Dead Street

Dead Street, by the late creator of the Mike Hammer PI series, is a crackerjack coda loaded with old Mickey Spillane staples: a hard-as-nails detective, tough-talking dames, and rat-a-tat dialogue. A retired NYC cop learns that the fiancée he thought was murdered 20 years ago really suffered a decades-long case of amnesia. As the two reconnect, mobsters, terrorists, and double-crossers give chase to unearth a national-security secret buried in her memory. And in an apt bit of ghostwriting, Max Allan Collins seamlessly completed the book’s unfinished final chapters from Spillane’s copious notes. A