Movie review: The Delta Factor (1970)

Delta Factor movie poster

According to Mickey Spillane’s friend and posthumous collaborator Max Allan Collins, Spillane’s disappointment with producing the movie based on The Delta Factor was a major reason for Spillane setting aside his incomplete manuscript of the novel’s sequel, The Consummata.

Too bad Mickey was so disappointed, because this cheapie is in many ways a terrible […]

News for week ending 2012-01-28

A piece on Richard Stark and Elmore Leonard that I somehow missed a few months ago: http://t.co/HxBdwpoX # Peter Rozovsky at Detectives Beyond Borders–Darker Than Parker: http://t.co/gBtdB2p6 # Ken Salikof at NY Daily News–When New York was bad, the writing was good: http://t.co/BrgDrvfG # […]

Hard Case Crime review: The Consummata by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (#103)

The Consummata by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

“FRIEND, YOU’RE TALKING TO A GUY WITH A PRICE ON HIS HEAD AND THE POLICE AT HIS BACK…”

Compared to the $40 million the cops think he stole, seventy-five thousand dollars may not sound like much. But it’s all the money in the world to the struggling Cuban exiles of Miami who rescued Morgan […]

Breaking news: Queen of Spy Writers Helen MacInnes returns to print in 2012!

Ever-so-slightly off-topic with this one, but I know a fair few Violent World regulars appreciate a spot of spy fiction as well as crime fiction: I’ve just broken the news over on Existential Ennui that spy novelist Helen MacInnes—author of, among others, Above Suspicion, The Venetian Affair, and The Salzburg Connection (all […]

Cover art for Darwyn Cooke’s The Score

Wow.

Review: The Delta Factor by Mickey Spillane

When I was looking for an image to swipe for my review of The Delta Factor by Mickey Spillane, I came across this review by Bill Crider (and I totally swiped the image). It does a good job of summing up the negatives, and some of the positives, of the novel to the point […]

News for week ending 2012-01-21

Ed Gorman reviews Donald Westlake's Pity Him Afterward.

http://t.co/963ei8jv # Vince Keenan reviews Donald Westlake's lost novel, The Comedy is Finished: http://t.co/Ap7XryA2 #

Review: Die a Little by Megan Abbott

Die a Little by Megan Abbott

FEMME FATALES OBSESSIVE LOVE DOUBLE CROSSES

How does a respectable young woman fall into Los Angeles’ hard-boiled underworld?

Shadow-dodging through the glamorous world of 1950s Hollywood and its seedy flip side, Megan Abbott’s debut, Die a Little, is a gem of the darkest hue. This ingenious twist on a classic noir tale tells the […]

Review: The Mercenaries (1960, a.k.a. The Cutie / The Smashers) by Donald E. Westlake

Let’s return to Donald E. Westlake’s debut novel (“official” debut, that is; he had other pseudonymous sleaze works published before it), 1960’s The Mercenaries, a signed, inscribed British first edition of which I blogged about just over a week ago. I mentioned in that post that Violent World of Parker proprietor Trent […]

News for week ending 2012-01-14

Darwyn Cooke’s The Score coming sooner than expected, plus Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter Alpha http://t.co/XRSccJKh # Tom Piccirilli reviews the lost Donald Westlake novel The Comedy is Finished, coming soon from Hard Case Crime: http://t.co/16xVBXgG # 2/17: Donald Westlake Day in honor of The Comedy is Finished. Patti Abbott will round up the reviews. […]