PG's Books

I quite liked the TV-series with Stacy Keach portraying Mike Hammer. At least the first batch. When he came back for a second batch it went downhill. Anyway, I though I should read at least a few of these, now classic, books so I bought myself volume one of The Mike Hammer Collection on kindle.

It is quite a bit a change of pace from my usual reading. No high-tech, no magic, no monsters, no spaceships etc… Well, it was a fun read nonetheless. The book was originally written 1947 so the language, especially the use of slang, is of course somewhat outdated.

Today it is difficult, at least for me, to understand why this book became the first of a whole string of bestsellers. Yes, it is not my top-favorite genre and it is the first book in the Mike Hammer series and the first book in a series can often be a bit of a practice exercise for the author. Still, the book is readworthy but not fantastic. To me it is a fairly standard crime novel and a rather predictable one at that.

One thing that I have to say that I do appreciate though is that the hero, although being quite a bit of a womanizer, does not jump into bed every five minutes with every good-looking chick he meets. Having said that, I suspect that in 1947 when the book was written, the behaviour of Mike Hammer was considered just as promiscuous, as jumping into bed left, right and center might be today.

Anyway, it was a fun book to read. The old-fashioned language and the equally old-fashioned behaviour of the hard-core and hard-hitting (in 1947 at least) Mike Hammer was indeed enjoyable. There are two more books left in the collection volume I got so I will read two more books in the series for sure. After that, well it remains to be seen if I pick up another volume or not.