Customer Reviews

My Gun Is Quick

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Look, Spillane is just not for everyone. In the particular subgenre of detective fiction that is Hardboiled, though, Nobody even comes close to Spillane in terms of white knuckle, jaw grating brutality and suspense. With the exception of his books from the '70s (can't remember the titles at the moment, but they're more scattered and almost pornographically sexual in parts), I have never picked up a Spillane book that I could put down until the gut-punching end.

I have to wonder if the other reviewer here even likes anything from this genre at all? Jim Thompson, for instance?

After a hiatus of 50 years, I read this hardboiled novel again. I was in high school the first time and very taken by the tough-guy attitude and Mike Hammer's ease with willing women. I had neither and still don't, I'll add as an aside. The book still works for me, but for somewhat different reasons. Nickel calls, "rods," cheap subway fares, etc. date it but delightfully so. After all, 1950 (when this was published) was in a vastly different world from today.

The plot doesn't really matter much. We see Mike Hammer get beaten severely of an evening, never hospitalized, and fully recovered apparently by morning. So what? That's part of the theme in Spillane. The dark, wet streets of Manhattan are a perfect setting, a sort of film noir on paper. The characters are comic book cutouts, hookers with good hearts, twisted bad dudes, tough-minded and tough-muscled good guys. The dialogue is almost funny sometimes, especially in the last chapter with Hammer laying it all out for the lord-high evil doer. And we don't get the denouement until the last page. Mickey Spillane doesn't waste time with cool downs.

I give this one five stars for nostalgia if for nothing else.

This book was exciting, moved fast, and Spillane's character, Mike Hammer, as always, was in top form. Spillane's stories are always suspenseful and exciting.

Private Detective Mike Hammer meets and befriends a prostitute known as 'Red'. The next day Hammer finds that 'Red' has been killed in a hit and run. He's convinced that it was no accident but murder, and vows revenge against those responsible.
'My Gun Is Quick' finds Mickey Spillane in a rut. Once again a friend of Mike Hammer's has been killed and once again the private detective is out for revenge. In 'I, the Jury' it was a wartime buddy, in 'Vengeance Is Mine' it was another friend, in 'The Big Kill' it was an orphaned child's father, and now in 'My Gun Is Quick' it is a hooker with a heart of gold.
Spillane was just going through the motions in this one. Half-way through the book you will already be able to guess the ending if you've ever read any other Mike Hammer book.

Chapter One reminds the reader that what they read about in books is actually happening outside, somewhere. Its real life, not vicarious entertainment, and it isn't nice. Mike Hammer just completed a job and stopped at an all-night diner for coffee. A redheaded woman asked him for a cup of coffee. A man came in to meet the redhead and there was trouble. Mike ended it. Later when Mike returned to his office he saw a newspaper that told how this woman was killed in a hit and run accident. Mike visited the Captain of Homicide to see if she was identified; she wasn't. [No fingerprints?] So Mike Hammer begins his quest to solve the murder of this unknown woman.

Mike locates where the redhead lived. Her room was torn apart by someone looking for something. A lead takes him to a wealthy person on an estate out on Long Island. Later he learns why the redhead's room was searched. Captain Chambers tells him the hit and run was solved - it was a young kid who was drunk and speeding. But Mike noticed the redhead's ring was missing; it wasn't a simple accident! More facts are discovered, her name was Nancy Sanford. Mike learns more about her (Chapter Four), and then about the racket (Chapter Five). Does Mike give too many details to his client (Chapter Six)? An old overnight bag has some clues about Nancy (Chapter Seven). Will Mike's source be safe? Will another lead find more clues (Chapter Nine)? Inspecting a hidden cache of photographs yields new clues (Chapter Twelve).

The police begin a series of raids that create chaos for organized crime. Will the ones on the top get caught (Chapter Thirteen)? Will they get revenge against Mike's friend (Chapter Fourteen)? The solution in the final chapter ties up the loose ends. Mike gets his revenge on the man behind all this evil. [Did the ending inspire the film version of "Kiss Me, Deadly"? Was this story inspired by an actual New York city scandal?]

a lot of people have been saying how "hardboiled" mickey spillane is.

i suppose that's fair to say.

a lot of people have been saying that he's trash.

that too is accurate.

spillane is hard to describe. he can make a good plot outline and occasionally some decent diolauge, but most of the time it kind of just walks from one point to another, and predictably, too. the whole thing is like an inept chandler homage, but spillane deserves credit because the book at least can evoke memories of chandler. i guess it's good for a look, but really it's just kind of a book one would buy at an airport, read, then throw away.

Spillane is so bad, there's no reason to read him now except for camp value, and even that rather quickly wears thin. Sadistic garbage.

And as to that old saw: "If I'm so lousy, why do millions of people buy my books?" Well, Mickey, nobody buys them anymore. They've been mulched.