Mickey Spillane Books in Order
Browse all Mickey Spillane books in order, with Mike Hammer series reading guides, plot summaries, background notes, and suggestions on where to start exploring his hardboiled crime fiction.
Last updated: January 14, 2026
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Publication Order
63 books
Baby, It's Murder
by Mickey Spillane
2025
Beginning at a twenty-first-century funeral then flashing back to the summer of 1973, Hammer accompanies Velda to Long Island to watch over her teenage sister, Mikki. When drugs enter the picture and Mikki is targeted, Hammer wages war on the dealers, knowing the final reckoning still lies ahead.
Dig Two Graves
by Mickey Spillane
2023
In 1964 a hit and run nearly kills Velda’s mother and quietly reveals that Velda’s father is not who she believed. Hammer and Velda travel to Arizona’s Dreamland Park, a retirement haven for ex-lawmen guarding criminals in Witness Protection, and collide with missing robbery millions and graveyard violence.
The Menace
by Mickey Spillane
2022
In the tourist town of Peachtree Heights, Georgia, a string of doctor deaths looks like bad luck on paper. Police Chief Blake Cutter sees a pattern instead, and his quiet investigation into the “accidents” uncovers a ruthless killer and a motive rooted in greed and professional jealousy.
Stand Up and Die!
by Mickey Spillane
2022
This crime-fiction collection gathers ten long-lost Spillane pieces, from title story “Stand Up and Die!” to Mike Hammer novella “Tonight I Die.” Betrayal, lust, sudden fortune, and revenge drive pulp-tough plots that feel like unearthed snapshots from the height of his career.
Kill Me If You Can
by Mickey Spillane
2022
Set between *Kiss Me, Deadly* and *The Girl Hunters*, Hammer reels from Velda’s disappearance when an old bootlegger friend is murdered. To avenge him, Hammer hunts for a secret ledger packed with the names of corrupt officials, drawing fire from mobsters and power brokers who all want it.
Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek
by Mickey Spillane
2021
When Sheriff Caleb York guns down an abusive young brute in Trinidad, the dead man’s mother, a ruthless cattle baroness, demands revenge and Willa Cullen’s ranch. York is caught between two iron-willed women as hired guns converge on Sugar Creek, the only water that can save Willa’s herd.
Masquerade for Murder
by Mickey Spillane
2020
Witnessing a Wall Street hotshot mowed down by a speeding red sports car, Hammer is hired by the victim’s broker father to find the driver. What looks like a hit and run leads to a series of bizarre murders tied to a forbidden martial-arts technique and a killer hiding in plain sight.
Hot Lead, Cold Justice
by Mickey Spillane
2020
A killer blizzard slams into New Mexico just as York’s deputy is gunned down in a case of mistaken identity. The bullets were meant for York, fired on orders from an old guerrilla fighter planning a bank robbery, and the sheriff must hunt a gang that thinks the storm will cover their escape.
Murder, My Love
by Mickey Spillane
2019
Hammer is hired by a New York senator and the senator’s sharp, charismatic wife to stop a blackmailer who threatens a White House bid. As suspects die one by one, he finds himself neck-deep in political secrets, bedroom scandals, and a plot that goes far beyond a single kompromat tape.
Last Stage to Hell Junction
by Mickey Spillane
2019
Outlaws hijack the morning stage from Trinidad, not for cash but for a banker and two women York cares about, Willa Cullen and saloon owner Rita Filley. Held in a ghost town called Hell Junction, the hostages become bargaining chips, and York has to infiltrate the gang before the ransom turns into massacre.
The Last Stand
by Mickey Spillane
2018
After crash-landing his aging plane in the desert, pilot Joe Gillian is taken in by a Native American community and befriends Sequoia Pete and his engineer sister Running Fox. An ancient-looking arrowhead Joe finds may hide a limitless energy source, drawing in fortune hunters, federal agents, and killers.
The Bloody Spur
by Mickey Spillane
2018
Rancher George Cullen is ready to fight the Santa Fe Railroad’s plan to push a spur through his land, even if everyone else in Trinidad welcomes it. York is sent to talk him down, but the return of an old partner and the arrival of a killer preacher turn a business dispute into a bloody showdown.
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer #2
by Mickey Spillane
2018
Continuing the comic-book arc begun in issue one, Hammer digs deeper into the mob war that exploded after his run-in with a femme fatale. As the body count climbs, he closes in on the hidden mastermind and delivers his brand of justice with fists, wisecracks, and a .45.
