One Lonely Night

This is Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer #4, published in 1951, when America's fear of communism was again on the rise - the second red scare was at its beginning. Spillane really goes to town in this novel with the secretive reds, working in the background of society to undermine America.
It is a well woven thread in this story, with high pace and a good twist at the end, of which I admit I had picked the easy part, but not some of the important detail.

There is much of the Hammer we know - picking up women who love him, despite now being ‘engaged to be engaged' to the lovely Velda, who again plays a much larger role in this story. There are no real surprises in the rest of Hammer's activities - pushing beyond the boundaries of the law, taking advantage of his friendship with Pat (and continually pushing his buttons), drinking (and driving) and smoking like a train. Clearly not a book you want to be judging by today's moral standards, but separate yourself from that and it is action packed. It is perhaps a little more brutal than the previous books, certainly the kill count is higher!

To try and explain the plot would be unhelpful, but there are a couple of threads at the start which fairly quickly wind together and become one, a well paid job (for once), and a lot going on that Pat doesn't know about.

Look, it's not Raymond Chandler, but it is still easy, accessible and pretty funny in places.

A solid 3 stars - probably 4 if you haven't read Chandler!