QUICK SHOTS: Mike Hammer #10: The Body Lovers by Mickey Spillane

I came to Mickey early. I had read some Joe Lansdale, some James Crumley, then some Hammett and finally some Chandler. I've said it before that Chandler and I'll say it again. Marlowe doesn't always do much for me. I guess I'm not romantic enough. And Hammett could write circles around him. So, after my Chandler I found a stack of Spillane's at a book sale, but none of the ones the internet was telling to read to start. It was a pile of his short story collections, The Tough Guys and Me, Hood plus a Tiger Mann or two and some late-period Hammer's like The Snake and Survival...Zero. The last one in the pile was The Erection Set. 

I started with The Erection Set. Taking it along to a trip to grandma's and getting the full reading it under the cover experience (since it had Spillane's naked wife on the cover and didn't want to scandalize grandma) and it was an eye-opener. I quickly made it a mission to track down more Spillane. He was sorta a nuclear bomb going off in my head. It was the tough guy private eye stuff I was liking, but action (and sex) filled. He was a guy for me, for sure. I went through most of the Hammers and my personal favorite Spillane, The Deep in short order. I've had a lot of fun experiences reading Spillane novels. I was reading a Hammer in a bar one time before someone took a swing at me over me talking to a lady. I listened to Dead Street with a .40 Cal Glock on my hip in the front of an armored car as I drove too much money around. I took a Spillane on my honeymoon...I don't think I read much of it though. 

SIDE-NOTE, one of my treasured possessions is an autographed first edition of The Deep scored for $1 from a thrift store. I didn't realize it was sign until AFTER I read the thing either. 

Luckily, it's been long enough since I've read a lot of his books that if I reread them, they will be mostly new experiences. It had been too long since I read one, and the other day at this warehouse that sells books, Blu-ray's and DVDs for around a buck I ended up with an extra copy of The Body Lovers. This one a later Signet edition from the 80s/90s with some nice clean retro artwork. The best thing is that it has some bigger font. The old Signet editions that I read originally have SUPER small font and my eyes aren't getting any younger. Makes you crave a Lancer Easy Eye.

So, The Body Lovers is probably no-ones favorite Mike Hammer, it's not mine but I had a lot of fun with it. This is one is sorta towards the end of the "second run" Hammers when Spillane came back after his Jehovah's Witness conversion, after this one and Survival...Zero, everyone had to wait until 1989 to get a new Mike Hammer. Mike and Mickey are both older here, a little more mellow but still free with a wisecrack, a fist or a shot from a smokin' .45 and not to mention everyone's favorite gal Velda is still by his side. 

You can come home again, cause I had a helluva time visiting. Spillane could write a page turner. His way with words was commendable, it's clear why he was as popular he was. Every line makes you wanna jump to the next. He called his readers "customers," and I'm a tried-and-true customer. Mickey's style is at once wonderfully old fashioned and strikingly fresh, he swings some of the same punches as Agatha Christie and yet is the hardest of the hard-boiled. And make no mistake Mike Hammer is a detective. He puts in the time; he's got receipts for all his legwork and all his jawing with characters. Sure, there's some easy "conclusions" and some random "coincidences," but he's gotten a bad rap for this kind of writing. 

So, if you're popular ya gotta be bad right? That's the way the reviewers treated Mickey. There're some reviews that hurt my writer's heart to this day. Which is no small feat. I'm here to say Mickey was FRAMED. Mickey wrote like Lays makes potato chips. I think both are grand and I know professional chefs who like potato chips and a lot reviewers rarely see the forest for the trees. Can ya tell Mickey's a favorite?

But what about The Body Lovers? Well, Mike is driving around and guess what? He runs into a nude woman in lingerie. We're off and running. Along the way he tangles with sadistic pimps, international crime-dude rings, ladies throw themselves at him, he gets a client in prison via a hidden note, gets to shoot his .45 caliber best friend and gets to dish out hot justice for the little guys of the world. Mike's an avenger character. He's tough enough and brave enough to take on the nasty people in power and he serves his purpose here. 

