tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post5492014719868649745..comments2024-03-21T22:22:59.425-07:00Comments on Vintage Pop Fictions: Mickey Spillane’s Kiss Me, Deadlydfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6984067990467963645.post-53057814914633488202022-10-28T21:06:30.516-07:002022-10-28T21:06:30.516-07:00Disagree with dfordom. Hammer is no knight errant....Disagree with dfordom. Hammer is no knight errant. He's a man who takes the law into his own hands, in the service of justice as he sees it, which is heavy-handed obvious morality 1950's style. His is not the code of a "knight errant." The police, incredibly, let Hammer go his own way. No officer, of course, on a poilce force, especially the NYPD, would allow such a loose cannon as Mike Hammer.<br /><br />The action is sometimes well managed, although more attention seems to be paid to lighting and smoking cigarettes than to the gritty facts of criminal machinations. As a result, smoking Luckies has more reality than the references to the Mafia (does Spillane know anything about this organization?) <br /><br />As far as a mystery goes, the plot is a snarl. It sort of comes together when Hammer chases after missing drugs and finds them—after following an improbable riddle-mystery clue inexplicably left for him. In the final twist, a very minor character, one not even on stage for any of the book although he is mentioned, turns out to be the head of a Mafia drug smuggling operation. That is simply ludicrous. It's like a drawing room mystery of the 1930's. An identity switch at the end (Chapter 13) is gratuitously introduced for the sake of surprise. Of course, Erle Stanley Gardner and Agatha Christie do this sometimes too, and even Chandler, notwithstanding his cavils about "The Red House Mystery," tries this in "The Little Sister." But those works are not intended to be noir fiction. In "Kiss Me Deadly" such a tacked-on switcheroo is utterly out of place.<br /><br />The violent texture throughout gives the book surface unity. Here again there are problems. No one could possibly kill as many people as Hammer does in this one book and expect to escape unscathed, even if the ones he murders are heightened examples of evil. Committing these murders doesn't seem to bother Hammer, either; that also adds to the unreality of this story which is, one feels, meant to persuade the reader that it is about Mafioso and drug smuggling. Predictably, although Hammer keeps swearing eternal love to his dream girl Velda, all the other women in the story are panting sexpots eager to attach themselves to the (aging?) Mike Hammer. <br /><br />More could be said by way of confusions and absurdities. The book is best enjoyed for its intentions (and the cover), not for its writing. This is the first Mickey Spillane book I have read, and it is most likely the last one too.franzgeistwormhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14570435327745988044noreply@blogger.com