Kill Me If You Can by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

The year 2022 marks the 75th anniversary of the original publication of the very first Mike Hammer novel, I, the Jury, by Mickey Spillane way back in 1947. While a dozen more would follow, all penned by Spillane himself, he also left behind numerous unfinished manuscripts, summaries, radio scripts, ideas, etc. During his final week of life in 2006, Spillane asked his friend Max Allan Collins to continue the series and make good use of that material. MAC has been doing just that ever since and succeeding in fine style. This book is the thirteenth with both Spillane and Collins listed as authors, effectively doubling the original Spillane-only output and bringing the total to 26 Mike Hammer novels. Also of note, is the infamous 10-year gap in Spillane’s output, from 1952 to 1962. This novel, Kill Me If You Can falls chronologically between Kiss Me, Deadly and The Girl Hunters which bookend that decade-long gap.

The novel opens with Mike Hammer having been working a case for several weeks involving a high-end robbery crew. A month ago, they’d hit the “Civac reception” and gotten away with a lot of jewelry and other valuables. But we soon find out they had taken something much more valuable than jewels, something that boils Hammer’s blood and leads him on a desperate whirlwind of a chase.

Velda is missing.

Velda, Hammer’s secretary and PI partner, and much more than that if the ring he recently gave her is any indication. Has she been kidnapped? Murdered? To gain some more intel, Hammer turns to his old friend and mobster, Packy Paragon who is trying hard to go legit. The man has opened a nightclub which features his famous and beautiful wife Victoria as the star singing attraction. Hammer is not in a good place when this novel begins, his days filled with drinking and his nights failing to sleep. His cop buddy Pat Chambers, the chief of homicide has about had enough of him.

Max Allan Collins, once again does an excellent job of channeling Mickey Spillane and producing an excellent Mike Hammer novel. All the elements that you hope for are here including familiar and new characters, the hard-boiled driving plot, and the richly described atmosphere of the City. Always willing to use his gun to kill killers, Hammer never hesitates to hand out justice, even when temporarily without a permit or even a PI license. Not all plot points are resolved but many readers will already be familiar with what will happen because they are detailed in the follow-on novel, The Girl Hunters, published in 1962.

This is not a tremendously long novel but rather one that is tightly plotted and one that moves along at a nice clip. Happily, five additional short stories are also included in this volume including two Hammer tales. These are all good too and written in a style much like you might find in editions of Manhunt magazine or the like.

I’m not sure how much is left in the Spillane un-published material vault but I’m sure looking forward to anything MAC can coax out, collaborate on, write, polish and let loose on the world.