Like I said this is probably no-ones favorite Hammer, but it's a rollicking read, a trip though the nasty parts of town with you pal Mike. Spillane never lost his pure readability. You pick this one (or hell any of them) and you'll find yourself happily flipping the pages until its done. The Body Lover's might not reach the fevered pitch of an I, the Jury or a One Lonely Night, but it's got more than enough gas in the tank to drive to a good time. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: The Penetrator #1: The Target is H by Lionel (Mark Roberts) Derrick

It's hard to believe it's taken me this long to get around to reviewing a Penetrator novel here. Before the blog, I read a two-fistfuls in pretty quick succession and it as a series is high on my list of favorite Men's Adventure series. Then promptly didn't read one for years. Too much Hardin in my life. Wait.

It's a funky bunch of books that sometimes feel like a Roger Moore Bond film, sometimes an episode of Baretta or Banacek or Lookwell. Wait. and other times it's a bloody orgy of death and destruction. It's got a lot of the buzzword-trappings of the 70s. The interest in Native American history, "computers," obviously the mafia, and Mark Hardin aka The Penetrator's hideout really feels like it's the playset to a very violent series of G.I. Joe-knockoffs. (Go to YouTube and watch the Lookwell pilot starring Adam West. You'll thank me)

But I hadn't read the first Penetrator, in fact I rarely read the first installment of series like these. I guess I'm afraid of dull set-ups. But as of this review, I'm VERY close to finishing the first novel in a series that's very much a throwback to the heroes of 70s. It's the first, full-length novel that I'll publish. My first book, Gunpowder Breath, didn't really get to the full word count; it'd be a novella or a novelette if it had ever got the chance to be published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. This one, *TITLE REDACTED* is the length of a Gold Medal paperback or a Gold Eagle adventure, so it's good and I might even try to find a real publisher for it (let me know if you got any suggestions, ha!) so I have bragging rights. 

All that to say, writing the first in a series got me to think about all the first installments I had avoided. So, as I finish the first draft and go into the second I thought I might see how others did their first installments. So, I dug out the Butcher #1, Death Merchant #1, Executioner #1, etc. etc. some of which I have read, but it was ages ago to take a look at again. So, keep an eye out of this unofficial series of #1s here on the site. 

All that to get to Penetrator #1: The Target is H. This one it's an odd-numbered book in the series so it's written by Mark K. Roberts (Chet Cunningham handled the evens) who wrote a lot in the Men's Adventure field, writing the Liberty Corps and Solider for Hire books as well as westerns and, you know, anything that made him a buck. Respect. He's a pretty solid action writer, with a real meat 'n' potatoes style. I think I generally prefer Chet Cunningham though. I've read a bunch of the adventures of Mark Hardin, but I don't really remember if I'd ever really read one of his. I must have but there's been a lot of books ran through my brain over the years.

Obviously, this is a set-up novel for a long-running series. Mark Hardin is a 'Nam vet who comes home battered from his work overseas. Hardin doesn't know what he's doing...for like three pages and then he's on his quest to kill the mafia for killing the love of his life. It's an incredibly swift set-up, so swift that I had to re-read to double check if some pages weren't missing. It gets through with his backstory (most of which is provided for in with faux-record and stats at the beginning of the book) in ten pages before they introduce his secondary characters and his secret lair. Then bingo-bango he's off a-murdering bad guys. 

Mark Hardin is super similar to the rest of our buddies, Mack Bolan, Bucher the Butcher, Johnny Rock, Philip Magellan, etc. etc. He's got a little more fantasy/pulp hero vibes going on with his sidekicks the mad scientist and Native American buddy and gadgets. It'd be easy to make an illusion to The Spider or Doc Savage, but maybe he's just a little more like John Eagle, Expeditor. Either way he's a cool dude. I think I dig this series because of this exact flavor. Hardin doesn't mull of his mission to take down the mafia; he hangs up in a desert lair with his buddies and then goes out and fucks shit up. Seems like a fine life. 

