The title of Mickey Spillane's first novel, I, the Jury (1947), only partially describes the role Mike Hammer assumes in solving the murder of his best friend, because the detective wants not only to be the jury but also the judge and executioner of the killer as well.

From the beginning, one of the main concerns of Spillane's fiction was with vengeance, and with vengeance carried out thoroughly and violently. Even his character's name "Hammer" suggests bludgeoning, striking, and beating; indeed, Mike Hammer does mete out vengeance in a heavy-handed way. One of the criticisms consistently leveled at the Mike Hammer books is that they are too violent and that Mike seems to enjoy the violence too much. And the books not only have been described as sadistic but also as homophobic, sexist, racist, and xenophobic, and anyone reading them from a contemporary point of view would...