To The Last Page

As someone who hasn't previously read a Mike Hammer book or indeed anything by Mickey Spillane before, the first short opening chapter of I, the Jury (and possibly that title) looks like it tells you all you need to know about his famous PI creation. Hammer has just walked into the scene of the murder of his friend Detective Jack Williams, where someone has killed him with a snub nosed bullet shot from a .45 into the lower stomach. Williams saved Mike's life in the war, losing an arm in the process, and whoever shot him apparently just sat and watched him helplessly suffering an agonising death. Hammer is incensed and swears that he will see justice done. Not police justice, he tells his police detective friend Pat Chambers, but with himself acting as judge, jury and executioner. It might sound like emotive talk, but Hammer soon puts any doubts about his methods behind, telling us the next day that people think he is a " kill-crazy shamus ". " I shoot them like ...