a brilliant green negligee that was still belted around her waist. Her breasts were poised in some weird, rigid defiance, her long tapered legs coiled serpentine-like in the throes of death." "Half- opened eyes had looked into some nameless terror before sight left them and her mouth was still frozen in a silent scream of pain." There are few writers alive or dead who can open a book with such a description. Spillane does and he does it well. Within pages, the reader is deep in the action, wanting to know what happened to the lady and how Hammer is going to deal with it. Of course finding bodies is nothing new for Hammer.
This is a good, solid detective story with Hammer working to ferret out the clues as to what happened to the redhead in the green negligee as more bodies start popping up. The usual Hammer associates are found in this book. There's Captain Pat Chambers, head of homicide, who "still resembled a trim business executive more than he did a cop . . . until you got to his eyes." Velda, who is Hammer's secretary, is here, too: His "big, beautiful, luscious doll. Crazy titian hair that rolled in a pageboy and styles be damned. Clothes couldn't hide her because she was too much woman." "She was deadly too."
It's Hammer's world here and, in typical Spillane fashion, its not rainbows and mermaids he sees spouting in the distance, but a "New York gray, damp with river fog that held in suspension the powdered grime and acid grit the city seemed to exhale." Its interesting hearing him talk about Greenwich Village being no more than a fantasy people looked around and tried to find like Hollywood and how silence is a funny sound that you hear when everything is too still and there's someone with a gun ready to pick you off.
Hammer comes through here as tough as ever and as willing to bull his way through to truth and justice as anyone ever. There is nothing about a Mike Hammer novel that is not fun in a hardboiled way.
The story starts with strong and continues strong all the way throughout. At the beginning, Hammer is just driving along, minding his own business, when he "heard the screams through the thin mist of the night and kicked the car to a stop at the curb." He finds a hysterical child sitting in a pile of rubble and then sees what the kid was screaming about: "the mutilated body of what had been a redheaded woman. At one time she had been beautiful, but death had erased all that." "She had been in her later twenties, but now time had ended for her. She lay there on her back, naked except for the remnants of a brilliant green negligee that was still belted around her waist. Her breasts were poised in some weird, rigid defiance, her long tapered legs coiled serpentine-like in the throes of death." "Half- opened eyes had looked into some nameless terror before sight left them and her mouth was still frozen in a silent scream of pain." There are few writers alive or dead who can open a book with such a description. Spillane does and he does it well. Within pages, the reader is deep in the action, wanting to know what happened to the lady and how Hammer is going to deal with it. Of course finding bodies is nothing new for Hammer.
This is a good, solid detective story with Hammer working to ferret out the clues as to what happened to the redhead in the green negligee as more bodies start popping up. The usual Hammer associates are found in this book. There's Captain Pat Chambers, head of homicide, who "still resembled a trim business executive more than he did a cop . . . until you got to his eyes." Velda, who is Hammer's secretary, is here, too: His "big, beautiful, luscious doll. Crazy titian hair that rolled in a pageboy and styles be damned. Clothes couldn't hide her because she was too much woman." "She was deadly too."
It's Hammer's world here and, in typical Spillane fashion, its not rainbows and mermaids he sees spouting in the distance, but a "New York gray, damp with river fog that held in suspension the powdered grime and acid grit the city seemed to exhale." Its interesting hearing him talk about Greenwich Village being no more than a fantasy people looked around and tried to find like Hollywood and how silence is a funny sound that you hear when everything is too still and there's someone with a gun ready to pick you off.
Hammer comes through here as tough as ever and as willing to bull his way through to truth and justice as anyone ever. There is nothing about a Mike Hammer novel that is not fun in a hardboiled way.
October 8, 2021
This book is part of a series in which each book can be read as a stand alone. In this one, Mike hears a scream and goes running to see if he can help. The scream was done by a kid who just discovered a dead woman in a negligee. Mike is drawn into a case that he didn't want to be in with from the start.
