The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2

“MICKEY SPILLANE IS THE LIVING MASTER
OF THE HARD-BOILED MYSTERY.”

—
Detecting Men

I snapped the side of the rod across his jaw and laid the flesh open to the bone. I pounded his teeth back into his mouth with the end of the barrel ... and I took my own damn time about kicking him in the face. He smashed into the door and lay there bubbling. So I kicked him again and he stopped bubbling.

One Lonely Night

Mike Hammer’s on the prowl for international thugs, on the
lookout for military secrets, and on the make with a treacherous
society doll too tempting for her own good.

The Big Kill

Mike Hammer slugs it out with a two-timing still luscious
ex-Hollywood starlet who’s using everything she’s got to block the
trail of a vicious killer.

Kiss Me, Deadly

She was desperate, terrified, and out of her mind. Now she’s dead.
Acting as an avenging angel, Mike Hammer heads into an
underground urban nightmare.

Also available:

The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 1, featuring:

I, the Jury, My Gun Is Quick,
and
Vengeance Is Mine!
Introduction by Max Allan Collins

Mike Hammer Novels by Mickey Spillane

I, the Jury
My Gun Is Quick
Vengeance Is Mine!
One Lonely Night
The Big Kill
Kiss Me, Deadly
The Girl Hunters
The Snake
The Twisted Thing
The Body Lovers
Survival ... ZERO!
The Killing Man
Black Alley

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Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Previously published in Dutton editions

One
Lonely Night copyright E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1951. Copyright © renewed, Mickey Spillane. 1979
The Big Kill copyright E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1951, Copyright © renewed Mickey Spillane, 1979.
Kiss me, Deadly copyright E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1932, Copyright © renewed Mickey Spillane 1980.

Introduction copyright © Lawrence Black 2001

All rights reserved

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

Spillane. Mickey, 1918-
The Mike Hammer collection/Mickey Spillane.
p. cm. Contents: v. 2. One lonely night-The big kill-Kiss me, deadly

eISBN : 978-1-440-67223-1

1.Hammer, Mike (Fictitious character-Fiction. 2. Private investigators-New York (State)- New York-Fiction. 3. Detective and mystery stories, American. 1. Title.
PS 3337.P652 A5 2001.
833 54-dc21 00-052728

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

There are works of fiction. Names, characters, plower, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Introduction

I don’t know what the hell Mickey Spillane needs with an introduction. He certainly didn’t get one when the first Dutton hardcovers and Signet paperbacks appeared half a century ago. There were no prefatory remarks by the author, no back cover blurbs by admiring colleagues, no pithy extracts from rave reviews. (There may have been some admiring colleagues around, but as I recall, there weren’t a whole lot of rave reviews.)

Nobody had to introduce you to Mike Hammer. You picked up a book and opened it, and he introduced himself.

Like this, in
One Lonely Night:

Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost fog-like, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy yellow lights off in the distance.

Some place over there I had left my car and started walking, burying my head in the collar of my raincoat, with the night pulled in around me like a blanket. I walked and I smoked and I flipped the spent butts ahead of me and watched them arch to the pavement and fizzle out with one last wink. If there was life behind the windows of the buildings on either side of me, I didn’t notice it. The street was mine, all mine. They gave it to me gladly and wondered why I wanted it so nice and all alone.

Or if that’s too hard to get into, try
The Big Kill:

Two drunks with a nickel between them were arguing over what to play on the juke box until a tomato in a dress that was too tight a year ago pushed the key that started off something noisy and hot. One of the drunks wanted to dance and she gave him a shove. So he danced with the other drunk.

She saw me sitting there with my stool tipped back against the cigarette machine and change of a fin on the bar, decided I could afford a wet evening for two and walked over with her hips waving hello.

“You’re new around here, ain’t ya?”

“Nah. I’ve been here since six o‘clock.”

“Buy me a drink?” She crowded in next to me, seeing how much of herself she could plaster against my legs.