Kiss this book goodbye...

Kiss Her Goodbye by Mickey Spillane

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Max Allan Collins ... super-author
Mike Hammer... iconic character

Mix these two fantastic ingredients, and voila... a tepid, meandering mess that couldn't carry me to page fifty.

I've loved movies based on Max Allan Collins books, I even met him in a bar at an author conference, and a few of my friends (Joe Konrath) know him, so I was excited to put my hands on this book. So much for that expectation.

Having never read a Mike Hammer book probably hurt, because if I had read earlier works then I might have understood the fawning attention other characters lavished on Hammer. But that shouldn't matter. Any book should be good enough to catch and keep your attention, be it the first book in a series, or a later book cobbled together by another, albeit superstar author. This one felt saccharine and contrived, at least through the first fifty pages.

I'm old enough now that I won't waste my time finishing a book just to see if it will turn and finally hook me 100 pages in. And as a fellow, though far less known author, I don't have the luxury of being able to write books that don't get your attention right off the bat.

So for me, time lost that I'll never recover. I won't compound my mistake by reading the rest of the book.

Norm

http://www.normcowie.com



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