The protagonist, Mike Hammer, feels alienated from mainstream society whose values, he feels, are no match for the evil that he must deal with. This novel illustrates the cardinal features of the subgenre known as hard-boiled crime fiction. He meets with the chief communist, and kills him. Hammer assaults their hideout, kills them all and rescues Velda.įinally, Hammer figures out who is the mastermind behind the Soviet plot. The Communists kidnap Hammer's secretary, Velda, and try to bargain, her life for the papers. Hammer, hindered by the Communists, eventually works out where the stolen papers are and retrieves them. Lee Deamer tells Hammer that Oscar was trying to blackmail him with documents, now missing, and asks Hammer to recover the documents. Next day, Chambers tells Hammer that Lee Deamer, a political candidate running on an anti-corruption ticket has an insane twin brother named Oscar who is causing problems and asks Hammer to investigate but when Hammer goes to Oscar's address, Oscar runs off and throws himself in front of a train, leaving his body unrecognisable. Mike attends a meeting and is mistaken for a Soviet MGB spy. Hammer's friend in the police department, Captain of Homicide Pat Chambers, identifies them as membership cards for the local Communist Party. Both the man and the woman possessed oddly shaped green cards with the edges cut off at odd angles. Mike kills the man but the woman, terrified, jumps to her death from the bridge.

One Lonely Night ( 1951) is Mickey Spillane's fourth novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer.Īfter having been berated by a little judge because of killing somebody who needed knocking off bad, licensed investigator Mike Hammer goes for a walk to contemplate this humiliation on a rainy night in Manhattan and comes across a terrified woman and her pursuer on a bridge.

One lonely night by mickey spillane