If you have read a Mike Hammer book you know what you are going to get with each book. Mike is a private detective that plays by his own rules. He has no problem with the ladies and can handle himself in a fight. Basically, these books are a throwback that could offend people today. I didn't think this was the best Mike Hammer novel but I still liked it. I am a fan of these novels just for the reason that they transport me back in time to when they were written. Mickey Spillane is one of the best with his descriptions whether it is New York City or a beautiful woman. The descriptions are straight forward while being vivid. They are just a delight to read. I enjoyed Mike's investigation in this book even though the mystery aspect was a little lacking. It wasn't hard to figure out who was involved and I thought it jumped from one aspect to another with a bit of disjointed flow.
Not my favorite Mike Hammer but still a nice read. I love that within the first sentence of the book I was back in time. There are so many sentences in this book that I admire. They just do a terrific job of painting a picture without overdoing it. I could read any Spillane book for this reason.
If you have read a Mike Hammer book you know what you are going to get with each book. Mike is a private detective that plays by his own rules. He has no problem with the ladies and can handle himself in a fight. Basically, these books are a throwback that could offend people today. I didn't think this was the best Mike Hammer novel but I still liked it. I am a fan of these novels just for the reason that they transport me back in time to when they were written. Mickey Spillane is one of the best with his descriptions whether it is New York City or a beautiful woman. The descriptions are straight forward while being vivid. They are just a delight to read. I enjoyed Mike's investigation in this book even though the mystery aspect was a little lacking. It wasn't hard to figure out who was involved and I thought it jumped from one aspect to another with a bit of disjointed flow.
Not my favorite Mike Hammer but still a nice read. I love that within the first sentence of the book I was back in time. There are so many sentences in this book that I admire. They just do a terrific job of painting a picture without overdoing it. I could read any Spillane book for this reason.
February 24, 2015
So after Mike Hammer does Agatha Christie (in the previous volume ‘The Twisted Thing’), we return most definitely to Mike Hammer does Mike Hammer. ‘The Body Lovers’ is the classic formula. Hammer is out on the streets on New York one night when he stumbles across the corpse of a beautiful woman (as one often does). He and Velda start to investigate what becomes an increasingly brutal series of crimes, before the dreadful conspiracy is revealed.
Seasoned Hammer watchers will, as usual, be able to guess who’s behind it quite early on.
The main difference between this and earlier novels though, is that Mike Hammer is in some ways calmer. Rather than swear a bloody revenge, he is almost drawn reluctantly into the case (and at points even shows his cultural side by expressing knowledge in art and classical music). This was written in 1967, so our detective even deals with some hippies – and I’m wondering whether he sniffed some of what they were smoking.
Of course Spillane and Hammer have always been right wing – it was ever thus – and a book written at the time of the Vietnam War is bound to reflect that. And there is fury at American being made the goat on the international stage, with particular venom spat at the UN. But then serious political arguments are really difficult to make in a Mike Hammer novel, as such as is the level of wild misanthropy it’s quite hard to take any particular hatred seriously. After all Mike may not like these characters or that institution a lot, but then Mike doesn’t like anything. And when a character is always seeing red, it’s not easy for the reader to pick up the nuance of the argument – instead we just think it’s Mike Hammer being Mike Hammer in another first-in-the-face Mike Hammer novel.
Seasoned Hammer watchers will, as usual, be able to guess who’s behind it quite early on.
The main difference between this and earlier novels though, is that Mike Hammer is in some ways calmer. Rather than swear a bloody revenge, he is almost drawn reluctantly into the case (and at points even shows his cultural side by expressing knowledge in art and classical music). This was written in 1967, so our detective even deals with some hippies – and I’m wondering whether he sniffed some of what they were smoking.
