‘The Will to Kill’ Book Review By Ron Fortier

The Will to Kill Book Review By Ron Fortier

THE WILL TO KILL
(The Lost Mike Hammer Mystery)
By Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins
Titan Books
230 pages

The release of yet another “lost” Mike Hammer novel by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins is always a cause for celebration among mystery lovers. In this case, Hammer discovers the partial remains of a corpse floating on a chunk of ice in the Hudson River. A quick investigation determines the dead man was the butler of a one time cop turned millionaire inventor who also died via mysterious circumstances. Thing is, this retired copper was a friend of Homicide Detective Pat Chambers; Hammer’s good buddy. It is Chambers who sends the tough-guy private eye up into the Catskill to investigate both the butler’s bizarre end while at the same time learning more about the widowed inventor’s death and his four heirs.

Unlike most Hammer tales, where the action unfolds on the streets of the Big Apple, this one has him up in the rarefied air of the well-to-do and their richly landscaped abodes. Once settled into the scene, Hammer gets accounted with the four siblings; two stepsons, both with hidden skeletons in their private closets, a lovely daughter and a challenged younger male with childlike qualities. All of them stand to gain from their late father’s will upon each of them turning forty years old.

Of course, this being a Hammer novel, it comes as no surprise when one of the two stepsons is murdered leaving his share to be divided among the surviving three. And thus we begin to drift into a less traditional Hammer caper and more an Agatha Christie “Ten Little Indians” tableau. This by now means suggest the book isn’t suspenseful and well conceived. Only that it feels out of place in the Hammer canon. Most likely because of the setting itself than any other factor.

Bottom line, any Hammer book by Spillane and Collins is going to be good, but take Hammer out of the City and something gets lost in translation.

ESO Network Sponsors

GEEK CHIC IS THE NEW … CHIC
COME TO THE GEEK SIDE. WE HAVE THE BEST SWAG

Support Us

A Dollar a month keeps us in orbit. Trust us it’s better that way.

Ways to Listen

Find Us Wherever Fine Podcasts are Found

Sign Up for the ESO Newsletter

WE HARDLY EVER SEND THEM OUT BUT WHEN WE DO THEY ARE AWESOME

ESO Network Archives

Archives

No matter where you go here you are

Follow the ESO Network

You didn't come this far to only come this far

Contact Us

    Remember any comment made today will be the tomorrow you worried about yesterday

    <-- see them in a pretty grid

    42 Cast
    The Best Saturdays of Our Lives
    Blurred Nerds
    But First, Let's Talk Nerdy
    Cigar Nerds
    The Con Guy
    Cosmic Pizza
    Dragon Con Report
    Drinking with Authors

    Most Recent Episodes

    Earth Station DCU
    Earth Station One
    Earth Station Trek
    Earth Station Who
    Epsilon Three
    Flopcast
    Metal Geeks
    Modern Musicology
    Monkeeing Around
    Monster Attack
    The Monster Scifi Show
    Soul Forge
    Thunder Talk
    The Watch-a-thon of Rassilon