Skin: A Mike Hammer Story

Mickey Spillane · Max Allan Collins

Jul 2012 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

A beautiful reporter. A secret ritual in a graveyard. A disembodied hand on the side of the road. Mike Hammer returns in one of the most shocking cases of his storied career.

Private Investigator Mike Hammer may be getting older, but he hasn’t lost his step. So when he spots a brutally destroyed corpse on the side of the road in upstate New York, unrecognizable as human except for the disembodied hand lying next to it, there’s no question of him not taking the case. Especially when Melodie Anderson, the stunning young reporter determined to investigate, goes missing. But as Mike sifts through Melodie’s leads in a race to find her before it’s too late, he discovers a murder method more horrible than anything he’s ever come across… and one that neither he nor Melodie may be able to escape.

A short story begun by the late icon Mickey Spillane and completed by his long-time collaborator Max Allan Collins, Skin is a heart-pounding addition to the world of Mike Hammer.

Ratings and reviews

A masterpiece of vintage Mike Hammer with enough modern flair for younger audiences new to his stories!

I loved it!

About the author

MICKEY SPILLANE and MAX ALLAN COLLINS collaborated on numerous projects, including twelve anthologies, three films and the Mike Danger comic book series.    

Spillane was the bestselling American mystery writer of the 20th century. He introduced Mike Hammer in I, the Jury (1947), which sold in the millions, as did the six tough mysteries that soon followed. The controversial P.I. has been the subject of a radio show, comic strip, and two television series; numerous gritty movies have been made from Spillane novels, notably director Robert Aldrich's seminal film noir, Kiss Me Deadly (1955), and The Girl Hunters (1963), in which the writer played his famous hero.

Collins has earned an unprecedented sixteen Private Eye Writers of America "Shamus" nominations, winning for True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1993) in his Nathan Heller series, which includes the recent Bye Bye, Baby. His graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis of the Academy Award-winning film. A filmmaker in the Midwest, he has had half a dozen feature screenplays produced, including The Last Lullaby (2008), based on his innovative Quarry series. As “Barbara Allan,” he and his wife Barbara write the “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mystery series (recently Antiques Disposal).

Both Spillane (who died in 2006) and Collins received the Private Eye Writers life achievement award, the Eye.