Of course Spillane and Hammer have always been right wing – it was ever thus – and a book written at the time of the Vietnam War is bound to reflect that. And there is fury at American being made the goat on the international stage, with particular venom spat at the UN. But then serious political arguments are really difficult to make in a Mike Hammer novel, as such as is the level of wild misanthropy it’s quite hard to take any particular hatred seriously. After all Mike may not like these characters or that institution a lot, but then Mike doesn’t like anything. And when a character is always seeing red, it’s not easy for the reader to pick up the nuance of the argument – instead we just think it’s Mike Hammer being Mike Hammer in another first-in-the-face Mike Hammer novel.
January 27, 2016
This is my first introduction to Mike Hammer. I actually liked him, despite some of his narrow minded views and set-in-stone mindsets about political issues. Rather than being annoying, I found it amusing and appreciated the author's right-wing bend.
He was a stereotypical man's man - good with the ladies, always a step ahead of the police, sharp and insightful, tough...you know the type, I'm sure.
There isn't a big mystery on who is behind everything since there are only so many possibilities, but the story didn't seem intent on the mystery being the point. I still like how everything unfolded for Hammer to find out, and at the end revenge was served anyway, even if a little too sudden for me. An easy out for the villains.
It was definitely disturbing what they were up to. Picturing the end - brrr - that would be a nightmare come true for me.
Overall the book has fast pacing, smooth writing, a flawed but still likeable main, fun villains (fun in that they are diabolically cheesy but do it so well), and a justified ending. Not a typical, watered down mystery I encounter today. Would read more of Spillane's stuff if I ran into it.
He was a stereotypical man's man - good with the ladies, always a step ahead of the police, sharp and insightful, tough...you know the type, I'm sure.
There isn't a big mystery on who is behind everything since there are only so many possibilities, but the story didn't seem intent on the mystery being the point. I still like how everything unfolded for Hammer to find out, and at the end revenge was served anyway, even if a little too sudden for me. An easy out for the villains.
It was definitely disturbing what they were up to. Picturing the end - brrr - that would be a nightmare come true for me.
Overall the book has fast pacing, smooth writing, a flawed but still likeable main, fun villains (fun in that they are diabolically cheesy but do it so well), and a justified ending. Not a typical, watered down mystery I encounter today. Would read more of Spillane's stuff if I ran into it.
August 12, 2023
Hammer pretty much stumbled over the first body. Turns out it was the 2nd attractive young woman found mysteriously dead in a short amount of time.
Hammer planned on leaving it to the police until a friend is murdered. Then.....watch out. They won't know what hit them. The best of the Hammer books l've read
Hammer planned on leaving it to the police until a friend is murdered. Then.....watch out. They won't know what hit them. The best of the Hammer books l've read
June 19, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 200 (of 250)
HOOK - 3 stars: Hammer hears, on page one, screams that resemble "total hysteria". Then he discovers the screams are from a child who has stumbled upon a dead body among a "part of New York that was being gutted to make room for a new skyline." Who is dead? What did the child see?
PACE - 2: Rather disjointed at times, as the first half of this feels like a police procedural. Hammer does get involved in violence in the second half, but that last half of the book reads like a who-done-it.
PLOT - 2: The dead woman is wearing a rather erotic negligee and seems to be related to another death in which a woman is found wearing the same type of negligee but in another color. When a third and older murder comes into play, we learn this victim was wearing a third color, this time a white negligee. There are tons of red herrings as this novel turns into a who-did-it and I found the resolution odd, weak, and the book the oddest of all the 10 Hammer/Spillane books I've read (this is the 10th for me and yes, the first nine were absolutely worth the trip!)
