This is without question Spillane's ultimate masterpiece. It is well- written, appropriately paced, perfectly plotted, and tougher and more hardboiled than any other book out there. If you live and breathe hard-edged, hard-boiled stories, you will find yourself gasping for air as you turn these pages. It is that good.

It is a not-too-infrequent plot device in hardboiled literature for a man who has been away from town for many years to come back and find it controlled by thugs and syndicates. Generally, you then have a story of one man with a whole town arrayed against him. But, not here. Spillane turns the whole formula seemingly on its head and has a mean old hood come back and take over a criminal empire.

Deep is the meanest, toughest hood that ever lived and, after more than twenty years away, he's back in town. His childhood buddy has been running an empire and had the goods on everyone. Bennett's dead, but they promised way back when, all for one and one for all so the empire belongs to Deep if he has the balls to hold onto it. All he has to do is find out who killed his friend in two weeks. That is, if he can manage to keep breathing.

This is one hard-edged story with almost no let up. This is Spillane at his best and one of the reasons you have to include him in any list of the greats of the hardboiled era. ( )

I love Mr Spillane's yarns. This is not a Mike Hammer book but it's edge-of-the-seat stuff. I didn't see the end of this one coming. ( )