Mike Hammer: Lady, Go Die! [Hardcover]

Come back to an earlier simpler time when cops and robbers used rods and gats, Hammer drove a heap, women were dames, broads, dolls, and molls, and cupcakes were "gone" on a guy. Yes, it is the 1940's and Mike Hammer is loose on the streets as only Mickey Spillane could imagine him with the able assistance of Max Allan Collins. In "Lady, Go Die!", Collins completes an unfinished Spillane novel that was destined to be the sequel to "I, The Jury" but was never completed for unknown reasons. It is truly a fun read to relive the prose and dialogue of a master of noir with all the dated references to a time maybe 65 years ago when the lines between good and evil were less blurred than they are today or at least they appeared that way.

In "Lady, Go Die!", Mike and Velda, his secretary, assistant, and lover, head to the small town of Sidon, a Long Island beach town. Mike interrupts the savage beating of a hapless beach bum by two local detectives, one of whom, Dekkert, is a dirty cop having been kicked off the NY force. Before he knows it, Hammer's code of justice has him knee deep in a mystery involving the death of Sharron Wesley, a former wealthy socialite of dubious background, a high stakes illegal gambling establishment, small town corruption, angry cops, and elements of New York's mob who may or may not sympathize with Mike. Along the way, Mike shuttles bqack and forth to the City to meet with his buddy, Pat Chambers, as well as with many of his less than steller NY contacts.

As Mike peels back the layers of this mystery, he senses they are all related yet somehow they don't seem to fit the usual pattern--is there more than one "perp", are certain elements of the criminal activities unrelated red herrings? Readers familiar with the older writings of Mickey Spillane will smile at his tough guy dialogue and his take-no-guff attitude as his trigger temper begins to take its toll on the bad guys of Sidon. Only when Velda goes missing does Mike ratchet up his desperation enough to find the answers he demands, even if it means taking the town apart piece by piece.

This is the second collaboration I have read of Collins and Spillane, and I admire Max Allan Collins' devotion to maintaining the "voice", stylings, and texture of Mickey Spilane's iconic character--a character that surely begat most of today's justice seekers from Jack Reacher to Dave Roubidoux. Yes, the prose is simpler than we expect today and yes, it is filled with dated, even sexist remarks, yet that is the point of Collins' painstaking devotion to recreating the times and milieu of Mike Hammer. Having grown up reading Mickey Spillane and watching the Mike Hammer Movies and TV shows, I found this an enjoyable, fast, satisfying walk down memory lane.

Fedoras off to Max Allen Collins, he might as well change his middle name to Spillane! I am a huge fan of Mikey Spillane and I was worried to see what Max Allen Collins would do with him. After reading the Co-authors note all my fears were placed aside. It turns out that Max Allen Collins was chosen by Spillane to keep the "Hammer" hitting hard. Max Allen Collins really did treat this book as if Mikey Spillane was sitting next to him as the book was written. Picking up a dead author's uncompleted stories is no easy feat, yet Max Allen Collins picks up Lady, Go Die! like a mother holding a newborn. Mike hammer was a detective when there was no such thing as political correctness. Hammer is a mans, man. He leers at women, calls them things like doll and does it like a boss! Collins captured the gritty feel of a time where America was in transition. Organized crime still had a hold on the doings of society and America was adjusting to a post war economy. The nuclear family was in the womb and mom and dad were drinking High balls, smoking cigarettes and waiting for the due date.
Interesting times aside, Max Allen Collins performed a real magic trick with this novel and there was no CGI involved. Collins was able to make me forget about cell phones, political correctness and the internet for the duration of this book. This book is a smooth read and the 241 pages of story flew by all too quickly. Reading this book versus most modern detective novels was similar to comparing H.P. Lovecraft to Stephan King. Like Lovecraft Collins didn't go into every gory detail and he left some things left unsaid; whereas Stephan King and most modern detective novels feel like the reader needs know each and every exact detail of a murder scene. At the height of Spillane's writing I doubt he could have gotten away with what are descriptive norms these days. Max Allen Collins respects the literary constraints of the time and turns them into a writing device that lets the reader paint their own picture. If you like Spillane, you will be hard pressed to tell the difference. If you like a good solid mystery, this book is for you. If you are a fan of Noir, you can't miss Lady, Go Die!

I continue to be impressed with the Max Allan Collins completions of lost Mickey Spillane novels. Although I have said this before, this is the best yet. Either MAC is saving the best for us or this is simply the luck of the draw, but Lady, Go Die! is terrific.

This is not Mickey's best title; I, The Jury holds that honor (tied with The Big Sleep on my best ever list). This superb book is, however, the sequel to I, The Jury and it is a more than worthy addition to the Spillane canon. Mike and Velda are on Long Island, hoping for a little R 'n R. Then Mike discovers a beachcomber being beaten in an alley by some bad cops. He lives below a mansion inhabited by a femme fatale, who turns up dead, nude, laying across a horse in the town (Sidon) park. Instead of Lady Godiva it's Lady, Go Die! (as Velda terms it).

The dead woman owned a gambling casino frequented by Manhattan heavies. And she is not the first to have met an untimely, nude, posed end. Mike and Velda investigate the crimes and eventually come face to face with the perp in a dramatic conclusion. The plotting, timing and dollops of suspense are handled as expertly as one might wish, and though the novel shimmers with Hammerisms it is built on what at first appears to be an old story, actually, an old western story, one of the standard western plots--the one in which the crime fighter goes to a small, lawless town in which he must face down the local authorities as well as the dark heart of man and the crimes that result from it.

Everything is handled flawlessly, but the one-liners are very, very special. Here is a very small selection:

. . . I took out the .45 the way I would a match to light a cigarette, and let him look down the barrel.

There was nothing down that dark hole that you could call comforting.

He hopped off the stool like a big toad off a medium toadstool.

When a teardrop hit a bandage, it would skid to a stop, then pearl and plunk to the floor.

The funny thing was how all three just stood there for a moment, tottering, as if they were wondering why they were still standing, only they weren't wondering anything at all because they were dead, with holes in their foreheads that had exited in a fine spray that left behind little clouds of scarlet to get caught by the ocean breeze and drift away.

Delicious, and only one of the reasons why Mickey sold over 225 million books. Don't miss this one.