The Big Band is a lost Mike Hammer book written in the 60’s, and does the writing prove it. I completely enjoyed this book, it was a time when women worked as stenog’s were often called broads and kitten but still the time of the Women’s Lib. movement when women were free thinkers, entrepreneur’s and gun toting Private Investigators.

The Big Bang is the large supply of horse that is coming in to New York. A dry spell of the drug has occurred and the usually suppliers and users are coming up with creative ways of finding it, of course by killings, beatings and coercing others that have an inside connection to medical schools and hospitals. Anything that will curb the fix. I love Mike Hammer, his roughness, crudeness and Neanderthal ways.
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Mickey Spillane has left us, but Mike Hammer lives on. The toughest, most hard-nosed private investigator of the twentieth century has been resurrected by Max Allan Collins from the unfinished manuscripts of Mickey Spillane. And, boy, is this is a great story.

The action starts with the very first sentence. Within moments of Hammer returning to New York from convalescing in Florida, he walks out of a building and two thugs in shoulder-length hair, bell-bottoms-flying (it is set in the Sixties), wade into a poor kid with a "double-length of bicycle chain ready to whip into the head of the groggy short-haired kid." Hammer being Hammer is no wallflower and steps into the action, "smash[ing] the tie-dyed slob with the chain." his face
"exploded into a bloody mess" before he backflipped to the pavement and under the car. Talk about starting with a bang.

This is the old Mike Hammer just as rough and tough as always, ready to wreck vengeance on evildoers, deal with the consequences later. Hammer is in more brawls than you can count and there are too many dead bodies lying in his wake to imagine. Self-defense, you know. It's not his fault. Trouble finds him even if Captain Pat Chambers has trouble believing that.

And, no Mike Hammer story is complete without Velda, his secretarand fiance for over a decade, she of the "deep, dark tresses falling in a pageboy that fashion had long since left behind." She of the "lush red-lipsticked mouth that made a guy consider doing the kinds of things that get you arrested in some states..." Hammer has it bad for her, staring at her legs from the inner office. She is also a licensed agent and just as deadly as Hammer. You can certainly understand Hammer's fascination with her even when he is distracted by the blonde "with the kind of curves even a loose-fitting outfit like that couldn't hide."

It is all told with a terrific deadpan sense of humor. And, there is the right amount of action and titillation to make the modern reader understand why the Spillane novels were so controversial with critics and so loved by the reading public. ( )

Recommended for fans of the hardboiled.

Mike Hammer is back killing the bad guys, sweeping the dames off their feet and out maneuvering the law. Plenty of violence, action, sex, and destruction to keep any classic hardboiled crime fan happy with the added bonus of a plot that keep's you guessing till the very last page. Is Hammer a good guy? You decide...... ( )

I've never been a big fan of hard-boiled detective stories, and Mickey Spillne's Mike Hammer series was one of the defining series of that genre. I never read any Spillane before. This book I wanted to read purely because it is co-authored by Max Allan Collins, who is one of my favorite authors, especially his Nate Heller series.

Mike is dropping off a report to a client when he intervenes to stop three guys from beating up a young man. By the time it is over two of the toughs are dead and the survivor is seriously wounded. It seems to be just another incidence of junkies trying to get money to feed their habit, but it may involve drug dealers fighting for territory.

I kept reading this book for the plot - it is a page turner. The level of violence is bothersome, the character has traits I don't admire, and the ending of the book is extremely disturbing. I think it is meant to be so, though. The book as a whole is a strong picture of the costs of drugs to the individual and society. ( )

OK, so I haven't read Mickey Spillane in 25 years. Doesn't matter. PI Mike Hammer is timeless. This is one of 2 manuscripts that Max Collins published after Spillane's 2006 death. Set in the 1960s, detective Mike Hammer stumbles into a mess when he rescues a teenage boy on a bike from taking a beating. Death and mayhem ensue involving a drug smuggling operation, the mafia and guy looking for justice. Great read. Great adventure. Wish there were more classic hard-boiled detective authors out there. ( )