The Goliath Bone: A Mike Hammer Novel (Paperback)

Tough guy PI Mike Hammer fighting terrorists in post-9/11 Manhattan? That's the improbable scenario developed by Hammer's creator, who introduced him in 1947's I, the Jury, and completed after Spillane's death in 2006 by Collins. Despite his advanced age, Hammer still carries an old army .45 and follows his own path to justice regardless of the opposition. In this last case, Hammer providentially rescues two young grad students from an assassin, discovers that they found and possess a giant human femur unearthed during a dig in the plain of Elah, where David slew Goliath, and undertakes to protect them and the bone from those who will do anything to acquire the treasure. Much of the jargon is vintage, as is the indomitable Hammer as he strives to protect the kids and prevent the Goliath bone from setting off the next big war. While not on a par with early Spillane classics, this is a fitting capstone to Hammer's career.  (Pulishers Weekly )

Spillane's posthumous novel, completed by his sometime collaborator Collins (co-editors: A Century of Noir, 2001, etc.), pits Mike Hammer against - who else? - Middle Eastern terrorists scrabbling for a priceless artifact.Taking a break from Professor George Hurley's dig, his son Matthew and his stepdaughter Jenna Sheffield, who also happens to be Matthew's secret sweetie, make a spectacular find in the Valley of Elah: a buried thigh bone whose owner stood over ten feet tall. No sooner do they identify it as a relic of Goliath, the Philistine fighter famed for his memorable defeat by David, than they're threatened by dozens of modern-day fighters. A swarthy stalker takes a potshot at Jenna hours before she picks up the bone from the friend they'd shipped it to, then tries to kill the couple and snatch the parcel from them. But Mike Hammer, everyone's favorite knight in tarnished armor (Black Alley, 1996, etc.), providentially rescues the pair, dispatching the first of many unnamed killers, and arranges for the artifact to be delivered to George Hurley's NYU lab. That's the cue for al-Qaeda, Homeland Security, the FBI, Mossad, an Israeli vigilante group and a megalomaniac theatrical impresario to take their best shot at stealing the giant's bone.Fans who aren't put off when Mike finally ties the knot with his preternaturally patient girl Friday, Velda Sterling, can relax. They're in good hands with Collins, who keeps up the vigilantism and the body count, tones down the violence and writes no worse than his master. (Kirkus Reviews )

In the midst of a Manhattan snowstorm, Hammer halts the violent robbery of a pair of college sweethearts who have stumbled onto a remarkable archaeological find in the Valley of Elah: the perfectly preserved femur of what may have been the biblical giant Goliath. Hammer postpones his marriage to his faithful girl Friday, Velda, to fight a foe deadlier than the mobsters and KGB agents of his past Islamic terrorists and Israeli extremists bent upon recovering the relic for their own agendas. A week before his death, Mickey Spillane entrusted his nearly finished manuscript and extensive notes to his frequent collaborator, Max Allan Collins, to complete.The result is a thriller as classic as Spillanes own I, the Jury, as compelling as Collinss Road to Perdition, and as contemporary as The Da Vinci Code.