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer #1
by Mickey Spillane
2018
The first issue of a graphic Mike Hammer adventure, based on an unproduced Spillane script, finds the PI drawn into a case called “The Night I Died.” A chance meeting with a dangerous woman brings mob retaliation, leaving Hammer dodging bullets and wondering who set him up.
Killing Town
by Mickey Spillane
2018
In this “lost” first Mike Hammer case, the young PI hops a freight to the mill town of Killington and is promptly accused of rape and murder. A powerful senator’s beautiful daughter gives him an alibi at a price, and Hammer digs into the local corruption that made him a convenient suspect.
The Will to Kill
by Mickey Spillane
2017
A midnight walk by the Hudson brings Hammer face to face with a partial corpse drifting on an ice floe. The dead man was a former cop turned butler to a wealthy family now beset by suspicious deaths, and Hammer must sort through heirs who all have good reasons to kill.
The Big Showdown
by Mickey Spillane
2016
Hired as town marshal in a settlement teetering between law and lawlessness, Caleb York faces rustlers, crooked businessmen, and a fast-gun rival who wants the star for himself. The inevitable showdown forces York to choose between cleaning up the town and walking away from its problems.
Murder Never Knocks
by Mickey Spillane
2016
A hired gun bursts into Hammer’s office and nearly puts him in the ground, then a newsstand vendor takes a bullet meant for him. While hunting whoever signed the contract, Hammer is hired to guard a producer’s glamorous fiancée, only to stumble into another deadly kidnapping attempt.
A Long Time Dead
by Mickey Spillane
2016
This collection gathers eight Mike Hammer stories completed from Spillane’s drafts, beginning with a string of “accidents” that nearly kill him. The cases range from subway platform brawls to mob vendettas, showing Hammer at different ages but always ready to finish what someone else started.
The Legend of Caleb York
by Mickey Spillane
2015
In Trinidad, New Mexico, Sheriff Harry Gauge rules with a fast gun and greedy eye on rancher George Cullen’s land and daughter, Willa. When a mysterious stranger rides in and refuses to be pushed, a struggle for the town’s soul erupts, and Caleb York’s name becomes a legend.
Kill Me, Darling
by Mickey Spillane
2015
Velda has vanished from Hammer’s life, and he is coming off a four-month bender when an ex-vice cop she once worked with turns up murdered. Learning that Velda is now on the arm of a Miami gangster, Hammer heads south to find out why she walked away and who wants her dead.
King of the Weeds
by Mickey Spillane
2014
As Hammer and Velda finally plan their wedding, an assassin’s bullet nearly kills him outside his office. At the same time a serial killer of cops is about to walk free and everyone suspects Hammer knows where billions in hidden Mafia cash are stashed, painting a massive target on his back.
It's in the Book
by Mickey Spillane
2014
In this short Mike Hammer caper, a notorious mob boss dies, leaving behind rumors of a ledger listing every payoff he ever made. Hired to find the book before it ruins politicians and gangsters alike, Hammer rips through the don’s family and enemies, knowing everyone has a price in mind.
Complex 90
by Mickey Spillane
2013
Acting as security for a controversial anti-Communist politician, Hammer is snatched off the streets and hustled behind the Iron Curtain. Imprisoned, interrogated, and written off as a dead man, he has to fight his way out of Soviet captivity and untangle the political game that put him there.
Skin
by Mickey Spillane
2012
Driving upstate, Hammer spots a dog guarding something off the road and finds a mangled corpse with only a single hand intact. Teaming with an ambitious young reporter who soon vanishes, he uncovers grave robberies and a monstrous killing method that even he has never seen before.
Lady, Go Die!
by Mickey Spillane
2012
On a supposed beach vacation with Velda, Hammer crosses paths with a crooked small-town cop and a missing party girl. When the woman turns up naked and dead on a statue in the town square, he digs into illegal gambling, mob money, and local officials with plenty to hide.
The Consummata
by Mickey Spillane
2011
Notorious thief Morgan the Raider owes his life to a group of Cuban exiles in Miami, and when seventy-five thousand dollars of their money is stolen, he agrees to get it back. The favor leads him into Latin clubs, federal pressure, double crosses, and the dangerous mystery behind the name Consummata.
The Big Bang
by Mickey Spillane
2010
Set in the swingin’ sixties, Hammer is just back from a near-fatal run-in with the mob when he stops a gang mugging a young hospital messenger. The kid was carrying lifesaving drugs, and the ambush leads Hammer and Velda into New York’s growing heroin trade and a looming mega shipment.
