http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MikeHammer

Raymond Chandler "Pulp writing at its worst was never as bad as this stuff."

— Mickey Spillane "Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar ... If the public likes you, you're good."

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In 1947 comic book writer Mickey Spillane and his wife needed money to buy a new house. Hoping to add to his funds, Spillane wrote a novel in just nineteen days called I, the Jury. It introduced the world to Hardboiled Detective Mike Hammer, and sold six and a half million copies in the United States alone.

Hardboiled private detectives are expected to be world-weary and cynical; Mike Hammer however is patriotic and fueled by rage at the evils of society. Hammer doesn't just bend the law; he holds it in complete contempt, often dishing out brutal beatings or appointing himself Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

Spillane would go on to create other characters, like James Bond expy Tiger Mann, but Mike Hammer is his most well known creation. The novels revel in brutal violence and (though tame by today's standards) contained more sex than the competition. Critics (both then and now) have savaged them unrelentingly, yet they continue to be popular.

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In 1980, Spillane was responsible for seven of the top 15 all-time bestselling fiction titles in America, and his books have been adapted into film, TV and radio productions. Four films were made featuring the Mike Hammer character between 1953 and 1963. The 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly is regarded as a classic of Film Noir, while Spillane himself played his own creation in 1963's The Girl Hunters. Mike Hammer was revived in the 1980s for a series of television films and series that lasted to 1998, most of which featured Stacy Keach in the starring role.

John Zorn devoted a Concept Album to Spillane's "Mike Hammer" novels, simply called Spillane (1987).

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