The Target is H has Hardin taking down a heroin ring on his quest to rid the world of mafia scum. These books are a little wilder/gorier than the usual Executioner but never hit Destroyer levels of funny. There's plenty of shoot-outs, mafia goons, fightin' and particular gruesome bit with sticky firebombs that's pretty gnarly. Here everything is a little loose and Roberts/Cunningham hadn't fully locked in the character or the world which is some of the charm of reading early series books. They are wild and the beginning, get "standard" in the middle and usually devolve into some wild again toward the end. 

These used to haunt nearly every used books store I went too; I got a couple volumes in "blind bag" mystery piles of books when I was a teenager. I remember snickering at the obvious Mark Hardin-Penetrator-Joke. I still laugh a little. Nowadays they are a little scarcer and a bit pricier (which seems to be EVERY Men's Adventure book now) I got most of mine in a couple big lots off eBay, giving me a lot of cheap entertainment. Which is exactly what this series is. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Hardy #5: Reunion for Death by Martin Meyers

The Hardy series was one of my first brushes of the Men's Adventure field. Which is pretty funny if you've ever read a Hardy. I stumbled upon the book on the fabled Thrilling Detective website, probably after reading a few Shell Scotts and wanting something similar but different. I do recall that they were some of my first online book purchases from eBay all those years ago. I've only ever seen one Hardy in a bookstore in my travels, which I bought to complete my set. That was luck. They seem pretty scarce, but I don't know what the demand is for them either. 

Patrick Hardy stars in, uh, Hardy #5: Reunion for Death. He's a New York private eye with a business called Trouble Ltd. He loves the ladies, lives with his big dog and has a barber chair in his living room. He used to be a fat guy but after getting shot in the stomach he slimmed down, but his weight issues take up a lot of discussion throughout the series. After he slimmed down, he got drafted but he was a coward, so the Army sent him to get hypnotic training. So, when danger appears his body takes over and he's a master of the fighting arts, even though he's scared out of his mind the whole time. Happened to all of us at one time, right?

This is a real weird series. It has more in common with something like Ted Mark's The Man from ORGY than any sort of hardboiled detective or Men's Adventure fiction. Hardy spends most of the time trying/having sex with various women throughout the books. If he's not sexing he's watching old movies on TV or eating, going to the doctor or thinking about eating or reading TV Guide. Oh, and sometimes he lazily solves a mystery or has a very-brief fistfight. 

I have no idea why I like these so much (I seem to be in the minority on the internet in this regard), but these are fun hang-out novels. I like Hardy, we have similar interests. Are his tales as thrilling or action packed as the wonderful Walter Popp covers suggest? No. No, they are not. I'm sure the bait-and-switch element is working against Hardy here, but I don't care. I like the covers AND the stories. Here Hardy's old college friends pull him into a drug smuggling ring and murders ensue. Hardy hangs out until it's all solved.

Martin Meyers was an actor and one part of Maan Meyers with his wife under which they wrote historical mysteries. He's got a light, bright and funny style. Breezy is a good word for it. Some folks liked Hardy because he popped back up in the 90s in a fun short story in Private Eyes, an anthology edited by none-other-than Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. High Praise.

Here's a fun video from CBS mornings where they interview Martin and Annette for their collaborations. Hardy even gets a mention, as well as Martin's film work. 

If the Hardy books didn't have all the sex and the under-used "programed fighting" gimmick, settled down to be more engaging mysteries and were published in hardback I bet they would have been more successful. I'm glad they weren't. I like them just the way they are.

Your mileage may vary. 

QUICK SHOTS: A Lonely Place to Die by Art Bourgeau

Every now and then, I'll roll the dice. It's a big gamble. I'll buy a whole series of books without reading one of them or anything by the author. It'll usually be at used bookstore and a spur of the moment thing. I mean whatever more books is never a problem to me. That's how I ended up all four of Art Bourgeau's "Snake" Kirlin mystery series. I probably picked them up because they were slim Charter books. I don't run across a lot of Charter books, so I'll pretty much always take note of them if I see them and this being a rural set mystery seemed interesting. 