Kiss Her Goodbye
by Mickey Spillane
2009
Recuperating in Florida from a mob shootout, Hammer learns that his old NYPD mentor apparently killed himself. He refuses to believe it and heads home, only to find a murdered woman, Nazi loot in the shadows, and enemies who thought the old cop took his secrets to the grave.
The Goliath Bone
by Mickey Spillane
2008
On the eve of retirement and marriage to Velda, Hammer stumbles into an attack on two young archaeologists carrying a mysterious giant thigh bone. The relic is tied to biblical legend, Middle Eastern politics, and a terrorist plot that forces Hammer back into bloody action.
Dead Street
by Mickey Spillane
2007
Retired NYPD cop Jack Stang has lived for twenty years believing his fiancée died during a botched kidnapping. When evidence surfaces that she survived, blind and hidden, he returns to a neighborhood being bulldozed away to save her from the old enemies who never quite let go.
Something's Down There
by Mickey Spillane
2003
Mako Hooker, a semi-retired government operative turned Caribbean fishing-boat captain, just wants to drink beer and fish. When boats start coming back mauled and rumors spread of a sea monster called “the eater,” he is pulled into a mix of Cold War games, Hollywood opportunists, and a deadly threat in the deep.
Black Alley
by Mickey Spillane
1996
Still recovering from bullet wounds and presumed dead by many who knew him, Hammer returns to New York and to an old army buddy on his deathbed. The friend whispers one last secret, pointing Hammer toward a hidden cache of Mafia billions that every hood and fed in town wants.
The Killing Man
by Mickey Spillane
1989
Hammer walks into his office to find Velda unconscious on the floor, a mobster butchered in his chair, and a note from a killer signed “Penta.” With the DA, FBI, CIA, and the Mafia all crowding in, Hammer has to find out who really owns the corpse on his carpet.
Tomorrow I Die
by Mickey Spillane
1984
A collection of short novels and stories, including the title piece “Tomorrow I Die,” that highlight Spillane’s non-Hammer work. Small-town sheriffs, drifters, and desperate crooks collide in barrooms, motels, and back roads where the next bad decision can be fatal by morning.
The Ship That Never Was
by Mickey Spillane
1982
In this seafaring adventure for younger readers, a boy becomes obsessed with the legend of a vanished ship said to haunt the local waters. Following mysterious clues with his father, he faces storms, wrecks, and shady treasure hunters while learning what loyalty and courage really mean.
The Day the Sea Rolled Back
by Mickey Spillane
1979
A father and son wake to find the ocean mysteriously pulled back from their island bay, revealing the bones of a long-lost ship loaded with treasure. Their attempt to claim it pits them against greedy adults, dangerous tides, and a final, almost magical turn of the sea itself.
Vintage Spillane
by Mickey Spillane
1974
An anthology of rare and early work, *Vintage Spillane* showcases the author outside his best-known series. The stories range from war tales to standalone crime yarns, all featuring his trademark blunt dialogue, sudden violence, and ordinary men pushed to dangerous extremes.
The Last Cop Out
by Mickey Spillane
1973
Gill Burke, once the toughest cop in New York, is forced off the force after the mob leans on the brass. When high-ranking officers start dying violently, a terrified DA begs Burke to put his badge back on and hunt a faceless assassin who is dismantling the department.
The Erection Set
by Mickey Spillane
1972
Dogeron “Dog” Kelly is a war-hardened adventurer out to reclaim his grandfather’s failing company and settle old scores. His quest drags him into boardroom warfare, a corporate enemy with a long memory, and a shadowy drug syndicate that connects his past undercover work to present-day bloodshed.
Survival... Zero
by Mickey Spillane
1970
A dying friend’s phone call pulls Hammer into the shabby death of a small-time pickpocket. Under the cheap suit and alleyway violence he uncovers a deeper plot, where political players and faceless bureaucrats are ready to write off innocent lives as acceptable losses.
The Tough Guys
by Mickey Spillane
1969
A trio of midcentury Spillane stories in which hard men take the law into their own hands. Whether they are ex-cons, soldiers, or street hoods, each protagonist faces a rigged system and chooses violent shortcuts, with betrayals and femme fatales never far away.
The Delta Factor
by Mickey Spillane
1968
Morgan the Raider, a master thief serving time for a forty-million-dollar heist, is offered a deal: help the government or rot in prison. Parachuted into a Caribbean island that doubles as a political prison, he must free a kidnapped scientist and survive double crosses on every side.
