Mike Hammer – The Will to Kill

The Will to Kill is a late Mickey Spillane unfinished novel that was finished by Max Allan Collins (1948-), the literary executor for Spillane (1918-2006) and an award winning mystery writer in his own right. This is the latest in a series of novels that Collins has finished about detective Mike Hammer and his assistant Velda. Spillane was the best-selling mystery writer of the 20th century, and his Mike Hammer still remains one of our iconic literary detectives, at least here in the States.

This case finds Spillane going upstate from his usual home in New York City after finding half a corpse floating down the Hudson River in the late evening while he was going for walk. This case is a family affair, with the descendants of the dead patriarch trying to live within the means of their trust accounts. Though entitled to a generous inheritance, it is not enough money for them to live on, and they are all suspects. The fewer of them, the less of the money they have to share. It starts as a double-murder case with both the patriarch and butler found dead, but the body count starts adding up. It is up to chick-magnet Hammer to get to the bottom of this, but he also accommodates his own sadistic sense of justice.