CAST - 3: The best part of this novel is the cast. There is Hammer and Velda, of course. Then the beautiful Greta Service, who knows all 3 murdered ladies. Her brother, Harry Service, is in prison (put there by Hammer) and writes Hammer and asks him to find Greta, as Harry hasn't heard from her in a while, thus Hammer is thrust into the case. Captain Pat Chambers is here, solid and full of suspect concerning Hammer's actions, which usually result in deaths. A subplot involves a Ronald Miller who is a big shot at Pericon Chemicals, the maker of a deadly C-130 which can be washed into clothing then washed out again. Interesting. Spillane names a big-shot reporter Hy Gardner in a clear shout-out to the Earl Stanley variety. I think there is a specific reason for this, as perhaps Spillane borrowed a plot element from Gardner and acknowledges it. And, as I said before, this is no typical Spillane/Hammer novel. Then there is the wealthy Gerald Ute and Belar Ris, the later involved in black market medicines. Ali, a steward on a freighter, is apparently bringing drugs into the U.S., handing them to Lorenzo, a pimp. Cleo is a commercial artist and paints Hammer in the nude. There are more people and more stories and no, they do not come together at all. But the cast is diverse: I just don't know what went wrong other than, at the end, Spillane just didn't know how to tie everything together. Oh, and a character, Dulcie, that feels just like Juno (from a previous Hammer novel) and Spillane hints all over the book of lesbians but I don't know why.
ATMOSPHERE -2: Not a word about the freighter. A few words about dumpy hotels. One character says "He's still got diplomatic immunity" about another character, so Spillane touches on international politics and spies, or something. Then drops the issue as if he realizes he is treading into unknown waters, but in 1967 Bond was HUGE and Spillane perhaps wanted to take a bite. It doesn't work. It's like when Agatha Christie tries to write an international spy thriller: not bad, it just doesn't work either.
SUMMARY: 2.4. This novel is far removed from the first nine Spillane/Hammer books. It's all over the place in theme and at the end, I wasn't sure if I understood the explanation or not. Spillane can turn a phrase and write good action scenes, and he does here. It just didn't come together for me.
BOOK 200 (of 250)
HOOK - 3 stars: Hammer hears, on page one, screams that resemble "total hysteria". Then he discovers the screams are from a child who has stumbled upon a dead body among a "part of New York that was being gutted to make room for a new skyline." Who is dead? What did the child see?
PACE - 2: Rather disjointed at times, as the first half of this feels like a police procedural. Hammer does get involved in violence in the second half, but that last half of the book reads like a who-done-it.
PLOT - 2: The dead woman is wearing a rather erotic negligee and seems to be related to another death in which a woman is found wearing the same type of negligee but in another color. When a third and older murder comes into play, we learn this victim was wearing a third color, this time a white negligee. There are tons of red herrings as this novel turns into a who-did-it and I found the resolution odd, weak, and the book the oddest of all the 10 Hammer/Spillane books I've read (this is the 10th for me and yes, the first nine were absolutely worth the trip!)
CAST - 3: The best part of this novel is the cast. There is Hammer and Velda, of course. Then the beautiful Greta Service, who knows all 3 murdered ladies. Her brother, Harry Service, is in prison (put there by Hammer) and writes Hammer and asks him to find Greta, as Harry hasn't heard from her in a while, thus Hammer is thrust into the case. Captain Pat Chambers is here, solid and full of suspect concerning Hammer's actions, which usually result in deaths. A subplot involves a Ronald Miller who is a big shot at Pericon Chemicals, the maker of a deadly C-130 which can be washed into clothing then washed out again. Interesting. Spillane names a big-shot reporter Hy Gardner in a clear shout-out to the Earl Stanley variety. I think there is a specific reason for this, as perhaps Spillane borrowed a plot element from Gardner and acknowledges it. And, as I said before, this is no typical Spillane/Hammer novel. Then there is the wealthy Gerald Ute and Belar Ris, the later involved in black market medicines. Ali, a steward on a freighter, is apparently bringing drugs into the U.S., handing them to Lorenzo, a pimp. Cleo is a commercial artist and paints Hammer in the nude. There are more people and more stories and no, they do not come together at all. But the cast is diverse: I just don't know what went wrong other than, at the end, Spillane just didn't know how to tie everything together. Oh, and a character, Dulcie, that feels just like Juno (from a previous Hammer novel) and Spillane hints all over the book of lesbians but I don't know why.
