Me, Hood (Mike Hammer) by Mickey Spillane

I picked this up in honor of the 100th birthday of Mickey Spillane but to be honest, that was just an excuse.  This is actually my very first Mickey Spillane experience and I’ve been itching to try one.  A couple of friends suggested I start with something other than a Mike Hammer book because they preferred his standalones and since I had this on the shelf it was an easy pick.

This volume includes two short novels: “Me, Hood” and “Return of the Hood”.  Ryan is a hoodlum, a man who skirts the law and frequently crosses the line but is smart enough to get away with it almost always.  He is often called, simply “Hood” or sometimes “Irish”.  In the first story he is conned by the police in order to bring justice to a situation that is beyond the rules of proper police procedure.  His brand of violence and his connections provide just the spark that’s needed.  The second story has a bit of an international espionage flavor to it as Hood is randomly entrusted by a desperate female spy with a capsule containing top secret microfilm.  Unfortunately, he has simultaneously been accused by a gang leader of offing his little brother and during the resulting chaos, Hood loses the capsule.  

These novellas were almost exactly what I expected from Spillane.  Lots of hard boiled crime, violence, femme fatales etc.  They are told in that wonderful first-person POV that works so well and allows for many a glib one-liner.  I’m not sure how these two stories rank on the Mickey Spillane quality index but they worked well for me as an introduction and I feel confidant they won’t be my last.