Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, 1918July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character,
Mike Hammer Michael Hammer or Mike Hammer may refer to:
*Michael Armand Hammer (1955–2022), American philanthropist and businessman
*Michael Martin Hammer (1948–2008), engineer and author
*Mike Hammer (character), a fictional hard boiled detective
** ''Mick ...
. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. Spillane was also an occasional actor, once even playing Hammer himself.
Early life
Frank Morrison Spillane was born March 9, 1918, in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York City, and raised in
, Spillane was the only child of his Irish bartender father, John Joseph Spillane, and his Scottish mother, Catherine Anne. Spillane attended
Erasmus Hall High School
Erasmus Hall High School was a four-year public high school located at 899–925 Flatbush Avenue between Church and Snyder Avenues in the Flatbush neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It was founded in 1786 as Erasmus Hall Ac ...
, graduating in 1935. He started writing while in high school, briefly attended
Fort Hays State College in Kansas and worked a variety of jobs, including summers as a lifeguard at
Breezy Point, Queens
Breezy Point is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, located on the western end of the Rockaway peninsula, between Rockaway Inlet and Jamaica Bay to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south. The community is run by ...
, and a period as a trampoline artist for the
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
![Lieutenant Frank Spillane, USAAF Instructor Pilot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Lieutenant_Frank_Spillane%2C_USAAF_Instructor_Pilot.jpg)
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Spillane enlisted in the
Army Air Corps Army Air Corps may refer to the following army aviation corps:
* Army Air Corps (United Kingdom), the army aviation element of the British Army
* Philippine Army Air Corps (1935–1941)
* United States Army Air Corps (1926–1942), or its p ...
, becoming a fighter pilot and a flight instructor.
He was first stationed at the air base in
Greenwood, Mississippi
Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverp ...
, where he met and married first wife Mary Ann Pearce in 1945.
He also met two younger writers,
Earle Basinsky
Earle Morris Basinsky, Jr. (1923–1963) was an American crime novelist and protégé of Mickey Spillane. He wrote two novels, 1955's ''The Big Steal'' and 1956's ''Death is a Cold, Keen Edge'', and five short stories.
Biography
Basinky was born ...
and
Charlie Wells, who would become his protégés; each published two hardboiled-noir novels in the Spillane style in the early 1950s.
Career
Comic books
Spillane claims that he started being published as an author of
slicks
A racing slick or slick tyre is a type of tyre that has a smooth tread used mostly in auto racing. The first production slick tyre was developed by M&H Tires in the early 1950s for use in drag racing. By eliminating any grooves cut into the tr ...
where he was credited under
house names
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condit ...
, then went "lower" to the
pulps, then went lower still as a writer for comic books. While working as a salesman in
Gimbels
Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the compa ...
department store basement in 1940, he met tie salesman
, who later found a lifetime career in scripting for
Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1945 to 1986, having begun under a different name: T.W.O. Charles Company, in 1940. It was based in Derby, Connecticut. The comic-book line was a division of Charlton ...
. Gill told Spillane to meet his brother, Ray Gill, who wrote for
Funnies Inc.
Funnies, Inc. was an American comic book packager of the late 1930s to 1940s period collectors and historians call the Golden Age of comic books, Golden Age of Comic Books. Founded by Lloyd Jacquet, it supplied the contents of early comics, includi ...
, an outfit that packaged comic books for different publishers.
Spillane soon began writing an eight-page story every day. He concocted adventures for major 1940s comic book characters, including
Captain Marvel,
Superman
Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and publi ...
,
Batman
Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on ...
and
Captain America
Captain America is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by cartoonists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the character First appearance, first appeared in ''#Golden Age, Captain America Comics'' #1 (cover ...
. In the early 1940s, working for Funnies, Inc., he wrote two-page text stories which were syndicated to various comic book publishers, including
Timely Comics
Timely Comics is the common name for the group of corporations that was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics. "Timely Publications became the name ...
. At one point, Spillane estimated he wrote fifty of these "short-short stories," which were intended to fulfill a postal regulation requiring comic books to have at least two pages of text to qualify for a second-class mailing permit.
While most comic books writers toiled anonymously, Spillane's byline appeared on most of his prose "filler" stories. 26 stories were collected in ''Primal Spillane: Early Stories 1941-1942'' (Gryphon Books, 2003). A new, expanded edition of
Primal Spillane' was released b
Bold Venture Pressin 2018, the new volume contained an additional fifteen stories, including the previously unpublished "A Turn of the Tide."