The Body Lovers
by Mickey Spillane
1967
Hammer hears a child’s scream in the night and finds a terrified boy beside the whipped, murdered body of a model. As similarly brutal killings mount, he dives into fashion houses, hidden clubs, and an underground circle where jaded elites pay to watch women die.
The Twisted Thing
by Mickey Spillane
1966
A routine bodyguard job turns into a nightmare when the teenage son of Hammer’s wealthy client disappears. The kidnapping ties back to a fourteen-year-old crime and a killer whose warped motives make him one of the most venomous foes Hammer has ever faced.
The Death Dealers
by Mickey Spillane
1966
America’s superspy Tiger Mann is back in action, tasked with protecting an Arab king whose death would tilt the balance of power. Outwitting a Soviet mastermind, foiling an assassination plot, and tangling with a dangerous dancer, he does whatever it takes for his clandestine agency and his own code.
The By-Pass Control
by Mickey Spillane
1966
When a brilliant engineer vanishes with a device that can secretly disable America’s missile controls, Tiger Mann gets the call. Racing enemy agents to the missing man, he battles a sadistic rival spy and a lethal femme fatale in a chase that ends on a windswept beach in blood.
Killer Mine
by Mickey Spillane
1965
Lieutenant Joe Scanlon stalks a faceless gunman who is wiping out underworld figures with a .38, upsetting even the city’s criminals. Working with a courageous policewoman used as bait, Scanlon prowls bars, alleys, and back rooms, determined to stop the one-shot assassin before the streets erupt.
Bloody Sunrise
by Mickey Spillane
1965
Ready to quit the killing game and get married, Tiger Mann is dragged back when a key Soviet defector offers no information. Tiger suspects the defector is hunting for an old flame, an Olympic skier, and follows the trail into a plot that threatens both American and British security.
The Snake
by Mickey Spillane
1964
Picking up after *The Girl Hunters*, Hammer spirits Velda out of hiding and discovers she has been sheltering a runaway young woman. Protecting the girl from her murderous stepfather throws Hammer and Velda into a decades-old robbery mystery and a hunt for a faceless schemer called the Snake.
The Flier
by Mickey Spillane
1964
A volume built around the title story, in which a wartime pilot nicknamed the Flier comes home and finds peacetime more dangerous than combat. Drawn into smuggling, double crosses, and a woman with her own agenda, he has to rely on old instincts above the clouds and on the ground.
Return of the Hood
by Mickey Spillane
1964
Spillane revisits the tough operator from “Me, Hood!” as Ryan is handed a capsule of microfilm a dying spy slips him in the street. Losing it almost immediately, he fights through gangsters and foreign agents to get it back, knowing too many people are willing to kill for what it holds.
Day of the Guns
by Mickey Spillane
1964
Tiger Mann spots a woman he knew as a Nazi spy now living under a new identity as a UN translator. Their tangled past explodes into the present as he uncovers a Communist conspiracy that reaches from international delegates to CIA offices and forces him into a brutal private war.
Me, Hood!
by Mickey Spillane
1963
This collection gathers two novellas and a short story from Spillane’s men’s magazine years. Whether following a hood recruited as an unofficial enforcer, a recovering patient avenging exploited local girls, or aging men chasing lost youth, each tale delivers rough justice and unapologetically hardboiled attitudes.
The Girl Hunters
by Mickey Spillane
1962
Seven years after Velda vanished on a case, Hammer is a drunken derelict pulled off the streets to hear a dying man’s confession: Velda is alive and in deadly danger. To save her, he has to sober up and face a Soviet assassin known only as the Dragon.
The Deep
by Mickey Spillane
1961
A tough ex-sailor with a murky past heads to a coastal town to collect on an old debt and is immediately pulled into murder. Facing gangsters, bad memories, and a woman he should not trust, he follows a blood trail that runs back to wartime loyalties and betrayals.
Kiss Me, Deadly
by Mickey Spillane
1952
Speeding home from Albany, Hammer almost runs down a terrified hitchhiker, then is run off the road by killers who torture and murder her. His investigation uncovers a tangle of mobsters, spies, and stolen atomic secrets that make this one of his most explosive cases.
The Long Wait
by Mickey Spillane
1951
After a car crash leaves him with no memory and no fingerprints, Johnny McBride drifts back to his hometown and finds he is wanted for murder. Determined to clear his name, he digs into a web of small-town corruption, mob influence, and a past self he barely recognizes.
The Big Kill
by Mickey Spillane
1951
In a seedy bar on a stormy night, a desperate man kisses his baby goodbye, walks into the street, and is gunned down. Hammer shoots back, then takes responsibility for the child and launches a relentless hunt for the men behind the killing.