Art Bourgeau apparently had a mystery bookshop and wrote The Mystery Lover's Companion, a book of reviews of mystery novels that I remember checking out of a library at one time but remember nothing about. Either way, he's got mystery chops. He wrote a couple of stand-alones, but his main work seems to be this series about Claude "Snake" Kirlin and F.T. Zevich, two ex-marines who get involved with various murders. Sounds like fun.

A Lonely Place to Die is the first in the series and we are introduced to Snake and F.T. as they return to Snake's old hometown where there's a mayoral race happening where (gasp) a woman is running for mayor! It's riled up all dudes in the 1980s town. Small town life and its quirks is painted well throughout the book. I'm from a one-horse town and I instantly knew a lot of the people Bourgeau wrote about. Anyway, Snake and F.T. mostly want to hang out in a shack, drink beer, joke and fish. Until they do something, honestly despicable to get the murder plot going.

It's a book very much of its time and place. It seems like Bourgeau wanted to meld mystery fiction to the bawdy literary fiction (and its questionable sexual politics) that was happening in the 70's. This is a book more interested in day-drinkin' and vibes than getting down to any detective work. I found the writing pretty fun. I was curious to hang out with F.T. and Snake, even after they did something I found super gross (I'll get to it) mostly because it's not a big deal to the rest of the characters for the rest of the novel. Bourgeau is able to create some fun banter and good 'ol boy-ism's. It did have the feel of a 70s Hicksploitation B-Movie, with mentions of Waylon Jennings, Leon Russell and other musicians I dig which was fun. Anyway, here's the unfun spoiler thingy. 

 

MILD-SPOILER --

So, F.T. and Snake are in their shack in the woods and F.T. sees two women pull up to a nearby cabin. The women begin to kiss outside the cabin then go inside. F.T. goes and peeps on them through a window and the women are having sex. F.T. goes back and the boys wait for days, staking out the cabin for the women to return with a camera.

The women do return. Snake and F.T. takes photos of the women having sex, once they have them, they bust in a blackmail both women into having sex with THEM with the photos. It was a bizarre thing to have your two "heroes" do. And later it's pretty much brushed over, and Snake has a romantic relationship with one of the women and the other is the murder victim that spurn the whole plot.

SPOILER OVER --

 

So, I kept reading this to see if it ever seemed to be a big deal within the plot, nope, it just seems to be played as "boys will be boys," and other then the photos coming into play (minorly) later it's never a big deal. Just gross. It's a pretty dark lump to have in your mostly for laughs mystery-novel. I might not even think about it being in a twisted adventure of The Sharpshooter or in other trashy series, but it stuck out like a sore thumb here. I'm all for complicated characters but if you're not going to explore anything you set-up what's the point of doing it?

Anyway, the mystery itself is sorta not really explored too much. Things happen to solve it without Snake or F.T. doing much. The "red herrings" are all sorta light pink at best, most of the book is devoted to watching houses, bathing in rivers while always trying to get laid and drinking tons of beer. 

The books did have some minor Joe R. Lansdale's Hap and Leonard book vibes, but nowhere near as good. But I got all of them, maybe someday I'll check out the second book, The Most Likely Suspects to see if it was in better and if by the second Bourgeau rounded off the sharp edges any. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Quarry #2: The Broker's Wife by Max Allan Collins

I've long been a fan of Max Allan Collins work. A couple of his novelizations were some of the first "grown-up" books I read when I made the switch from Hardy Boys and Sherlock Holmes to the harder stuff. I read quite a few Nathan Heller's in my teenage years and read through some of his comic book work but Nolan and especially Quarry eluded me for a long time. First off, I think I just never ran into them at the used books stores I used to haunt. I picked them up when I saw them, but they were all out of order. And I knew I'd like them, so I wanted to read them through the right way. 

When I did get my hands on the first Quarry, I read it quick and guess what? I liked it a lot then the series sorta became one of the ones that I decided to "savor" waiting for the right time when I needed a sure-fire treat. Since I'm still getting over the reading slump I was in that I talked about in the last review I wanted some sure-fire hits. And I don't think I'll be waiting too long to tackle any more of them.

