Mickey Spillane books at the Roseville Public Library.

Mr. Spillane died on July 17 at age 88. Mainstream critics had little use for Spillane, but he got his due in the mystery world, receiving lifetime achievement awards from the Mystery Writers of America and the Private Eye Writers of America.

Black Alley
Hammer is back, along with his trusty sidekick/secretary Velma, and age hasn't slowed them down more than a step. Hammer wakes from his brush with death to find himself embroiled in a mess involving $89 million of missing mob money.

Something's Down There
Mako Hooker is enjoying retirement from a life of lethal undercover work, fishing the days away on the remote Caribbean island of Peolle. But his idyll is shattered by the "eater"--an unknown presence in the deep water that bites the bottoms out of boats.

The Killing Man
Here, there's a dead man in Hammer's office chair. He has been horribly tortured; a note on the desk reads "You die for killing me," signed "Penta." Hammer's longtime secretary and sometime love interest, Velda, has been knocked unconscious and Hammer (no mellower despite the years), goes a-hunting.