After thwarting several assassination attempts and stopping the kidnapping of a socialite, Mike Hammer tries to figure out who wants him dead and why.

After Mike Hammer witnesses Wall Street superstar Vincent Colby getting clipped by a speeding red Ferrari, the shaken victim's stockbroker father hires Hammer to find the driver. But the toughest private eye of them all soon is caught up in a series of bizarre, seemingly unconnected slayings marked by a forbidden martial arts technique. What do a lovely redhead, a short-tempered bartender, an exotic call girl, a murdered police inspector and a movie...

The course of true love never did run smooth for PI Mike Hammer. His secretary and partner Velda has walked out on him without explanation, and Mike is just surfacing from a four-month bender. But then an old cop turns up murdered, an old cop who once worked with Velda on the NYPD Vice Squad. What's more, Mike's pal Captain Pat Chambers has discovered that Velda is in Florida, the moll of gangster and drug runner Nolly Quinn. Hammer hits the road...

"In an atomic adaptation of Mickey Spillane's novel, directed by Robert Aldrich, the good manners of the 1950s are blown to smithereens. Snarling private detective Mike Hammer's decision one dark, lonely night to pick up a hitchhiking woman sends him down some terrifying byways. Brazen and bleak, it's a film noir masterpiece and an essential piece of cold war paranoia. Featuring as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema."--Container....