by Mickey Spillane
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Book Description
SEX AND VIOLENCE. Mickey Spillane, the tough-as-nails, bestselling publishing phenomenon knew what readers wanted. Now he's really letting them have it...times three.
MIKE HAMMER-Spillane's ultimate creation, the original no-holds-barred private eye who became homicide's hottest anti-hero.
THE MIKE HAMMER COLLECTION, VOLUME 1-the first-ever trade anthology of Spillane's masterpieces of literary mayhem. In one exciting collection, here are the first three novels featuring legendary detective Mike Hammer.
I, the Jury
My Gun is Quick
Vengeance is Mine!
Mickey Spillane is a master. (The New York Times)
Mickey Spillane is the living master of the hard-boiled mystery. (Detecting Men)
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 "It Was Easy." (No, it only looks that way), 2008-03-24
Back in the day when I was teaching university literature courses, I would annually shock some English department colleagues by suggesting to students that Raymond Chandler was a better writer than F. Scott Fitzgerald. I smile to think of their reactions today if I were teaching a course in American literature, in which I would spend serious time reading and discussing Mickey Spillane and his unforgettable character, Mike Hammer.
Spillane was never a trickster or sensationalist. He was a hard worker and a born storyteller who knew more about pacing and dialogue than most writers will ever know. He got readers to pay attention and turn the page, and he left the always wanting more. Even today, I dream of another new Hammer novel or two turning up somewhere in the dusty bottom drawer of a roll-top desk.
But even if they don't, I'll revisit Spillane/Hammer every few years, probably for the rest of my life. So many books are made for one reading, and that's it. Not these. Spillane succeeded in creating an iconic American character, a deeply flawed rebel with an unbreakable will and unwavering sense of what is right and good in life. The author and his main character were always true to themselves, and we're the beneficiaries of that truth.
Staying with these two is not tough to do; it's easy!
--Robert McDowell, The Poetry Mentor (www.robertmcdowell.net), author of POETRY AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE, July 15th, 2008, from Free Press.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Solid, tough-guy fiction, 2007-11-10
It had been around fifteen or twenty years since I had last read a Mickey Spillane book before I had started the Mike Hammer Collection Volume 1. Back then, it had been the first Hammer book, I, the Jury. Over the years, I had forgotten almost all about the book except the very end. Rereading it and the other two novels in this edition, I figured out that this was appropriate: Spillane ends his stories with exclamation points, not periods.
This omnibus edition contains the first three Mike Hammer novels: in addition to I, the Jury, there is My Gun is Quick and Vengeance is Mine. As with the other books, I, the Jury doesn't waste much time with exposition. By the end of the first page, we already have a dead body, in this case, Jack Williams, Hammer's best friend. Almost immediately, Hammer makes a vow: he will kill Jack's murderer. The bulk of the novel is Hammer's investigation, a combination of legwork, intuition, deduction and intimidation, with a little romance added into the mix. It is, in a way, a routine tough guy private eye story, with some decent writing and a memorable ending.
My Gun is Quick - the longest of the three novels - moves a little more slowly, with the first death not occurring until the eighth page. In this case, it is a prostitute trying to get out of the business and who briefly befriended Hammer. The investigation again takes Hammer into the seedy side of New York City, and unlike the first novel, Hammer takes a real beating this time. Eventually, however, he will get to administer his own violent sort of justice.
Vengeance is Mine! has a corpse not only on the first page, but in the first sentence. The trouble for Hammer is that the man was killed with the detective's gun while the hero was drunkenly unconscious. This leads to Hammer losing his license, but that doesn't stop him from finding the killer, in this case entangled with a modeling/call-girl outfit and an illegal casino.
Outside of Hammer, there are really only two recurring characters. Pat Chambers is a homicide captain who is Hammer's friend and tolerates Hammer's behavior because he delivers the goods. He is able to keep Hammer on a leash, but it is a long one and occasionally it doesn't work. Velda is Hammer's beautiful secretary, who adores her boss. Hammer knows he should marry her, but at the same time he can't keep away from all the other beautiful women who fall for his hard attitude.
Mike Hammer, however, is the center of each story, a narrator with barely restrained rage. He is often a bully, but he also has a sense of fairness and is more tolerant than many fictional detectives of this era, even having a love affair with a prostitute in My Gun is Quick. In I, the Jury, Spillane is still honing Hammer's voice, but by the second novel, he has Hammer perfected. This is not great art - I doubt even Spillane would have claimed that - but it is solid entertainment and really hard boiled fiction in the classic vein.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Great fun!, 2007-10-07
These three novels are great fun. The publisher also deserves credit for an attractive product at a bargain price. I read all three novels within a few weeks, and then did the same with volume two. Anyone who likes these books will also enjoy reading Raymond Chandler. It's a close contest, but I liked Chandler even a little better. Chandler's main character (Phillip Marlowe) spends less time boasting than Spillane's (Mike Hammer), and is also more real-life in his need to make a living. But you are cheating yourself if you don't read them both.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Entertaining Hard-Boiled Noir Reading, 2007-09-01
The Mike Hammer tales are not for the faint of heart by any means. Mickey Spillane's hard-drinking, nihilistic, hard-bitted, two-fisted private gumshoe is forever driven by a dark sense of personal honor and a thirst for vengeance. He doesn't suffer fools, or anyone else, and wears his emotions clearly on his sleeve. One can see why he became so popular in the repressed, McCarthyistic days of the 1950s.
The Mike Hammer Collection Vol. 1 contains the first three of Spillane's Mike Hammer novels - I, the Jury, My Gun is Quick, and Vengeance is Mine! - which, as a rule, follow the standard formula of detective novels - there is a murder under mysterious circumstances, and when the P.I. digs deeper, he discovers a startling or seamy secret no one expects, which throws him in even more danger. In all honesty, after reading two of the Make Hammer novels, the plots become fairly predictable, and the identity of the grand, string-pulling villain behind it all can be guessed from early-on.
However, one doesn't read Spillane for the plot - he is clearly a style man, and it is the style that will keep you reading through this volume and volume 2 (which I also recommend). Spillane's world is a dark and dreary version of New York City where a sort of Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest worldview prevails. The people on the bottom-rung of society are barely scraping by, and crime and decay are on every street corner. The perfect lion of this particular asphault jungle is Mike Hammer, a veteran of WWII's Pacific Theater who eats, drinks, fights and loves with equal intensity.
All of the stories are written in the first person, giving us a window into Hammer's inner monologues, which are sometimes juvenile and rudimentary, and sometimes rather profound. Hammer is an intolerant, hair-trigger sort of fellow; the women of the books are femme fatales of the highest order; the villains are inscrutable and unscrupulous. Most shocking is the violence in Spillane's work, which is quick and brutal and vivid - even by the standards of today's jaded audiences. For those who have enjoyed Hammett and Chandler and are looking for a different read, you can't do much better than Mike Hammer.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
I grew up with Mike Hammer, 2007-07-23
Bought this for my son so he could read something else besides Star War books. Growing up I bought and read every one. I never looked back.
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