Novels
Spillane joined the United States Army Air Corps on December 8, 1941, the day after the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
. In the mid-1940s he was stationed as a flight instructor in
Greenwood, Mississippi
Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverp ...
, where he met and married Mary Ann Pearce in 1945. The couple wanted to buy a country house in the town of
Newburgh, New York
Newburgh is a city in the U.S. state of New York, within Orange County. With a population of 28,856 as of the 2020 census, it is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area. Located north of New York City, a ...
, 60 miles north of New York City, so Spillane decided to boost his bank account by writing a novel. He wrote ''
I, the Jury
''I, the Jury'' is the 1947 debut novel of American crime fiction writer Mickey Spillane, the first work to feature private investigator Mike Hammer.
Plot summary
The novel opens as private detective Mike Hammer is called to the apartment of i ...
'' in just 9 days.
At the suggestion of Ray Gill, he sent it to
E. P. Dutton
E. P. Dutton was an American Publishing, book publishing company. It was founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. Since 1986, it has been an imprint of Penguin Group.
Creator
Edward Payson Dutton ( ...
.
With the combined total of the 1947 hardcover and the Signet paperback (December 1948), ''I, the Jury'' sold 6-1/2 million copies in the United States alone. ''I, the Jury'' introduced Spillane's most famous character, hardboiled detective
Mike Hammer Michael Hammer or Mike Hammer may refer to:
*Michael Armand Hammer (1955–2022), American philanthropist and businessman
*Michael Martin Hammer (1948–2008), engineer and author
*Mike Hammer (character), a fictional hard boiled detective
** ''Mick ...
. Although tame by some standards, his novels featured more sex than competing titles, and the violence was more overt than the usual detective story. Covers tended to feature scantily dressed women or women who appeared as if they were about to undress. In the beginning, Mike Hammer's chief nemesis consisted of gangsters, but by the early '50s, this broadened to communists and deviants.
An early version of Spillane's Mike Hammer character, called Mike Danger, was submitted in a script for a detective-themed comic book. "Mike Hammer originally started out to be a comic book. I was gonna have a Mike Danger comic book," Spillane said in a 1984 interview.
Two Mike Danger comic-book stories were published in 1954 without Spillane's knowledge, as well as one featuring Mike Lancer (1942). These were published with other material in "Byline: Mickey Spillane," edited by Max Allan Collins and Lynn F. Myers, Jr. (Crippen & Landru publishers, 2004).
The Mike Hammer series proved hugely successful during the 1950s–60s, but the books were excoriated by the literary establishment.
Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley (August 24, 1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic. His best known works include his first book of poetry, ''Blue Juniata'' (1929), his lyrical memoir, ''Exile's Return ...
of ''
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...
'' called Spillane "a dangerous
paranoid
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concer ...
,
sadist, and
masochist
Masochist may refer to:
* Sadomasochism, giving or receiving pleasure from the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation
Music
* The Prophet (musician) (born 1968), Dutch DJ and producer who has recorded as The Masochist
Albums
* ''Masochist ...
" and even his own editors sometimes found his novels distasteful. Spillane for his part was unmoved by critics, saying "You can sell a lot more peanuts than caviar" and "The literary world is made of second rate writers writing about other second rate writers". Attractively low prices (25 cents for a paperback copy, later raised to 50 cents) helped sales, and the 1956 informative guide ''Sixty Years of Best Sellers'' found that the six novels Spillane had written up to that point were among the top ten best selling American fiction titles of all time.
The Signet paperbacks displayed dramatic front cover illustrations. Lou Kimmel created the cover paintings for ''My Gun Is Quick'', ''Vengeance Is Mine'', ''One Lonely Night'' and ''The Long Wait''. The cover art for ''Kiss Me, Deadly'' was by James Meese.
Acting
![Mickey spillane 1973](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Mickey_spillane_1973.JPG)
Spillane portrayed himself as a detective in ''Ring of Fear'' (1954), and rewrote the film without credit for John Wayne's and
Robert Fellows
Robert Fellows or Robert M. Fellows (August 23, 1903 in Los Angeles – May 11, 1969 in Los Angeles) was an American film producer who was once a production partner with John Wayne and later with Mickey Spillane.