ATMOSPHERE -2: Not a word about the freighter. A few words about dumpy hotels. One character says "He's still got diplomatic immunity" about another character, so Spillane touches on international politics and spies, or something. Then drops the issue as if he realizes he is treading into unknown waters, but in 1967 Bond was HUGE and Spillane perhaps wanted to take a bite. It doesn't work. It's like when Agatha Christie tries to write an international spy thriller: not bad, it just doesn't work either.
SUMMARY: 2.4. This novel is far removed from the first nine Spillane/Hammer books. It's all over the place in theme and at the end, I wasn't sure if I understood the explanation or not. Spillane can turn a phrase and write good action scenes, and he does here. It just didn't come together for me.
May 13, 2019
The setup was ok, but the womanizing after finally landing with Velda is a bit off, and the ending was completely rushed, to the point of devaluing all that came before and leaving the story feeling incomplete. My first true disappointment with the series.
December 14, 2025
Published in 1967, "The Body Lovers" finds Mike Hammer a bit out of his time. Things have changed since "I, The Jury" was first published in 1947. Not that Hammer himself has changed. He's still basically the same person he was twenty years earlier. He still keeps his devoted secretary Velda hanging on a string. He still has a bad habit of getting mixed up with duplicitous dames. He still calls them "dames."
But anyone hoping for some old-fashioned, hard-boiled, tough-guy heroics in "The Body Lovers" will likely be disappointed. Hammer spends most of the book looking for a woman who has gone missing. She seems to be linked to two other women who have been found dead. The linking piece of evidence: the two dead women both owned the same type of man-pleasing lingerie. Seriously. As police detectives interview salesgirls at every lingerie store in New York City, buying up piles of enticing nighties in the process, you begin to wonder if maybe they just have a lingerie fixation.
Hammer follows other leads which lead him to the offices of a fashion magazine (where the ladies who work there are either turned on by the aging tough-guy in their midst or disgusted by him) a Greenwich Village apartment house (where he meets an artist who prevails upon him to pose nude for her-not a pleasant thought if we're to take it that Hammer looks like Spillane himself, as shown on the cover of the paperback edition I read), and a hotel that rents rooms by the hour for prostitutes and their customers (where, of course, Hammer beats up a pimp).
If this sounds exciting to you, it isn't really. Hammer just seems to be going through the motions here. Doing what he does because that's what Mike Hammer does. The book keeps teasing that Hammer will dive underground to a "secret sex-cult, and bust open a group of degenerate. . .kick killers." But when we finally get to the "good part" (as we used to say in high school), it's a huge disappointment. The "good part" is over almost as soon as it begins. We only get about two pages of degeneracy, followed by a long exegesis by Hammer putting all the clues together in his head while watching the degenerates.
We don't even get a satisfying killing spree by Hammer at the end. It takes him about a page and a half to take out the sex cult. "The Body Lovers" is one long build-up to a letdown of an ending.
But anyone hoping for some old-fashioned, hard-boiled, tough-guy heroics in "The Body Lovers" will likely be disappointed. Hammer spends most of the book looking for a woman who has gone missing. She seems to be linked to two other women who have been found dead. The linking piece of evidence: the two dead women both owned the same type of man-pleasing lingerie. Seriously. As police detectives interview salesgirls at every lingerie store in New York City, buying up piles of enticing nighties in the process, you begin to wonder if maybe they just have a lingerie fixation.
Hammer follows other leads which lead him to the offices of a fashion magazine (where the ladies who work there are either turned on by the aging tough-guy in their midst or disgusted by him) a Greenwich Village apartment house (where he meets an artist who prevails upon him to pose nude for her-not a pleasant thought if we're to take it that Hammer looks like Spillane himself, as shown on the cover of the paperback edition I read), and a hotel that rents rooms by the hour for prostitutes and their customers (where, of course, Hammer beats up a pimp).
