The Big Bang

Max Allan Collins · Mickey Spillane

May 2010 · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

About this ebook

In midtown Manhattan, Mike Hammer, recovering from a near-fatal mix-up with the Mob, runs into drug dealers assaulting a young hospital messenger. He saves the kid, but the muggers are not so lucky. Hammer considers the rescue a one-off, but someone has different ideas, as indicated by a street-corner knife attack.With himself for a client, Hammer—and his beautiful, deadly partner Velda—take on the narcotics racket in New York just as the streets have dried up and rumors run rampant of a massive heroin shipment due any day. In a New York of flashy discotheques, swanky bachelor pads, and the occasional dark alley, Hammer deals with doctors and drug addicts, hippie chicks and hit men,meeting changing times with his timeless brand of violent vengeance. Originally begun and outlined by Spillane in the mid-sixties, and expertly completed by his longtime collaborator Max Allan Collins, The Big Bang is vintage Mike Hammer on acid . . . literally.

About the author

MAX ALLAN COLLINS is the author of many works, including the best-selling graphic novel Road to Perdition and the Shamus-winning Nathan Heller novels.

MICKEY SPILLANE (1918–2006) sold hundreds of millions of books. He introduced iconic detective Mike Hammer to readers in 1947 with I, the Jury, and was named a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in 1995.