First edition as new

What would you do for $89 billion? Mike Hammer goes up against the mob. I’ve read others did n it enjoy this one as much. It was Mikey Spillane’s last Hammer book all written by him. I found it entertaining and different from the others. For one thing Hammer doesn’t screw anyone in this one so it’s a first lol.

Longtime fans will enjoy this one. New fans will as well because he’s writing style changed throughout the years. ( )

Mike Hammer searches for money looted from the Mob after nearly dying in shootout

"The Black Alley" was the final Mike Hammer novel published before Spillane's death. It is a companion piece to the recently-published collaboration of "King of the Weeds." "Black Alley" begins the story finished in "King of The Weeds." It is Mike Hammer. It is Mickey Spillane. There is not much more that you need to know. Spillane wrote, particularly in his Hammer series, the toughest, sparsest, leanest prose filled with action that anyone has ever written. The early Spillane novels were controversial with the critics, but loved by the buying public. If you haven't read Spillane before, you are going to be pleasantly surprised at just how much of a professional writer he was. His books (every sentence in them) are superbly crafted. He was simply a master craftsman with a typewriter in his hand (and, yes, it was a typewriter when he started in the late 40's).

Black Alley has all the usual ingredients of a Hammer novel. Mike Hammer, aging now, slowly recovering from injuries suffered in a mob shootout, is as tough and explosive as ever. Velda, of the pageboy haircut, is as big and beautiful as ever and the love affair between them is the longest running romance in the history of modern fiction. Had Spillane simply wanted to write romance novels, he would have been the best of such writers. No question about it. Pat Chambers is here too. Captain Chambers is Hammer's old war buddy, now an aging Captain of Homicide and, at times, Hammer's conscience.

The overall plot is a bit goofy. The idea that the old dons of the mafia cashed out all their accounts and hid billions of dollars in a secret location in upstate New York to keep the money from the young guns who were set to take over the families is kind of loopy. But, once you accept that plot line (and it is no more goofy than the assortment of villians that Bond faced in his movies with armies of soldiers that no one was ever aware of), you will realize that it is another well-written, pounding, Hammer novel.
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"The Black Alley" was the final Mike Hammer novel published before Spillane's death. It is a companion piece to the recently-published collaboration of "King of the Weeds." "Black Alley" begins the story finished in "King of The Weeds."

It is Mike Hammer. It is Mickey Spillane. There is not much more that you need to know. Spillane wrote, particularly in his Hammer series, the toughest, sparsest, leanest prose filled with action that anyone has ever written. The early Spillane novels were controversial with the critics, but loved by the buying public. If you haven't read Spillane before, you are going to be pleasantly surprised at just how much of a professional writer he was. His books (every sentence in them) are superbly crafted. He was simply a master craftsman with a typewriter in his hand (and, yes, it was a typewriter when he started in the late 40's).

Black Alley has all the usual ingredients of a Hammer novel. Mike Hammer, aging now, slowly recovering from injuries suffered in a mob shootout, is as tough and explosive as ever. Velda, of the pageboy haircut, is as big and beautiful as ever and the love affair between them is the longest running romance in the history of modern fiction. Had Spillane simply wanted to write romance novels, he would have been the best of such writers. No question about it. Pat Chambers is here too. Captain Chambers is Hammer's old war buddy, now an aging Captain of Homicide and, at times, Hammer's conscience.

The overall plot is a bit goofy. But, once you accept that plot line (and it is no more goofy than the assortment of villians that Bond faced in his movies with armies of soldiers that no one was ever aware of), you will realize that it is another well-written, pounding, Hammer novel.
The action is here from a wild shootout at the docks, leading Hammer near death with bullets in his gut to a car bomb nearly taking out Mike and Velda, to a wild scene with mafia hoodlums bent on ending Hammer's threat. There are plenty of hoodlums here and strongarm tactics. There is plenty of hints about risqué scenes as Hammer and Velda try to play it cool throughout their engagement, but little actual risqueness in the book itself.

The opening of the book is particularly good, with Hammer describing taking two bullets into bodily parts not meant to violated like that, leaving him as one of the dead and dying. He "wanted to scream, but nothing would come out." He nearly went down the black alley to the end.
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