by Mickey Spillane
A hard-boiled private investigator vows to avenge the murder of a friend, a decorated war veteran, relentlessly pursuing the killer with the goal of ending the perpetrator in the same painful manner that his friend died.
This is one of those books that may be more important historically than it is impressive literarily.
Mike Hammer acts as investigator, judge, jury, and executioner, and author Mickey Spillane Spillane offers no suggestion that Hammer regrets bypassing the legal system.
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| Mickey Spillane |
The book is hard-hitting, pulpy, direct, and highly readable, with short chapters, a rapid investigation, little introspection, and few digressions.
It lacks the psychological complexity and literary style of Hammett or Chandler, but it is brisk, streamlined, and compelling.
It is so hard-boiled that it sometimes feels like a parody of the genre rather than a seminal work in it.
Still, it is interesting to think about Hammer’s violence, rage, and cruelty in the context of the years after World War II.
Hammer is himself a combat veteran, and the book reflects a time when the psychological effects of trauma were poorly understood and red-blooded American men were expected to suppress any "weakness" left over from wartime.
The result is a novel that captures postwar anxieties about returning veterans, urban corruption, distrust, violence, and the sense that wartime brutality had carried over into civilian life.
Spillane reportedly wrote it in only nine days, intending simply to earn enough money to buy a house.
I would not rank it with the greatest detective novels ever written, but as a cultural artifact and a piece of blunt, fast-moving pulp, it is essential.
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| "I Will Be the Judge" (Russian) |
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| "I, the Judge and Other Stories" (Arabic) |
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| "I, the Jury" (Greek) |
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| "I'll Kill You" (Italian) |
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| "I Am the Law" (Turkish) |
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| "I'll Be the Judge" (Korean) |
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| "I, the Judge" (German) |
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| "I, the Jury" (Portuguese) |
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| "I, the Judge" (Dutch) |
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| "I, the Avenger" (Finnish) |
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| "I'll Have Your Hide" (French) |
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| "I, the Jury" (Spanish) |
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