I, the Jury

Mike Hammer is a private investigator. His best friend Jack – the man who took a bullet and lost an arm for him during the war – has been killed. Mike vows – in front of a Homicide Captain no less – to find out who did it and kill them the same way.

I’m struggling to believe that even in 1947 Mike Hammer wasn’t seen as a joke. But even if I give him the benefit of the doubt the intervening 70 years haven’t been kind to him. He is, now, a caricature. Equal parts testosterone and bullshit. His morality is all over the place; he fantasizes about killing the bloke who tore his suit but baulks at the idea of crossing into a crime scene without approval. He admits to being in love with one woman in the morning but is snogging show more another the same afternoon. I could go on. His ‘insights’ about his fellow humans include such nonsense as “Now I know why she hadn’t married, no one man could satisfy her” (except Hammer himself of course) and the notion that as soon as two or more are alone together women get busy trying on each other’s clothes. WTF? He’s vain, bordering on psychopathic and not half as clever as he thinks he is.

The narrative too is a jumbled mess. There’s rampant nymphomania (as diagnosed by Hammer), enforced prostitution, a succession of women who all lust after Hammer and are universally encumbered with breasts desperate to escape the confines of clothing, a protagonist who thinks lipstick on his collar a bigger problem than the fact he orders alcoholic drinks by the dozen, drug addiction, a tennis match that serves no purpose other than to expose the one kind of casual bigotry the book had up to that point avoided and a half-dozen shootings. It’s no less contrived and implausible than the country house drawing room mystery in which upper class English folk drop like flies from obscure tropical poisons at which some hard-boiled fans (and writers) like to scoff. At least there is some creativity involved in dreaming up odd deaths; endless shootings and women itching to get naked around the ‘hero’ take no imagination whatsoever.

Good examples of the hard-boiled detective novel exist but this is not one of them. Reading it prompted me to dig out my copy of Raymond Chandler’s seminal essay on detective fiction (“The Simple Art of Murder”, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1944) because I thought I remembered him having a dig at bad examples of his own preferred form of the art (after he’d dealt with the English golden age writers that is). And so he did

The realistic style is easy to abuse: from haste, from lack of awareness, from inability to bridge the chasm that lies between what a writer would like to be able to say and what he actually knows how to say. It is easy to fake; brutality is not strength, flipness is not wit, edge-of-the-chair writing can be as boring as flat writing; dalliance with promiscuous blondes can be very dull stuff when described by goaty young men with no other purpose in mind than to describe dalliance with promiscuous blondes.

I won’t pretend I haven’t cherry-picked from Chandler’s essay, nor that I agree with everything else he writes but if the cap fits…

There is a huge difference between reading a classic novel and an old one. For me I, THE JURY is an old novel whose time has, thankfully, long gone. The things that undoubtedly made it noteworthy at the time – the sex and violence – are tame by today’s standards and the things which make it noteworthy now – the undiagnosed PTSD of its lead character and everyone’s bigotry – need no more publicity in their unreconstructed form. It offers zero in the way of commentary that could, even with some massaging, be relevant today and doesn’t even explore the theme suggested by its title. The denouement – complete with striptease – is preposterous.

In short the book is boobs, booze, bigotry and bullets. Presumably all the things a white, American, male living in the aftermath of the second world war was looking for in a read but I’d rather gnaw off my own arm than venture down this literary path again. show less

As another reviewer points out rather well, there are a number of repellent aspects to this book. On the other hand, I don't buy the notion that Hammer somehow doesn't have the right "tough guy persona". What does that mean, anyway? He's an individual with his own quirks and prejudices, and you don't have to like him to enjoy the book, which is a very effective one of its kind. As for Spillane not being a very good writer--well, it's true and it isn't true. See for yourself.

It's definitely fun to read the style: the hard-boiled detective, rogue and tough, out to get vengeance. However, with all the misogyny, racism and violence, the book has not aged well. I think it's still worth a read, simply because it's so iconic in its genre and interesting when set in its context.
The plot is engaging: complex enough to hod the reader's attention throughout (although I had guessed who the killer was). The writing, choppy and direct, is incredibly dynamic and fun to read.
It's a book I'd recommend, but as a period study more than for entertainment.

“But this time I’m the law and I’m not going to be cold and impartial.”

So says Mike Hammer, after finding his closest friend gut shot and dead.

“He tried to reach his gun, but the killer pulled the chair it hung on back slowly, making him crawl after it with a slug in his gut, trying to keep his insides from falling out with his hand.”

My oh my is Hammer loquacious! Some of his threats are over a half a page long! I prefer the strong, silent type, like Richard Stark’s Parker. Just get to it. I don’t know why Hammer’s adversaries don’t pop him in the mouth while he’s yammering on and on! A bully and a blow hard.

Lots of racist, homophobic, and misogynistic content in this book. And what a strange opinion of marriage! show more Hammer is not a likeable character at all. He does get the job done, but it sure was hard to root for him. I doubt I'll read another book in this series.

“… act like a clam or I’ll open you up like one.”

“I only had a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in.
‘It was easy’, I said.” show less

I really don't get it.

The writing is fast, I mean the fastest I've seen. Things happen on a page that other books would take chapters to tell. Wham, bam and it's done. Everything is dialed down to 11 and all the characters are ridiculous to the point of parody. Despite a convoluted plot there's no mystery at any point. The protagonist is indestructible and no one goes to jail on his watch.

Picked this book up at a library sale a couple years ago, because I remember it being furtively passed around in high school, mostly between guys who were not normally readers, telling each other with knowing winks how "good" it was. I, THE JURY was first published in 1947 and was Mickey Spillane's first book. He would go on to write dozens of other books, including probably at least a dozen more Mike Hammer mysteries. I graduated HS in '62, and I, THE JURY was a constant presence in drug store book racks then, and was still selling - as well as circulating in high school corridors as a "dirty book," which by today's standards it really is not. By the mid-fifties the book had already sold over three million copies. And, amazingly, it show more has stayed in print, so I have no idea what the latest sales tally might be.

But here's the thing: the writing is purely awful. Much of it is that "hard-boiled" dialogue that characterized PI stories of the time. I really couldn't stand it. Which surprised me, because I have read several of Jim Thompson's 'hard-boiled killer' novels and liked them very much. I winced my way through about thirty pages of Spillane's book before I finally gave up on it. I really couldn't make myself care what happened next. And there are so many other books waiting to be read that are a thousand times better. The book I have is a 4th Printing of a 1949 Signet paperback edition, and it's in very good condition, so it might actually be worth considerably more than the quarter I paid for it, so I'll shelve it for now. In the meantime, Mickey Spillane will, I'm sure, forever hold a place in "pulp" fiction history, as well as in the hearts of his millions of readers. But his brand of fiction is simply not for me. Sorry, Mickey. Not recommended for readers of serious fiction. But if you like comic books, you'd probably like I, THE JURY. show less

This was a lot of fun. I’ve always enjoys the noir genre. The first Mike Hammer books was a great introduction to the iconic character. Some “modern” people will hate. But I enjoyed it.