Masquerade for murder

A man steps off a curb. A roaring Ferrari sends him "tumbling across the hood" and speeds off. A famous PI witnesses the moment and senses it wasn't an accident. Days later the victim's father hires the famous PI to find out what happened. By then we know the PI is Mike Hammer, appearing in the latest of Max Allan Collins' reconstructions of Mickey Spillane's unfinished manuscripts. This one is relatively free of Spillane's posturings about women and society that offend today's readers, and that's fortunate, as it's a first-rate noir adventure, set in 1988, and it boasts some excellent writing. Hammer's examination of an apartment, for example, goes on for pages and is so masterfully, tensely described one scarcely notices that absolutely nothing happens. As Spillane/Collins move to the finale, which puts a remarkable twist on the "things are not as they seem" chestnut, Hammer broods on his own obsolescence. He's a dinosaur, a being from the world of Milton Berle and Howdy Doody. Doesn't bother him.

Set in 1989, MWA GrandMaster Collins's competent 12th posthumous collaboration with Spillane (after 2019's Murder, My Love) finds Mike Hammer still operating as a PI when the WWII vet would have been in his late 60s. That touch of realism allows Collins to dial back most of the extreme elements of the early Spillane novels. Outside a Manhattan restaurant, Mike spots Wall Street wunderkind Vincent Colby as he steps into the street and is clipped by a speeding red sports car. He's only bruised, but is taken to the hospital, and his wealthy dad, Vance, hires Mike to unearth the perpetrator over Vincent's fierce objections. Mike's investigation, aided as always by his voluptuous secretary, Velda, soon leads to a trail of bodies, linked only by the bizarre method by which they were dispatched. Spillane fans will be pleased to see how well Collins captures the brash tone but everyman personality of the latter-day Hammer without trying to imitate the character's infamous vigilante crusades of earlier years. Spillane (1918--2006) would be proud of how well Collins has maintained his legacy. (Mar.)