If this sounds exciting to you, it isn't really. Hammer just seems to be going through the motions here. Doing what he does because that's what Mike Hammer does. The book keeps teasing that Hammer will dive underground to a "secret sex-cult, and bust open a group of degenerate. . .kick killers." But when we finally get to the "good part" (as we used to say in high school), it's a huge disappointment. The "good part" is over almost as soon as it begins. We only get about two pages of degeneracy, followed by a long exegesis by Hammer putting all the clues together in his head while watching the degenerates.
We don't even get a satisfying killing spree by Hammer at the end. It takes him about a page and a half to take out the sex cult. "The Body Lovers" is one long build-up to a letdown of an ending.
February 27, 2021
Even an average Mike Hammer still has its moments of madness. For the most part this is mainly a standard hard boiled detection novel. Towards the end, however, it gains momentum with a deliciously sadistic final reveal. Of course if you have read several Mike Hammers the identity of one of the culprits won't surprise you but then again those books are never so much about this and more often about some delightful moments of madness like the part where Hammer (of all the people!) agrees to pose nude for a painting while Tchaikovskij's Pathétique is playing in exchange for some vital information by a man hungry female artist.
November 26, 2025
Slow beginning, outstanding build-up, disappointing ending, albeit surprising. Fun to read teh Mike Hammer series in light of today's social environment.
June 7, 2013
Explosive, slick, and chock full of sex and violence like most of Spillane's other works, Body Lovers highlights Spillane's familiar ultra-nationalistic bent, as well as his take-few-prisoners attitude.
If you can get past Spillane's hatred of foreign influences (this time embodied by U.N. ambassadors), this is a welcome blast of a read, all thriller and no filler, an approach more modern authors should take to heart.
Worth owning, this.
(This review originally appeared on the Reading & Writing By Pub Light site.)
If you can get past Spillane's hatred of foreign influences (this time embodied by U.N. ambassadors), this is a welcome blast of a read, all thriller and no filler, an approach more modern authors should take to heart.
Worth owning, this.
(This review originally appeared on the Reading & Writing By Pub Light site.)
February 4, 2017
#10 in the Mike Hammer series. A satisfying entry in this exciting hard-boiled series.
Two strange slayings and a very frightened model set Mike Hammer on a chase through the world of high fashion and UN cocktail parties to Village bars and sleazy hotels. Snarling Hammer hits pay dirt when he dives underground to a secret sex cult, and busts open a group of degenerate, but highly eminent kick-killers.
Two strange slayings and a very frightened model set Mike Hammer on a chase through the world of high fashion and UN cocktail parties to Village bars and sleazy hotels. Snarling Hammer hits pay dirt when he dives underground to a secret sex cult, and busts open a group of degenerate, but highly eminent kick-killers.
July 22, 2010
The tenth Mike Hammer novel features the private eye in top form as one of the most vile good guys pop culture has ever seen. With the usual entertaining stew of politico-thug caricature, femmes fatales, and brutal violence against the backdrop of NYC & surrounding environs.