The Broker's Wife has Quarry, a mid-western hitman who is in quasi-hiding after being around when his boss, The Broker got dead. He's mostly just bored, so when two hired killers come and try to take him out, he's relived to be back in the fray. Along the way he tackles with more killers, shady lawyers and, obviously, the titular Broker's Wife. This is a clean book man; everything works and isn't showy about it. Max's style is sparse and wryly funny. The twists are laid out before and waiting for you to remember about when he lets you in on the REST of the story. Never fails to make you smile. 

Quarry himself is a lot fun too. He's a tough guy, sure, a 'Nam vet who has no qualms about murdering people for money, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have a sense of humor. The humor element is a little stronger here and I think it grows a little more as the series goes on. All-in-all, you just sorta like Quarry, he seems like a good guy to have a soda pop with, as long as you don't cross him.

So, The Broker's Wife (also published as Quarry's List) is a fun time, halfway through I paused my reading and watched The Last Lullaby, a feature film based on the Quarry short story A Matter of Principle. The movie was written by Max and stars Tom Sizemore as Price (Quarry) who does a pretty good job, his Quarry isn't quite as relatable/funny but its solid casting. The movie is an indie joint so adjust your expectations. It's a sturdy adaptation with some flair and really nice acting by Tom and Sasha Alexander. It also seems to take a little from the ending of The Broker's Wife, so I could sorta see where this book was going after a bit. Didn't affect the enjoyment any though. 

So, this one's got like the easiest and highest recommendation. All the Quarry books are easy to get too with Hard Case Crime republishing and publishing the new adventures of Quarry, which isn't always the norm in the books I review here. So, you got no excuse not to pick one or all of them up. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Hardman #1: Atlanta Deathwatch by Ralph Dennis

 

I've been in a reading slump, nothing to worry about it happens time to time. I start a new book, and it won't grab me. Maybe it's the books' fault, maybe it's my fault. But I had to get it squared away. I'm a read after all. So, I turned to my old buddy Jim Hardman and his old buddy Hump. 

Right out of his college days, my buddy and me ended up in Jacksonville Florida. I was still drifting in and out of colleges back then about to take up a criminal justice degree that would later turn out to be fairly useless. Well, expect maybe as a crime writer. Anyway, he wanted to go down to Florida for some sort of job fair and had a free ticket. I soaked up free booze and food, rode a monorail like that one in that Simpsons episode, hit the bookstores and loafed.

I had heard of the Hardman books before that from my lurking around the Thrilling Detective website. They sounded up my alley. I was on the lookout for something to bring up the James Crumley feeling that Joe R. Lansdale feeling. Something low-down and mean. That cynical 70s-thing that so many try to replicate but came easy back in the day. I hadn't really dipped my toe into the Men's Adventure world at the time, so the numbers on the covers worried me a bit. But I knew I liked private eyes and action and, hell, that's what it promised on the cover.

It was also before I really bought books online. I remember thinking spending four bucks on a book with free shipping sounded like a ripoff. the young me would certainly look cross at me for how much I've spent on online book purchases now. So, my purchase pool was small, and I never came across a Hardman book. But it turns out this bookstore was a good one and it had a whole stack of them, for something like two bucks a piece. What a score. 

After humping back to my hotel room with a bag of books and a few quarts of beer I read Atlanta Deathwatch while my buddy sat in seminar and my mind was blown. Ralph Dennis's work was something special. It was different, hard-boiled as hell but Jim Hardman himself wasn't a cartoon character. He lived and breathed, (and drank) he was fallible but got his man and was tough but knew his limitations. And his partner Hump was cool, confident and a real buddy. A good guy to have in your corner. They had a certain vibe or a certain music to them. They felt like a good Guy Clark album or a riotous live country show, hard-bitten with a few lines of pure poetry. Things I know well. 