Biography
Fellows entered Ho ...
' Wayne-Fellows Productions. The film was directed by screenwriter
James Edward Grant
James Edward Grant (July 2, 1905 – February 19, 1966) was an American short story writer, screenwriter and film director, who contributed to more than fifty films between 1935 and 1971. He collaborated with John Wayne on twelve projects, start ...
. Several Hammer novels were made into movies, including ''
Kiss Me Deadly
''Kiss Me Deadly'' is a 1955 American film noir produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez, and Wesley Addy. It also features Maxine Cooper and Cloris Leachman appearing in the ...
'' (1955). In ''
The Girl Hunters'' (1963) filmed in England, Spillane himself appeared as Hammer, one of the few occasions in film history in which an author of a popular literary hero has portrayed his own character. Spillane was scheduled to film ''
The Snake'' as a follow-up, but the film was never made.
On October 25, 1956, Spillane appeared on ''
The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
''The Ford Show'' (also known as ''The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford'' and ''The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show'') is an American variety program, starring singer and folk humorist Tennessee Ernie Ford, which aired on NBC on Thursday eveni ...
'', with interest on his Mike Hammer novels. In January 1974, he appeared with
Jack Cassidy
John Joseph Edward Cassidy (March 5, 1927 – December 12, 1976), was an American actor, singer and theater director known for his work in the theater, television and films. He received multiple Tony Award nominations and a win, as well a ...
in the television series ''
Columbo
''Columbo'' () is an American crime drama television series starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. After two pilot episodes in 1968 and 1971, the show originally aired on NBC f ...
'' starring
Peter Falk
Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 – June 23, 2011) was an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the long-running television series ''Columbo'' (1968–1978, 1989–2003), for which he ...
in the episode ''
Publish or Perish
"Publish or perish" is an aphorism describing the pressure to publish academic work in order to succeed in an academic career. Such institutional pressure is generally strongest at research universities. Some researchers have identified the pub ...
''. He portrayed a writer who is murdered. In 1995 and 1997, respectively, he appeared in the low budget films
Mommy and its sequel,
Mommy 2: Mommy's Day.
In 1969, Spillane formed a production company with Robert Fellows who had produced ''The Girl Hunters'' to produce many of his books, but Fellows died soon after and only ''The Delta Factor'' was produced.
During the 1980s, he appeared in
Miller Lite
Miller Lite is a 4.2% ABV light American lager beer sold by Molson Coors (previously MillerCoors) of Chicago, Illinois. The company also produces Miller Genuine Draft and Miller High Life. Miller Lite competes mainly with Anheuser-Busch's Bu ...
beer commercials. In the 1990s, Spillane licensed one of his characters to
Tekno Comix
Tekno Comix was an American publishing company that produced comic books from 1995 to 1997.
History
The company was founded by Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein as a division of their publicly traded company, Big Entertainment. Tekno Comix ...
for use in a science-fiction adventure series, ''Mike Danger''. In his introduction to the series, Spillane said he had conceived of the character decades earlier but never used him.
[
]
Reception
Early reaction to Spillane's work was generally hostile: Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley (August 24, 1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic. His best known works include his first book of poetry, ''Blue Juniata'' (1929), his lyrical memoir, ''Exile's Return ...
dismissed the Mike Hammer character as "a homicidal paranoiac."[Robert L. Gale, ''A Mickey Spillane companion'' Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2003. (ix)] John G. Cawelti called Spillane's writing "atrocious," and Julian Symons
Julian Gustave Symons (originally Gustave Julian Symons) (pronounced ''SIMM-ons''; 30 May 1912 – 19 November 1994) was a British crime writer and poet. He also wrote social and military history, biography and studies of literature. He was bor ...
called Spillane's work "nauseating." By contrast, Ayn Rand
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;, . Most sources transliterate her given name as either ''Alisa'' or ''Alissa''. , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and p ...
publicly praised Spillane's work at a time when critics were almost uniformly hostile. She considered him an underrated if uneven stylist and found congenial the black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
morality of the Hammer stories. She later publicly repudiated what she regarded as the amorality of Spillane's Tiger Mann stories.
Spillane's work was later praised by Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins (born March 3, 1948) is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his ''Road to Perdition'' series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the '' Di ...
