Mike Hammer - Double Feature Pt. 1 Black Alley

Publisher Dutton
Length 234 pages
Format hardcover
Published 1996
Series Mike Hammer #13
My Copy I bought it

"You almost went down the black alley. Nobody comes back from there."

Black Alley is a hard book to rate on its own merits. In the opening pages we're introduced to a near dead Mike Hammer as he slowly recovers from multiple gunshot wounds. The cause and effect alludes to the reader having some prior knowledge of an ambiguous mob related shootout in which Mike took out the son of a prominent mob boss whilst also being laden with led himself. Through a foggy drug induced haze (thanks to Mike's drunken doctor), we also learn Mike is privy to a generational transition in the underworld which resulted in mob bosses dying in suspicious circumstances allowing the more ruthless and money hungry sons to take the helm. It feels like the reader is going into a story midway through.

Note - I've not read The Killing Man, book #12 in the Mike Hammer series (published 1989) so that book may provide some context to the mob shootout, I've bumped that book up the tbr pile (much like I did with Black Alley after reading King of the Weeds). 

The other thing that makes Black Alley hard to gauge as a standalone read is the fact that it reads better by virtue of having read King of the Weeds, the sequel co-authored with Max Allan Collins and published in 2014. It's almost as if these two books were intended to be a single volume and, had they been, I think the story would've read more complete. 

Black Alley does have a lot of things going for it. For one, the relationship between Mike and Velda is so heavily embedded in the plot the book almost reads as romance yet it's one of the more endearing qualities of the series and I'm glad this aspect to the long running series is given ample page time here. I've always liked Mike and Velda as a couple, and whilst they aren't married here, they're very much together with Mike the near perfect gentleman. 

Then there's the murder angle, a former mob gardener and war buddy of Mike's is killed; his death bed confession leads Mike down a rabbit warren to track down some 89 billion dollars worth of hidden mob cash - this in addition to Mike's personal vendetta to make the killers pay with blood for taking out his friend; it's Hammer true to form.

My rating: 3/5 stars. I recommend reading Black Alley and then following it up with King of the Weeds.