Mickey Spillane

One of the most successful novelists of the 20th century, Mickey Spillane was the creator of the two-fisted private eye Mike Hammer, whose violent exploits were detailed over the course of 13 novels, as well as numerous films like "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955) and television series, including "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" (CBS, 1984-85). Noted for their depictions of violence and sexuality, the Mike Hammer books, which were launched in 1947 with I, the Jury, sold millions of copies to action-hungry readers who thrilled to Hammer's style of Old Testament vengeance against Communists, two-timing women and thugs of all stripes. Hammer's shoot-first style helped to inspire such trigger-happy antecedents as Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry and John Woo's guilt-ridden gunmen. Spillane and Hammer kept in the public eye for over half a century before the author's death in 2006, but readers never lost their fascination for that world, at once exciting and ugly, but always hard-boiled.