August 28, 2025
Mike Hammer, yolda giderken bir gariplik olduğunu fark eder ve durur. Bir cinayeti fark etmiştir. Ölen kadınla ilgili bilgileri polisle paylaşır. Pat ile görüşür. Hy adlı gazeteci arkadaşı ve Velda da yorumlar yapar. Saç ve ten rengine göre elbise giydirilmiştir. Bu arada zamanında hapse tıktığı Harry Service hapisten gizlice bir not gönderir. Kız kardeşi Greta Service'in kayıp olduğunu ve onu bulmasını ister. Zor da olsa onu bulur. Ama bu arada Cloe ve Dulcie McInnes ile tanışır. Greta ölen kızları tanır. Aynı şirket için zamanında iş yapmışlardır. Dulcie de o şirkette çalışmaktadır. Bu sırada ofisine biri girmeye kalkar ve onu öldürür. Pat ve savcı ile papaz olur yine ama bundan sıyırır çünkü nefsi müdafaadır. Belar Ris adında bir adamı göz hapsine alır. En sonunda Belar ve Dulcie'nin işin içinde olduğunu anlar. Ama yakalanmıştır. Velda ve Greta da onun yanındadır. Ne yapacaktır? Oradan kurtulabilecek midir? Telefonla binayı aradığı zaman ne olacaktır? Keyifle sıkılmadan okunan bir roman
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 1, 2025
My first introduction to Spillane and his hard-boiled Mike Hammer adventures that defined the genre. I was expecting to find something similar to the Richard Stark Parker books, and while there was a similar grimness in outlook, the prose style differences are night and day. Purple prose would be a moderate description of what's going on here, in stark (har har) contrast with the tight and sparse prose you might expect from Parker. It's not necessarily bad, but it's a little over the top.
The story was good, not too convoluted without leaning so far into an action focus that you scarcely notice a story at all (which would later come to dominate this kind of space on the bookstore shelves with Pendleton's Executioner books just a few years later). I wouldn't say this left me hungry to go out and read more of Hammer's exploits immediately, but I expect to return to him after I finish up a couple of other similar series.
The story was good, not too convoluted without leaning so far into an action focus that you scarcely notice a story at all (which would later come to dominate this kind of space on the bookstore shelves with Pendleton's Executioner books just a few years later). I wouldn't say this left me hungry to go out and read more of Hammer's exploits immediately, but I expect to return to him after I finish up a couple of other similar series.
May 26, 2020
A solid Hammer story, this time a bit easier mystery to work out than previous ones, and the twist was not really there at all. It has a pretty interesting, satisfying ending.
Hammer is starting to run into a culture totally different than the one he is used to and grew up with, but manages to make it through on his own terms anyway, without seeming implausible. Spillane is at his best here with dialog and characters, although Chambers is still too much his servant and subordinate.
The story moves along well with an interesting set of twists and turns and its great reading about Hammer doing good, solid street pounding detective work.
Hammer is starting to run into a culture totally different than the one he is used to and grew up with, but manages to make it through on his own terms anyway, without seeming implausible. Spillane is at his best here with dialog and characters, although Chambers is still too much his servant and subordinate.
The story moves along well with an interesting set of twists and turns and its great reading about Hammer doing good, solid street pounding detective work.
April 15, 2022
Leggo uno Spillane ogni cinque anni in media. E ogni volta ritrovo le stesse atmosfere e gli stessi ingredienti: le ombre che calano su New York, sordidi alberghi a ore, donne troppo donne perchè i vestiti ne possano nascondere le forme e poi terribili sganassoni e immancabili Browning e Colt 45 che sputano piombo. Spillane non tradisce mai e anche questa volta ti tiene attaccato alle pagine fino al micidiale finale. Una lezione di scrittura che oggi sarebbe ritenuta in assoluto politicamente scorretta, ma che all'epoca era il top del genere.
May 10, 2019
Mike does it again. I like how Belva had some of help at the end. I really like her character but at times he keeps her down when her character seems stronger than what he’s probably trying. Again to him a woman is only a woman and not a man so they can never be equal. Would’ve been a nice series starring Belva.
September 21, 2024
Mike Hammer retoma sus acostumbradas dosis de sexo y violencia en un caso que no busca, pero asume de manera personal. Tanto la investigación que revela capa tras capa una cínica galería capa y su brusco desenlace se remiten al estilo de Spillane, incluyendo los trucos conocidos por sus lectires y devotos.
