Mark,
Re your comments below:
"Now I say Hammer is "allegedly" a great detective because
Spillane tells us he's a great detective. However Hammer
usually solves the case only AFTER all the possible suspects
are dead and only the killer remains. So in fact that makes
Hammer a lousy detective."
Actually, in terms of plot structure, what interesting about
the Hammer books is that they're all "fair-play" whodunits.
Wrapped up in Spillane's ultra-hard-boiled noir universe, to
be sure, but fair play whodunits, nonetheless.
And it isn't until Hammer settles down enough, and stops to
gather his thought and actually examine the clues that he
FIGURES OUT, doesn't just stumble upon but FIGURES OUT, who
the bad guy is.
I'm not suggesting here that Spillane can weave as intriguing
a puzzle as John Dickson Carr or Ellery Queen. In fact, the
puzzle element is usually the weakest element in a Hammer
novel. But it's there, and Hammer is, at one level, playing
at, and succeeding at, the same game as Hercule Poirot or
Lord Peter.
When he stops and actually thinks, he really IS a pretty
decent detective.
"True the man/woman is the killer and in Spillane's world
deserves to be blown away, but Hammer takes extra pleasure in
the act because the man/woman had the gall to try and seduce
him."
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
But, as I remeber the sequence from VENGEANCE IS MINE, Hammer
didn't actually KNOW Juno was a man until after he'd shot
him.
And it was in self-defense, not because Juno was trying to
seduce him.
I won't argue that Hammer is a poster boy for raised
consciousness, but shooting someone who's trying to kill you,
no matter how he's dressed, isn't homophobia.
And Hammer's enjoyment of killing ALWAYS comes from the fact
that he's dealing out deserved punishment to killers, not
from homophobia.
JIM DOHERTY
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