Mike Hammer steals a ride on a train upstate to Killington. But he is welcomed by a nasty surprise: he is accused by police of raping and murdering a young woman near the freight yards. Roughed up by the cops and facing a murder charge, Hammer's future looks bleak. Only a beautiful blonde, Melba Charles-daughter of powerful Senator Charles-might possibly save him... if he pays the price.
But why would Melba help save a man she has never met? And, more to the point, where is the real murderer?
From a brittle, brown manuscript, the first Mike Hammer novel-begun by Mickey Spillane in the mid-forties and completed seventy years later by Max Allan Collins-is a gift to mystery fans on the occasion of the noir master's 100th birthday.
