It's not clear whether Spillane himself or his venerable detective hero Mike Hammer has been in a coma during the seven years since his last book, but loyal fans who discovered and fell in love with the hard-boiled genre because of his early books won't care. Hammer is back, along with his trusty sidekick/secretary Velma, and age hasn't slowed them down more than a step. Hammer wakes from his brush with death to find himself embroiled in a mess involving $89 million of missing mob money. Not the smoothest writer in the arena of mystery, but certainly one of the most popular -- and influential.