One Lonely Night
by Mickey Spillane
1951
Shaken after a judge calls him a killer, Hammer wanders a rainy Manhattan bridge and stumbles into a woman’s death and a stranger’s murder. The trail leads to Communist cells, political fronts, and a conspiracy that turns his personal crisis into a Cold War battlefield.
Vengeance is Mine
by Mickey Spillane
1950
Hammer wakes up in a hotel room with a hangover, a dead war buddy on the floor, and his own gun as the supposed suicide weapon. Stripped of his licenses, he digs into a modeling agency and blackmail racket that powerful people will kill to protect.
My Gun Is Quick
by Mickey Spillane
1950
After Mike Hammer gives a down-on-her-luck redhead enough cash to escape the streets, she turns up dead in an apparent hit and run. Convinced it is murder, Hammer tears into a prostitution and blackmail ring that stretches from waterfront dives to high society.
I, the Jury
by Mickey Spillane
1947
Private eye Mike Hammer vows to avenge the slow, cruel murder of his war buddy Jack Williams by killing the culprit in exactly the same way. His hunt drags him through New York’s nightclubs, clinics, and mob hangouts, where every ally might be a liar.
Where should I start?
If you want the classic Mike Hammer origin: I, the Jury → My Gun Is Quick → Vengeance is Mine.
If you prefer Cold War paranoia and big action: One Lonely Night → The Big Kill → Kiss Me, Deadly.
If you like older, battered Hammer stories: The Killing Man → Black Alley → The Goliath Bone.
If you want a Western twist on Spillane’s style: The Legend of Caleb York → The Big Showdown → The Bloody Spur → Last Stage to Hell Junction.
If you’re curious about his non-Hammer work: The Delta Factor → The Erection Set → Dead Street → The Last Stand.
Author bio
Mickey Spillane was born Frank Morrison Spillane in Brooklyn in 1918 and spent much of his childhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey. His father tended bars, his mother worked in a factory, and he discovered early that staying inside with a stack of books was safer than the streets outside.
By his teens he had read deeply in adventure and classic fiction and started selling short pieces. He worked briefly as a reporter for a local paper, learning how to write fast and get to the point. That taste for speed and directness never left his prose.
In the early 1940s he moved into the booming comic-book field. Writing eight pages a day or more, he turned out stories for characters like Superman, Batman, Captain America, and Captain Marvel. The grind taught him how to build a punchy scene, cut description to the bone, and end every page on a hook.
During World War II he joined the Army Air Corps, training as a fighter pilot and then working as a flight instructor. After the war he needed money and decided to turn an idea for a detective comic into a prose novel. He wrote I, the Jury in a matter of days, intending it to be quick cash rather than a new career.
The book introduced private eye Mike Hammer, a first-person narrator who mixed shell-shocked war experience, street smarts, and an unforgiving sense of justice. Readers seized on the raw violence, sexual charge, and simple moral lines. The critical establishment mostly hated it, but paperback sales exploded and Hammer became one of the defining detectives of postwar crime fiction.
Across the 1950s and 1960s Spillane followed Hammer through cases like My Gun Is Quick, Vengeance is Mine, Kiss Me, Deadly, and The Girl Hunters, while also branching into other heroes. The Cold War spy Tiger Mann headlined his own series, and Morgan “the Raider” starred in international capers like The Delta Factor. Spillane also wrote standalones, short story collections, and, later in life, children’s adventures.
Hollywood and television came calling. Films were made from several of the novels, including a celebrated adaptation of Kiss Me, Deadly, and Spillane himself stepped in front of the camera to play Hammer in the movie version of The Girl Hunters. He also turned up in guest roles on TV and did memorable commercial work, treating his own tough-guy image with a wink.
Critics could be scathing about the violence and politics in his books, but readers kept buying them. Over the decades his novels sold well into nine figures worldwide. Professional recognition followed later, including the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and a children’s book prize for The Day the Sea Rolled Back.
Spillane eventually settled in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, where he fished, flew small planes, and kept writing. He became a Jehovah’s Witness, scaled back public appearances, and spent more time with family and close friends. One of those friends was mystery writer Max Allan Collins, who later finished several unpublished Spillane manuscripts, among them new Mike Hammer and Caleb York novels.
He died in 2006, leaving behind a compact but influential body of work. The books are fast, blunt, and full of attitude, with damaged heroes who believe the world is simple even when the cases are not. That mix of pace, anger, and rough-edged charm still draws new readers to his pages.
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