, William L. DeAndrea
William Louis DeAndrea (July 1, 1952 - October 9, 1996) was an American mystery writer and columnist.
Biography
DeAndrea was born in Port Chester, New York in 1952 and was educated at Syracuse University. During the 1980s his job took him to E ...
and Robert L. Gale. DeAndrea argued that although Spillane's characters were stereotypes, Spillane had a "flair for fast-action writing," that his work broke new ground for American crime fiction, and that Spillane's prose "is lean and spare and authentically tough, something that writers like Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
and Ross Macdonald
Ross Macdonald was the main pseudonym used by the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar (; December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983). He is best known for his series of hardboiled novels set in Southern California and featur ...
never achieved."
German painter Markus Lüpertz
Markus Lüpertz (born 25 April 1941) is a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and writer. He also publishes a magazine, and plays jazz piano. He is one of the best-known German contemporary artists. His subjects are characterized by suggest ...
claimed that Spillane's writing influenced his own work, saying that Spillane ranks as one of the major poets of the 20th century. American comic book writer Frank Miller
Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957) is an American comic book writer, penciller and inker, novelist, screenwriter, film director, and producer known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on Daredevil (Marvel Comics ser ...
has mentioned Spillane as an influence for his own hardboiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...
style. Avant-Garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
musician John Zorn
John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...
composed a piece influenced by Spillane's writing titled ''Spillane
Spillane is a family name derived from the Ireland, Irish (Gaelic) surname Ó Spealáin or Mac Spealáin. It has also been anglicised as Spellman, Spillan, Spilane and Spallon. It may refer to:
People
* Adrian Spillane (born 1994), Gaelic football ...
.''
Awards and accolades
In 1983, Spillane received the lifetime achievement award
Lifetime achievement awards are awarded by various organizations, to recognize contributions over the whole of a career, rather than or in addition to single contributions.
Such awards, and organizations presenting them, include:
A
* A.C. ...
from the Private Eye Writers of America. He also received an Edgar Allan Poe Grand Master Award in 1995.
In popular culture
Walt Kelly
Walter Crawford Kelly Jr. (August 25, 1913 – October 18, 1973), commonly known as Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip ''Pogo (comic strip), Pogo''. He began his animation career in 1936 at The Walt ...
wrote two parodies of Hammer's work which satirized his spare, disjointed style, overblown first person narration, and teetering, barely controlled paranoia: "The Bloody Drip" and "The Bloody Drip Writhes Again", both starring Albert the Alligator as the detective Meat Hamburg. They were published in the following " Pogo" collections:
* "The Bloody Drip" by Mucky Spleen (1953, Uncle Pogo's So-So Stories)
* "Gore Blimey: The Bloody Drip Writhes Again" (1955, The Pogo Peek-a-Book)
Spillane was also parodied several times in ''Mad Magazine
Mad, mad, or MAD may refer to:
Geography
* Mad (village), a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia
* Mád, a village in Hungary
* Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, by IATA airport code
* Mad River (disambiguation), several r ...
''. The April, 1959 issue carried a piece called "If Mickey Spillane Wrote Nancy" (the comic strip Nancy, by Ernie Bushmiller
Ernest Paul Bushmiller Jr. (August 23, 1905 – August 15, 1982) was an American cartoonist, best known for creating the daily comic strip ''Nancy (comic strip), Nancy'', which premiered in 1938 and features the title character who has remained ...
).
The television show "MASH" had an episode devoted to Mickey Spillane and his books.
Personal life
Mickey and Mary Ann Spillane had four children (Caroline, Kathy, Michael, Ward). Their marriage ended in 1962. In November 1965, he married his second wife, nightclub singer
A nightclub act is a production, usually of nightclub music or comedy, designed for performance at a nightclub, a type of drinking establishment, by a nightclub performer such as a nightclub singer or nightclub dancer, whose performance may ...
Sherri Malinou. After that marriage ended in divorce (and a lawsuit) in 1983, Spillane shared his waterfront house in Murrells Inlet with his third wife, Jane Rogers Johnson, whom he married in October 1983, and her two daughters (Jennifer and Margaret Johnson).
In the 1960s, Spillane became a friend of the novelist Ayn Rand
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;, . Most sources transliterate her given name as either ''Alisa'' or ''Alissa''. , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and p ...
