Read: "The Body Lovers" by Mickey Spillane

Read: The Body Lovers by Mickey Spillane, 1966,

Last of the three Spillane paperbacks I picked up in Lindsborg, KS about 2.5 years ago. Also the weakest of the three novels I picked up in Lindsborg, KS.

We last went to Lindsborg over Thanksgiving since my mother-in-law has been under the weather. The trip was very nice but I did not find anything I really wanted to get at the public library's for sale shelf. I am pretty sure I grabbed a couple books that I later put back after reconsidering that I have a ton of stuff at home I have not yet read. I am not Bill Crider, after all.

Anyhoo.

Mike Hammer is off hammering around NYC at night and hears a screaming howl in an abandoned building. Hammer runs over to find a young boy crying next to a dead woman. The boy had wandered out of home to go play in the ruins and found the corpse. Hammer calls the cops. Hammer, as usual, gets involved in the mystery of the woman's murder.

The woman was clothed in a flimsy lingerie and Hammer discovers a connection to another dead woman clothed in similar clothes. Things happen with East Europeans, drug smuggling, high society, low society, models, models turned prostitutes, sadism, and police-constrained-by-know-nothing-do-goodnick-liberals.

The plot is kind of a mess. Spillane gives us some commie-style bad guys this time and spins in the usual sex, gorgeous women, and that weird Madonna-whore thing with his secretary, Velda. Pat Chambers appears and says the usual things like, "You can't do it Mike" or "Yeah, I know you too well, Mike." Political commentary on the United Nations is a bonus special. Mike shows his threatening grin. Mike talks about his hidden animal/killer side.

All of the above is standard Mike Hammer stuff - tough guy talk, Mike's many pals, Mike's drinking and love making. This novel had those things falling flat. Last week I read a review of Spillane's A Twisted Thing that panned the story. Well, I enjoyed Twisted. To each their own.