January 13, 2023
Dopo il passo falso di "Piccolo Mostro", ritorna un Mike Hammer con tutti i crismi, tuttavia lo sviluppo della storia è piuttosto lento e il finale un po' frettoloso. Ci sono tutti i personaggi di contorno, anche se meno sviluppati rispetto ai volumi d'oro del passato.
March 10, 2024
My take away
If you are a fan of film noir this book is for you. Mr. Spillane writes with wonderful description even if the protagonist has the morals of a tom cat. This tale lacked something at the end, but it was a captivating read until it fizzled out.
If you are a fan of film noir this book is for you. Mr. Spillane writes with wonderful description even if the protagonist has the morals of a tom cat. This tale lacked something at the end, but it was a captivating read until it fizzled out.
May 28, 2024
More Magnificent Mayhem
Yet another taut, twisting tale of murder and mayhem brought to a satisfying conclusion by Mike Hammer and Velda. As usual the denouement is brought as trouble piles upon trouble. Satisfyingly grim and action packed. A very enjoyable tale.
Yet another taut, twisting tale of murder and mayhem brought to a satisfying conclusion by Mike Hammer and Velda. As usual the denouement is brought as trouble piles upon trouble. Satisfyingly grim and action packed. A very enjoyable tale.
October 21, 2025
Mickey Spillane wrote this Mike Hammer novel in 1967. I read it in approximately 1987. This was one of the better mysteries in the series, even though the main character has become a caricature of toxic masculinity by this time.
May 23, 2018
First and last Mickey Spillane for me. Not my kind of read and sooo shallow' I can think of nothing good to say about it.
June 26, 2020
Read in 1975. Spillane wrote hard core detective novels filled with sex and violence. I read some of his stuff.
May 10, 2022
Another good Mike Hammer story.
July 23, 2025
Another very so,I’d effort in the Mike Hammer series. The plot is a little all over the place but totally fun all the same.
December 31, 2025
My first Spillane/Mike Hammer book. Pretty decent.
February 19, 2017
Everything you expect from Mickey Spillane and then some.
November 29, 2014
I've tried to read Mickey Spillane before but I didn't like the two books I picked up. I made it about halfway through The Long Wait and a fourth of the way through The Delta Factor. I thought I'd give Spillane another chance, though. He is one of the bestselling authors ever, after all, so some of his books had to be good. I thought I'd try a Mike Hammer book, since Mike Hammer is Spillane's most famous character.
I actually really liked The Body Lovers. It's a story with quite a few twists and turns so it got a bit confusing and I thought the characters were kind of hard to keep track of but that's my fault, not Spillane's. I was really glad when Mike Hammer basically summed up the entire plot of the book at the end and where all the characters fitted into the story. Some people might call it spoonfeeding, but I don't think I could have done that myself without going back and skimming a few chapters.
This book is fast-paced and the ending is great. I'd say I liked it more than any of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels that I've read so far (although I suppose you can't compare James Bond, a spy, with Mike Hammer, who's a detective). I do have two complaints about the book, though. First of all, I thought there was a bit too much talking, even for a detective novel. Also, I didn't think the villains were close to menacing enough.
But, overall, the book was pretty good and I'll have to read more of the series.
I actually really liked The Body Lovers. It's a story with quite a few twists and turns so it got a bit confusing and I thought the characters were kind of hard to keep track of but that's my fault, not Spillane's. I was really glad when Mike Hammer basically summed up the entire plot of the book at the end and where all the characters fitted into the story. Some people might call it spoonfeeding, but I don't think I could have done that myself without going back and skimming a few chapters.
This book is fast-paced and the ending is great. I'd say I liked it more than any of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels that I've read so far (although I suppose you can't compare James Bond, a spy, with Mike Hammer, who's a detective). I do have two complaints about the book, though. First of all, I thought there was a bit too much talking, even for a detective novel. Also, I didn't think the villains were close to menacing enough.
But, overall, the book was pretty good and I'll have to read more of the series.
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