Masquerade for Murder

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Shortly before his death in 2006, Mickey Spillane told his wife Jane, “When I’m gone, there’s going to be a treasure hunt around here. Take everything you find and give it to Max — he’ll know what to do.”

Working under the death sentence of pancreatic cancer, Mickey had already called me to ask if I would complete his final Mike Hammer novel for him, if that became necessary, which it did — the greatest, if most bittersweet, honor of my career.

Half a dozen substantial Hammer manuscripts of 100 pages or more were found in the “treasure hunt,” conducted by Jane, my wife Barb and me. These five lost Hammer novels spanned Mickey’s career, from the late ’40s through the mid-’60s and on up to (and including) The Goliath Bone, which he was working on at the time of his passing.

The six substantial manuscripts — often with notes, sometimes with roughed-out endings — were the first order of business; these have all been completed. A number of shorter but significant Hammer manuscripts — again, sometimes with notes and rough endings — were also worthy of completion, including the writer’s first attempt at a Hammer yarn (Killing Town, 2018). Some less substantial fragments became short stories, eight of which have been collected in A Long Time Dead, published by Mysterious Press.

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