The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2: One Lonely Night, The Big Kill, Kiss Me Deadly

I am an old timer who has enjoyed reading most of Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled Mike Hammer Detective stories way back in the 1960s and 1970s. I have also liked Spillane's other novels as well. Even though I had read the three stories in this collection more than twenty five years ago I wanted to reread them and besides, this three volume set was a real bargain. This is the 2nd volume of three Mike Hammer novel sets. I also have volume one and three of this Mickey Spillane collections. This one has One Lonely Night, which deals with anti-American international thugs and military secrets. One of the many things I love about Mike Hammer is how his focus is always on the fight between good and evil. Something the new age far left liberals always seem to ride the fence on the subject of good and evil. To them, right and wrong is always relative. Mike Hammer has no conflict in this area and no compunction about serving justice and knocking off the bad guys. The second story is The Big Kill, which Mike is hunting down a vicious killer with people putting obstacles in his way. The final novel is Kiss me, Deadly and Mike is again hunting down a killer, this time of a woman. The language is pure old fashioned street talk and not politically correct, which makes it a perfect read for those who appreciate true justice. In conclusion, if you have never read a Mike Hammer novel, this book is a good place to start. If you are a Mike Hammer fan you may want to check out this three novel collection to again enjoy this master of the "Hard-boiled detective." Rating: 5 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: Season of the Warrior: A poetic tribute to warriors)

As expected - typical Spilane. I'm here to tell you he's a genius.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mickey Spillane wrote six novels about hard-hitting, vengeful, tougher-than-a-concrete-slab P.I. Mike Hammer. The novels attracted a huge following of readers, mostly veterans, and were smash bestsellers even though they attracted reams of negative criticism. This, the second of two volumes collecting these novels, contains the last three books Spillane wrote before taking a long break from Mike Hammer: "One Lonely Night," "The Big Kill," and "Kiss Me, Deadly." These novels definitely ARE violent, even by today's standards, although the sexual content that enraged so many critics in the 1950s (who often labeled Spillane's work as pornographic) seems quite tame now. However, what sets people off about these books today is the reactionary character of their hero. Hammer is an unpleasant, brutally violent, and self-righteous character who envisions himself as a necessary element that works outside the law to bring justice (i.e. death) to criminals. Hammer's techniques and attitude are sometimes gruesome, intolerable, and plain repulsive. But that's the appeal! Even if you can't stand Hammer's ethics, it's impossible not to read his adventures compulsively from start to finish. He's a fascinating, hot-blooded character, and because of Spillane's frantic and feverish writing style, you'll want to follow him to the very end of each of his violent adventures. Not only is Hammer himself a great character, but the world through which Spillane hurtles him is a marvelous portrait of noir, where everything from dames to booze is cheap, loyalty means nothing, and violent death awaits the guilty and innocent alike. The three novels here: ONE LONELY NIGHT. One of the best of all the books, this one has Hammer facing a communist cabal in NYC while helping a progressive politician fight against a possible scandal. Spillane ditches the usual formula of Mike Hammer out for revenge, and instead makes the focus of the story Hammer's internal conflict over who he is. A condemnation from a judge echoes in his mind through the whole story. Hammer battles against the communists not so much because they are a threat to America (remember, this is during the height of the McCarthy era) but more because the fight will prove to himself if he is or isn't the monster that the judge accused him of being. Aside from the frenzied action and the amazingly bloody double finale with its twist ending, what makes this novel work is Hammer's internal struggle. Whether or not you go with the novel's rabid commie-baiting (it seems ridiculous now but hit a nerve back then), it's a great noir character study. THE BIG KILL. This, on the other hand, is probably the weakest of the early Mike Hammer novels. Spillane switches back to the boilerplate vengeance storyline. When an ex-criminal who tried to go straight gets gunned down in front of Mike after leaving his baby in bar, Mike chooses to go after the killers (and even take care of the baby). There isn't as much action here as you might expect, but the sexual content is higher than usual. Mostly, however, the book feels a bit tired. The finale is either fantastic or utterly ridiculous, depending on your view, but certainly shocking and one of the few memorable scenes in the book. KISS ME, DEADLY. This is one of the most famous of Spillane's novels because it led to the superb film noir version in 1955 (which was very anti-Hammer and purposely changed him into what the critics had always claimed he was: a stupid, callous, fascist thug). Mike Hammer again swears revenge, this time for the vicious murder of a girl he picked up on the road when she threw herself in front of his car. The revenge quests gets him embroiled with the mob and the chase for a mysterious case everybody will kill to get their bloody hands on. Despite the old-hat premise, this is another great, deliriously violent novel, and has the best finale in any of the Hammer novels. (The movie, however, did it one better with the most...ahem...explosive conclusion ever seen on screen.) It makes a fitting end to the original exploits of Mike Hammer. (Spillane wouldn't write another one until the 1960s.) This volume contains a new introduction by mystery writer Lawrence Block, but he doesn't have much to say. He gives most of the space to quoting the opening paragraphs of each of the novels, and then makes a few quick remarks about Spillane's style coming from his days as comic book writer, and tells a little anecdote. (We find out that Spillane was a funny guy!). Disappointing overall; I expected one of today's top mystery novelists to have more to say about a legendary writer and character. But you aren't buying this volume for Lawrence Block's introduction. You're buying it to read some of the best crime noir and violent detective fiction ever penned -- and that's what you get (well, two out three). Drop your 21st-century mindset for a while and get down in the gutter in Mike Hammer's world. It's an awful place, but it's a helluva interesting one.