. Despite their apparent differences, Rand admired Spillane's literary style, and Spillane became, as he described it, a "fan" of Rand's work. Later in his life, Spillane became an active Jehovah's Witness
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ev ...
.
In 1989, Hurricane Hugo
Hurricane Hugo was a powerful Cape Verde tropical cyclone that inflicted widespread damage across the northeastern Caribbean and the Southeastern United States in September 1989. Across its track, Hugo affected approximately 2 million peop ...
ravaged his Murrells Inlet house to such a degree it had to be almost entirely reconstructed. A television interview showed Spillane standing in the ruins of his house.
Death and legacy
Spillane died July 17, 2006, at his home in Murrells Inlet, of pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...
."Mystery Novelist Spillane Dies"
''The Washington Times
''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout ...
'' After his death, his friend and literary executor,
Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins (born March 3, 1948) is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his ''Road to Perdition'' series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the '' Di ...
, began editing and completing Spillane's unpublished typescripts, beginning with a non-series novel, ''Dead Street'' (2007).
In July 2011, the community of Murrells Inlet named
U.S 17 Business the "Mickey Spillane Waterfront 17 Highway." The proposal first passed the
Georgetown County Council in 2006 while Spillane was still alive, but the
South Carolina General Assembly
The South Carolina General Assembly, also called the South Carolina Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of South Carolina. The legislature is bicameral and consists of the lower South Carolina House of Representatives and t ...
rejected the plan then.
Novels
Mike Hammer
* 1947 ''
I, the Jury
''I, the Jury'' is the 1947 debut novel of American crime fiction writer Mickey Spillane, the first work to feature private investigator Mike Hammer.
Plot summary
The novel opens as private detective Mike Hammer is called to the apartment of i ...
''
* 1950 ''
My Gun Is Quick''
* 1950 ''
Vengeance Is Mine''
* 1951 ''
One Lonely Night''
* 1951 ''
The Big Kill''
* 1952 ''
Kiss Me, Deadly''
* 1962 ''
The Girl Hunters''
* 1964 ''
The Snake''
* 1966 ''
The Twisted Thing''
* 1967 ''
The Body Lovers''
* 1970 ''
Survival... Zero!''
* 1989 ''
The Killing Man''
* 1996 ''
Black Alley''
Tiger Mann
* 1964 ''Day of the Guns''
* 1965 ''Bloody Sunrise''
* 1965 ''The Death Dealers''
* 1966 ''The By-Pass Control''
Morgan the Raider
* 1967 ''
The Delta Factor''
* 2011 ''The Consummata'' – completed by
Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins (born March 3, 1948) is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his ''Road to Perdition'' series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the '' Di ...
Other novels
* 1951 ''
The Long Wait''
* 1959 ''
Me, Hood'' A complete novelette printed in the July 1959 ''Cavalier'' magazine
* 1961 ''
The Deep''
* 1964 ''
Return of the Hood''
* 1964 ''
The Flier''
* 1965 ''Killer Mine''
* 1965 ''Man Alone''
* 1972 ''The Erection Set'' – a Dogeron Kelly novel; in the
Jacqueline Susann
Jacqueline Susann (August 20, 1918 – September 21, 1974) was an American novelist and actress. Her iconic novel, '' Valley of the Dolls'' (1966), is one of the best-selling books in publishing history. With her two subsequent works, '' The Lov ...
mould
* 1973 ''The Last Cop Out''
* 1979 ''The Day The Sea Rolled Back'' - young adult
* 1982 ''The Ship That Never Was'' - young adult
* 1984 ''Tomorrow I Die'' – collection of short stories
* 2001 ''Together We Kill: The Uncollected Stories of Mickey Spillane'' – collection of short stories
* 2003 ''Something's Down There'' – featuring semi-retired spy Mako Hooker
* 2007 ''Dead Street'' – completed by Max Allan Collins and featuring retired
NYPD
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
Captain Jack Stang, the name of a policeman friend of Spillane's
[Spillane, Mickey. ''Dead Street''. Hard Case Crime/Dorchester Publishing, 2007, p. 214.]
* 2015 ''The Legend of Caleb York'' – novelisation by Max Allan Collins (Based on an un-produced movie script by Mickey Spillane)
List of short stories
* 1989 ''The Killing Man'' – Mike Hammer short story later turned into a full-length Mike Hammer novel published in ''Playboy'' magazine December 1989, later republished in the book ''Byline: Mickey Spillane'' in 2004 (
Crippen & Landru
Crippen & Landru Publishers is a small publisher of mystery fiction collections, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1994 by husband and wife Sandi and Douglas G. Greene in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, and is named af ...
