The Girl Hunters

Mike Hammer #7 finds Mike as a drunken bum, picked up by the cops for sleeping it off in a gutter. It is seven years since #6 was set, and ten years since #6 was published, so if you were an avid reader back in the day, you would have been hanging out for this fix!

Why is Mike a drunken bum, and why is old friend Captain Pat Chambers now despise him? We are told the story as the book progresses - all to do with the lovely Velda, Mike's secretary / associate investigator. It is said that Mike sent her out on a case that was too hot, and she was killed as a consequence. So Pat, who was in love with Velda (the way most men who come into contact with her are) can't forgive Mike, as Mike can't forgive himself.

But things change when Pat drags Mike in because a dying man will only talk to Hammer. The lab says the bullet that is killing the man was fired by the same gun that killed a senator, so Pat needs to know who shot the man, and why. In classic Hammer style, Mike speaks to the man but won't share the knowledge. Then he goes neck deep in the story when he learns that Velda is not only still alive, but there is more to her background than he thought!

There is of course another hot dame, assassins, a plot for world power (!), and history dragged up from the war. There is a very underpowered Mike Hammer (seven years of boozing has left him far from peak physical form), but there are some old friends who are pleased to see him getting back on the straight and narrow - well as straight and narrow as Hammer gets.

There are no surprises in terms of what you get with a Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novel. They are a reliable fix of fairly easy reading, a plot that rolls out, some tough-guy action, bullets and beatings, hot broads who fall for Hammer, and lots of working outside the law.

Like the other Mike Hammer books, this one is a solid 3 stars.