Mickey Spillane never disappoints. Justice must be done, and he enjoys doing it, usually with his gun. He brings the reader quickly into every scene with sparse, precise descriptions, and always in the Mike Hammer voice beloved by hard-core mystery lovers.

Mickey Spillane wrote better stories than anyone else I've ever read. They are fast moving with non-stop action from the first page to the last. He describes beautiful women to perfection, his descriptions of bruises he himself is inflicted with make you ache and feel sore all over, and the sex he experiences are not detailed to call pornographic, but a man will relive some of his own happy encounters with beauties such as his. By all means begin with Volume 1 because the stories are like a serial movie, one book begins where the other ended. Only one other book I can remember that moves at such a fast pace and with top-notch action is "The Night of the Tiger" made into a movie called "Ride Beyond Vengeance" the very best western movie I've ever seen. Mike Hammer is a tough, sometimes mean always smart PI. Read all of Mickey's books. You'll be glad you did.

I used this product for sheer entertainment and I totally got my money's worth. Mickey Spillane was rated one of the best authors of his time (and any time since, by me) and when one attains the end of a chapter it is likely one will want to peek at the start of the next chapter and be hooked into reading "Just one more chapter." In his third trilogy is a book titled: "The Girl Hunters", and when I finished that book I felt exhausted. Some of the best reading I have ever experienced, and given the excellent authors of today, that is really saying something good. Excellent books , excellent characters, excellent author. I recommend anything written by Mickey Spillane without reservation.

I was born in 1963, and still have no clear conception of how Communists were perceived in the postwar years. The first story in this book is the most vitriolic approach to American Communists that I've ever read, and it is as full of hate and anger as you might expect from Mike Hammer, but all this violence and hate seems unreal to me, when it's directed against Communists. They seem like a weak, faked group of villains. The mystery part of the plot was good and involved, but I couldn't stand reading all this venom specifically directed against these "bad guys" who were fighting to eliminate the American Way. So that. In the second story, there was a thing that bothered me at the beginning, when the baby - described by Hammer as "a year-old kid" - kept trying to grab Hammer's gun, but I waved that off as "shiny things attract babies." However, in the climactic scene it becomes clear that Mickey Spillane never had any sustained interactions with any children of that age. He could not possibly have seriously written the end of this story if he had. This ruined the entire story for me and it makes me wonder if his editors knew anything about babies, either. One of the key problems I have with the Hammer stories is that there are so many characters in them. Many, many bad guys in a chain of wrongdoing, many bartenders, informers, innocent bystanders, and of course dames willing to fall into Hammer's arms - it's hard to keep track. And, looking at it through a modern lens, I'm bothered by the fact that he's engaged to Velda, but while she's out of town he's still scoring with every unattached dame in sight. I get the feeling Spillane's target audience was composed of 1940s incels. They want the dames to be described in detail, used for Hammer's pleasure, and then forgotten, and also, they don't know how babies behave either!

'The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2' includes three novels of Mickie Spillane's private detective Mike Hammer series. They include The Big Kill, Kiss Me Deadly, and One Lonely Night. Good action and dialogue, and also great pacing. If you enjoy reading the Hammer books, or enjoy watching the Mike Hammer TV series, you will enjoy this three book set.

Spillane's gut wrenching style writing in 3 stories!

Great product and service, thanks

Love these books.

one to look forward to,a good book, everything I expected.

It's worth reading IF you like old-fashioned crime mysteries and don't expect the literary quality of an "old-time" author like Dashiell Hammett. I first read two of the novels in this anthology when I was a teen and enjoyed them and I have enjoyed them again many decades later... but, I wouldn't recommend it to any younger male who fancies himself a progressive and liberated man. It's all about guns and babes, my young friends, guns and babes!