FORGOTTEN BOOK: DAY OF THE GUNS

 Day of the Guns by Mickey Spillane  (1964)

Yes, I am a Mickey Spillane fan.  More to the point, I am a big Mike Hammer fan.  Have been since high school, when I gobbled up an old Signet paperback of I, the Jury.  my life did not significantly change at that point, but it did change, in subtle and pleasing ways.  I learned the power of words and how the thrust of a story could move on.  A year or so later, when I read the opening chapter of One Lonely Night, I didn't care what the naysayers claimed, I knew this guy could write.  Primed by writing for comic books, Spillane emerged after World War II with the ability to dip into the psyche and wish-fulfillment dreams of returning soldiers to shake up the literary world.  The original hardcover edition of I, the Jury was not a great seller, but when it appeared in paperback with an attention-getting cover and a price (25 cents) that most men could easily afford, sales went through the roof.  At one time in the Fifties, the six novels that Spillane had published at that time were among the ten best-selling American novels in history.

In 1964, Spillane created another tough guy hero, a counterespionage agent named Tiger Mann, formed in the same mold as Mike Hammer.  In fact, the casual reader might assume that Mann was Hammer, just with a new name and background.  He was a fearless man, bound to complete his mission come what may, leaving a trail of bodies behind him.  But Tiger Mann (his actual birth name by the way; if there was an explanation why his father gave him the name Tiger, I missed it) was no Mike Hammer.

Mann worked for the OSS during the final years of World War II.  He fell in love with another agent who was secretly a spy and provocateur for the Nazis. As a parting gift, she shot him in the stomach and left him to die before disappearing.  Mann almost did die and his road to recovery was a long one.  Word came through that Rondine Lund, the woman who shot him had been captured and executed.  In the meantime, Mann had been recruited into a secret organization designed to keep liberty's light shining in the face of the threat of Communism, and headed by a multimillionaire right-winger.  Over the years, Mann  and his cohorts managed to save a few countries and to eradicate a communist threat in others, with the bodies piling up across the globe.  Mann has an adversarial relationship with many government agencies, but they cannot touch him because his boss is just too powerful.

Now, twenty years after the was, Mann spies Rondine Lund in a New York nightclub.  She is going by the name of Edith Caine, supposedly from a wealthy and influential British family, and currently working at the United Nations.  But Rondine has not aged.  now in her forties, she looks to be in her early twenties, and as beautiful as ever.  Somewhere, somehow, she has gotten world class plastic surgery.  And her background as Edith Caine is impeccable.  But Rondine is working with the Soviets; she has managed to get close to, and be trusted by, some leading diplomats, delivering top secret information from the U.N. to the Communists.  But Tiger Mann recognized her and appears to be the only who knows who she really is.

Like Mike Hammer, Tiger Mann is hell bent on revenge.  He tells Edith/Rondine that he is going to kill her -- just not yet.  He wants to destroy her entire operation first.  In fact he keeps calling her and visiting her, telling her that he will soon kill her, to the point where it becomes very tiresome for this reader.  Hammer was always an avenger, but it was to avenge innocent people from evil ones; with Tiger Mann, this vengeance is purely personal -- a difference that sets him apart from Mike Hammer and, frankly, makes him less of a hero.

Like Hammer, Mann also refers to women as "Kitten" or "Doll," but I honestly cannot remember Hammer calling a woman a broad. either to her face or behind her back.  Another difference I find off-putting.  Spillane also likes to have his heroes grin, over and over throughout a book, often when delivering death notices to the bad guys.  I'm sure Tiger Mann grins just as much, and as effectively, as Mike Hammer, but somehow it grates on me when Tiger Mann does it.

Anyway, there's a leak at the U.N.  The government is aware of it,  The U.N. is aware of it and Tiger Mann's organization is aware of it.  Something important is about to come up and thee leak must be plugged.  Or else.  Tiger plans on plugging the leak by killing Edith/Rondine.  For her part, she is loosing various killers at Tiger, from Chicago mobsters to Russian hit man, including one very effective assassin whom Tiger has met before.  Tiger shot him in the hand, deforming his finger.  The assassin got away that time, but Tiger is determined that he will not this time, especially after the assassin kills a friend of Tiger's by mistake.

Did I mention bodies keep piling up?  Tiger is tough, unafraid, and quick to pull the trigger.  but will he be able to kill to woman he once dearly loved?

Tiger Mann appeared three more novels published over two years, before fading into the woodwork.  I don't know if he could be considered Hammer-light or Hammer-heavy, but he just did not have the staying power of Spillane's greatest creation.