Hammer Time

Killing Town: The Lost First Mike Hammer Thriller! – Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins – (Titan)

Mickey Spillane said to his wife Jane in his final week of his life “When I’m gone, there’ll be a treasure hunt around here. Take everything you find and give it to Max. He’ll know what to do.”

The Max in question was veteran thriller writer and Spillane friend and confident Max Allan Collins. With the 100^th anniversary of the birth of the wildly prolific and fertile creative mind behind so many of the all time classic of the hard boiled, thriller genre what better time to delve into the stash of manuscript stops and starts, half written, or scribbled ideas the master left behind, to unearth what is plausibly believed to be the first appearance on paper of Mike Hammer.

From that stash, Collins unearthed a few dozen, time yellowed pages that he dates back to the post World War II era and prior to Hammer’s first published appearance, 1947’s; I, The Jury. Once again Spillane’s words proved to be oh so prescient; Max, did know what to do, as he transformed those pages into a celebration of Spillane’s tough guy style and delivered a winning prequel in the form of Killing Town.

Even if you never took the classic 1970s Evelyn Wood Speed Reading course, you will find yourself rattling through this riveting rendering of Hammer, at a breakneck pace. Right from the opening scene with Hammer riding the rails into Killington, Rhode Island in an oh so unique fashion; no not in the bar car, but bumming a ride hanging on underneath the car through to the sticky finish in a fish glue factory, Collins will keep you wondering how Hammer will pull himself out of mess after mess.

Along the way you run across Spillane’s usual suspects; gorgeous and curvy dames, bent and brawling cops and more than a few criminals and crooks. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate the master of the forms, 100^th Anniversary of his birth.