Review: Mike Hammer, Media Star
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 17, 2012
Mike Hammer is aging and he knows it, but that doesn't stop him from vamping for the TV cameras when he comes across a mutilated body near the side of a highway.  Of course, having found the gory mess (the only part still recognizable is a severed hand), Hammer makes it his mission to track down the killer -- in other words, to "play the hand I got dealt."  He soon takes on the related task of tracking down the beautiful TV reporter who was investigating the murder and has gone missing.The throwback style (that is, Mickey Spillane's style, full of dames and dolls and other politically incorrect expressions) in which Max Allan Collins writes Mike Hammer stories is always amusing.  "Skin" also made me smile by emphasizing one of Hammer's more endearing qualities (if anything about an icon of violence can be considered endearing):  he is an unabashed media whore, eager for the spotlight, always seeking notoriety and fame.A gruesome story that brings to mind Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein, "Skin" isn't a typical Mike Hammer outing, in part because Hammer doesn't go on a killing spree.  It does, however, feature Hammer's infamous version of vigilante justice.  The plot is simple and there's no real mystery -- this isn't a whodunit -- but the story is worth reading for Collins' hardboiled prose and for the chance, once again, to get inside Mike Hammer's head and see the world from his unique, unalterable perspective.