)
* 1996 ''Black Alley'' – Mike Hammer short story later turned into a full-length Mike Hammer novel published in ''Playboy'' magazine December 1996, later republished in the book ''Byline: Mickey Spillane'' in 2004 (Crippen & Landru)
* 1998 ''The Night I Died'' – Mike Hammer short story published in the anthology ''Private Eyes'' – although story was written in 1953, was not published until 1998
* 2003 ''Primal Spillane: Early Stories 1941-1942'' - With an introduction by Collins and
Lynn F. Myers Jr. – published by Gryphon Books.
* 2004 ''The Duke Alexander'' – Mike Hammer short story published in the book ''Byline: Mickey Spillane'' first published in 2004 (Crippen & Landru), although it was originally written circa 1956
* 2008 ''The Big Switch'' – Mike Hammer short story; completed by
Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins (born March 3, 1948) is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his ''Road to Perdition'' series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the '' Di ...
– published in ''The Strand Magazine'', reprinted in paperback in ''The Mammoth Book of the World's Best Crime Stories'', 2009
* 2009 ''I'll Die Tomorrow'' – (illustrated, limited edition of the short story, posthumous with Collins)
* 2010 ''A Long Time Dead'' – Mike Hammer short story; completed by Collins – published in ''The Strand Magazine''
* 2010 ''Grave Matter'' – Mike Hammer short story; completed by Collins – published in ''Crimes By Moonlight'', ed. Charlaine Harris
* 2012 ''Skin'' – Mike Hammer e-book short story; completed by Collins
* 2013 ''So Long, Chief'' – Mike Hammer short story; completed by Collins – published in ''The Strand Magazine'', Issue XXXIX, Feb. - May 2013
* 2014 ''It's In The Book'' – Mike Hammer e-book short story; completed by Collins
* 2015 ''Fallout'' – Mike Hammer short story; completed by Collins – published in ''The Strand Magazine''
* 2016 ''A Dangerous Cat'' – Mike Hammer short story; completed by Collins – published in ''The Strand Magazine'', Issue XLVIII, Feb. - May 2016
* 2016 ''A Long Time Dead: A Mike Hammer Casebook'' – a collection of short stories by Mickey Spillane and Collins – published by Mysteriouspress.com/Open Road (collection reprints the stories ''The Big Switch'', ''A Long Time Dead'', ''Grave Matter'', ''So Long, Chief'', ''Fallout'', ''A Dangerous Cat'', ''Skin'' (first time in print format), and ''It's In The Book'' (first time in print format))
* 2018 ''A Turn of the Tide'' — although written circa 1950, it was not published until 2018 in the expanded and revised edition o
''Primal Spillane''b
Bold Venture Press
* 2018 ''Tonight My Love'' – Mike Hammer short story; developed by Collins – published in ''The Strand Magazine'', Issue LVI, Oct. 2018 - Jan. 2019 – story developed from a Mickey Spillane radio-style playlet that was part of a Mike Hammer jazz LP (Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer Story) produced in 1954 by Mickey Spillane. This is the story of how Mike Hammer met Velda.
See also
*
History of crime fiction
Crime is a typically 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century genre, dominated by British and American writers. This article explores its historical development as a genre.
Crime fiction in history
Crime Fiction came to be recognised as a distinct litera ...
*
Hard boiled American crime fiction writing
*
List of ''Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer'' (1958 TV series) episodes
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
Biography of Jack Stang - The Real Mike Hammer ''
Alter Ego
An alter ego (Latin for "other I", " doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a differen ...
'' vol. 3, #11, November 2001. Accessed September 5, 2008
WebCitation archive
''Crime Time'' August 6, 2001, via Famous Jehovah's Witnesses
*
* Smith, Kevin Burton
''Thrilling Detective'', n.d
* Holland, Steve
''Crime Time'' 2.6, December 1999, via MysteryFile.com
* Meroney, John
"Man of Mysteries: It'd Been Years Since Spillane Pulled a Job. Could We Find Him? Yeah. It Was Easy" ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', August 22, 2001, p. C01
WebCitation archive
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