What really struck me is, like Joe R. Lansdale's Hap and Leonard books is that they felt like men I knew and grew up with. Being from a small KS town, I didn't feel much connection to New York or L.A., but Atlanta didn't seem too far away, and the restaurants and bars seemed like they could be familiar. I really understood the small towns that Hump and Hardman would go to from time to time, which I imagine would be alien to some city folk. It was a nice change of pace.

So, I eventually tracked them all down, a few more added from a Gardner's Used Books in Tulsa with a few of Ralph's stand-alone books, one picked up on the road in a truck stop along with a few Bruno Rossi Sharpshooters, the rest on online. They were a secret to me then, a series of books that only I seemed to know about and dig. I read a good chunk of them while working as Pinkerton guard at an aircraft plant. Eventually Lee Goldberg found out he loved them too and got them reprinted and I wasn't alone, a lot of people found out how good Ralph was. 

Atlanta Deathwatch is the one I started with, and it's been the longest since I read it, so I pulled it off the shelf. It was a good choice; I read it with ease and enjoyment rather quickly. I forgot how rough and tumble this first one is, some of the edges are smoother (just a bit) as the series goes on. Maybe it's Ralph or Hardman getting slightly older, maybe its Marcy, Hardman's complicated girlfriend. But they're a tour of the mean streets of 70s Atlanta with detours to the rich dudes as Hardman and Hump investigate the death of a co-ed who was tangled up with The Man, a black mobster. There're beatings, killings, shoot-outs and sieges, you know all the good stuff. It's a twisty mystery to boot. It's really just a helluva book.

So, I'll probably re-read them again, this time fully in order (I had to read what I had the first time) and since I remember only the feelings not the plot by this point, it'll be as close as new to me as I can get. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

REVISITED QUICK SHOTS: Cut by Jerry Bronson

 

Cut by Jerry Bronson is something of a legend book in certain trash circles. It took me a couple of years to track mine down. That's a lot of saved searches on eBay, Wishlist clicking and searching of any place that sold used books online. Eventually I got it from an online compadre (thanks, Stan!) and read it right up. I chronicled that in depth here and the other day I started writing what will (probably) my second novel, an extra violent/comic private eye tale and decided to re-read some stuff that I'm using for inspiration. So, be on the lookout for "Revisited Quick Shots," if that's your bag.

This is a Laurence James/John Harvey joint. Legend has it they took turns writing it and since they are British writers sent it off to British publishers who promptly thought it was "too violent" to publish. I don't know if that's the case or if it's just a better story. Especially since Piccadilly Westerns exist. But either way it ended up stateside as a one-off by Pinnacle. It must not have set the world on fire. I imagine the lackluster photo cover might have had something to do with it. Copies are scarce, so it must have had a low print-run or got remanded or maybe someone went around and bought them all up. Who knows?

But it's certainly ripe for sleaziods to love in 2026. A nasty little slice of private eye fiction set in California with the hunt for a rich lady's missing sister leading to cults and *dun-dun* snuff films. The P.I. is Reagan, a hard drinkin' ex-cop whose lady died from a drug overdose so he's gruff about it, but it doesn't stop him from sexing the ladies. He's in the classic mold, broke, tough who packs a .44 Magnum (when it's not a .45 automatic, the writer's must not have talked much) and asthmatic. Well, maybe not the asthmatic part. There's sex, a Boris Karloff/Vincent Price-type horror star, rich ladies, overweight hookers, sleaze and SLEAZE, action, crazed cult members and leaders and some truly graphic gore. 

So, it's a good time. It's certainly not a carefully crafted mystery. It's a seat-of-the-pantser and a one-upper. The writers certainly appeared to have fun churning it out. All of that appeals to me. Sometimes I want some good writing (I'm reading Butcher's Moon by Richard (Donald Westlake) Stark now and WOW is it getting good) but other times I want a drunk guy on a barstool next to me to tell me a wild-ass tale that he probably shouldn't. That's what Cut is. I like Reagan enough, but the real star is the sleaze with an extra side of sleaze. 

There's been some rumblings about people trying to get it republished, but nothing solid. I'd imagine it'd happen eventually; everything comes back around. I hope so anyway, I'm just not giving up my copy of it!