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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 9, No. 38 |
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MIKE HAMMER'S LAST CASE?
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Spillane wanted to wrap up
Mike Hammer's career
of TheColumnists.com
Before he died in August of 2006, Mickey Spillane was working hard to complete what he intended to be the final Mike Hammer mystery novel. He left behind a nearly complete rough draft manuscript and copious notes.
Now, with the help of Spillane's friend and frequent collaborator, Max Allan Collins, that book is available. It's called "The Goliath Bone" (Harcourt, $23) and it certainly feels like the coda Spillane wanted for the toughest of America's hard-boiled private eye heroes.
In his special afterword in the book--aptly called "A Tip of the Porkpie Hat"--Collins explains that Spillane actually had four novels in progress when he died. In 1999, Spillane told Collins that he was working on a Hammer novel called "King of the Weeds," which was his choice to be the final book in the series. He apparently changed his plans after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on America and started what became "The Goliath Bone" instead.
The plot is, as you might expect, simple: Mike Hammer intervenes in an attempted killing of a young couple in New York City by a Middle Eastern terrorist. Hammer learns the terrorist was after a priceless artifact the young couple had just brought in from Israel: A bone from the skeleton of the biblical giant Goliath, which they had uncovered during an expedition to the fabled Valley of Elah where the Jewish lad David had slain Goliath.
Spillane's notion is that Al-Qaeda wants the preserved femur because they identify with the Philistines, the arch enemies of the ancient Israelis, and Goliath was their hero. The Israeli Mossad is after the bone, too, because they don't want it to ignite a new holy war against Israel. The FBI wants it because they figure it will pose security risks if left in private hands in America. Meanwhile, promoters are after it as a giant sideshow attraction, among them a Broadway version of P.T. Barnum who wants to use it in his "David and Goliath" musical, featuring a 10-foot tall animatronic Goliath and one of America's reigning rock stars as David.
The young couple--the boy is the son of a famous scientist and the girl is the daughter of the scientist's new wife--want the artifact studied at the university where their parents work. So, they hire Mike Hammer to protect them and keep the bone from falling into the wrong hands.
Plot was never Spillane's strong point, so this one is rather goofy, to say the least. It has heavy shades of "The DaVinci Code" all through it, not to mention a little "King Kong" and, at the very climax, a clever tip of the hat to Spillane's first novel, "I, the Jury," which only the mentally deficient won't see coming a mile away.
But the reason to read "The Goliath Bone" is to pay your final respects to Mike Hammer, the era-defining private eye whose enormous popularity in the early 1950s revolutionized publishing by turning the paperback market into a goldmine that has never stopped paying dividends. Spillane, who started out writing the storylines for comic books, including "Captain America" and "Submariner," created his private eye character for a comic book to be called "Mike Danger, Private Eye," which he couldn't sell. Hard up for money, Spillane spent nine days toughening up Mike Danger as a detective novel instead, adding a heavy dose of sex, and renaming him Mike Hammer. The book, "I, the Jury," did well, but its paperback edition sold in the tens of millions. Quickly, Spillane churned out five more Hammer novels, all of them mighty best-sellers.
Mike Hammer has been the hero of one radio series, two TV series (first with Darren McGavin, then with Stacy Keach) and numerous movies, including "My Gun is Quick," "Kiss Me, Deadly" and two versions of "I, the Jury." Spillane's "The Girl Hunters" also was filmed--with Spillane himself playing Mike Hammer.
But it had been more than a decade since Hammer last appeared in a novel, "Black Alley," so his return to duty was long overdue.
In "The Goliath Bone," Hammer is now old, although we never actually are told how old. Certainly he should be on Social Security by now. He still has Velda as his secretary and he constantly points out, in his interior monologues, how sexy she still looks in spite of her years. He still carries his World War II issue .45 automatic and wears his porkpie hat (Spillane is wearing one in the photo above). He's still on solid terms with Pat Chambers of the NYPD.
You can tell Spillane intended this to be the last chapter for Hammer because he finally resolves his long, long romance with Velda and is seriously considering retirement when this last case comes along. Pat Chambers is just a few months from his own retirement and there's a tantalizing teaser in the final chapters about the possibility that Chambers and Hammer might team up in Hammer's private detective business.
Can Mike Hammer still cut the mustard? Well, he certainly still can shoot precisely with his old .45, a weapon not known for precision shooting. And his final battle with a human Goliath sent by the terrorists to assassinate him is the sort of knock-down, dragged-out rumble that only a very tough Mike Hammer could survive.
While you read "The Goliath Bone," I think you're supposed to feel awfully nostalgic, so if you never liked Spillane's original paperback thrillers, this may not be for you. But if you're the kind of reader who loved it when ancient George Foreman knocked out the champ and became heavyweight king of the world in his late 40s, then you're gonna love seeing Hammer do many similar things with equal finesse.
What happened to the other unfinished Mike Hammer novels, including "King of the Weeds"? Nobody has said, although it's possible Spillane's notes and manuscripts were lost when Hurricane Hugo destroyed his home in South Caroline in 1989. If they survive and Collins is willing, they may be completed, too, if "The Goliath Bone" sells enough copies to make it interesting to publishers.
©2008 by Ron Miller. This column first posted Oct. 6, 2008.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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