Many years back when I was a student of the Air Force School at New Delhi, I was introduced to a novel by Mickey Spillane by a friend of mine. After I read the book I was convinced that Mickey Spillane was my kind of writer and I loved his books. The thing that most impressed me about Mickey Spillane was a character that he created with a macho image named Mike Hammer. Mike hammer was a strong man who fought for justice. He fought evil by his own methods which were violent and also took revenge on the evil doers in a manner that can only be described as chilling.
In this ride to fight the criminals, Mike came across innumerable beautiful women whom he seduced with his macho image and without a second thought. The women loved being possessed by Mike Hammer. This was the general theme of the Mike hammer novels of Mickey Spillane- women, guns and death for evil doers.
Spillane as a Writer
How good and popular a writer was Mickey Spillane ? If figures have any meaning, than it is worth knowing that more than 225 million copies of his books were sold world-wide. If you add a readership of 4 per book ( which is a conservative estimate) the astonishing figure of a billion readers emerges. This is to say the least, is not an insignificant figure. Not many writers of the 20th century can match these figures.
Remembering Spillane
Many of Mickey Spillane’s books are read even now. His most famous books are ’I the jury’, My Gun is quick, Vengeance is mine, one lonely night and the long wait. In fact the novel ‘I the jury’ was completed in just 3 weeks. That will be hard to match. Violence, sex and crime were the staple diet of Mickey’s novels and by writing this he had his hand on the pulse of the people. He was certainly a master story-teller. I have a lurking feeling that many later writers who wrote action books like the famous.James Hadley Chase and even Harold Robbins took a leaf out of the books of Mickey Spillane.
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