I, the Jury is of course only the first of an even dozen Mike Hammer novels which Spillane wrote between 1947 and 1989. His output has not been large or steady. Most writers of series try to produce one book a year or at least try to keep the books flowing at regular intervals; this has not been true of Spillane. From 1951 to 1962 and again from 1970 to 1989, Spillane did not publish any Mike Hammer novels at all. He wrote and published other things but nothing for his most popular series, and he has never offered a satisfactory explanation for these breaks.

Critics tend to prefer the six novels written and published from 1947 to 1952: I, the Jury (1947), My Gun Is Quick (1950), Vengeance Is Mine (1950), One Lonely Night (1951), The Big Kill (1951), and Kiss Me, Deadly (1952). Most of the articles written about Spillane's work center on these books as well, and...