The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Volume 3: Encore for Murder by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane

This third volume of The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer is the second to contain a "novel for radio" by Max Allan Collins (after 2010's Audie Award–nominated The Little Death). Collins continues to pore through the files of the late Mickey Spillane for gold nuggets, and this one, Encore for Murder, is expanded from a one-page outline.

Mike Hammer is hired to play bodyguard to ex-flame and former diva Rita Vance. Rita is taking a ride down nostalgia lane in the revival of her biggest success, playing George M. Cohan's wife in Mrs. Doodle Dandy.

But now she's receiving death threats, and she wants Mike and Velda to find out who is sending them. Mike's bodyguarding duties require Velda to do most of the footwork in this case, while he focuses on a more close-up investigation, so to speak. However, as always, things get a lot more complicated than they first appear.

Actor Stacy Keach once again takes the mantle and shows why he is Mike Hammer to many people. His line readings are effortless — all the right notes of righteous anger and sly humor seeming to slide out unbidden. Keach also executive produced this time around and, as he did with the previous outing, composed and performed the very noirish jazz score (with, of course, the exception of the Hammer "theme," Earle Hagen's "Harlem Nocturne") .

The terrific support from the The Little Death is back as well, with Michael Cornelison reprising his powerful turn as Pat Chambers and Franette Leibow serving up another three-dimensional Velda. Sometimes, in the novels, Velda seems a little hard to grasp, but Leibow makes you feel like you know her.

Collins himself also puts in a cameo appearance that just oozes creepiness, but it's in the writing that he really makes it count. Collins offers up some of his best work yet in Encore for Murder. On his blog, Collins noted that Stacy Keach "said I'd provided him with the best Hammer voiceover he'd ever got," and long-time fans along with new initiates will understand why: Collins really understands Hammer.

Max was a fan of Mickey's long before he was a writer, and it is this penetrating insight that gave Spillane the confidence to pass on his legacy. As Spillane reportedly told his wife Jane, "When I'm gone, there's going to be a treasure hunt around here. Take everything you find and give it to Max — he'll know what to do."

And here Collins again uses the audio format to its full potential, creating a fully realized "movie for the mind" that offers more than just simple escapism for two hours. Encore for Murder is yet one more fine addition to the Mike Hammer canon that shows not only was Max Allan Collins a good choice to carry on the legacy of Mickey Spillane, but also that no one could have done it better.

The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Volume 2: The Little Death by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (starring Stacy Keach and a full cast)

Stacy Keach reprises his most famous role as Mike Hammer, Mickey Spillane's most famous creation, in this second volume of The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. At the beginning of The Little Death — a "novel for radio" written by Max Allan Collins from the short story "The Night I Died" by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins — Hammer is nearing the end of his search for a reporter friend's killer. Hammer's getting older, but he's still more than capable of chasing a suspect across the rooftops of New York.

After that case is closed in Hammer's signature style, six months go by. Waiting for a client in Carmen Rich's casino, Hammer is interrupted by Helen Venn, mistress and silent partner of the late Marty Wellmann. Venn was there to meet Rich, who didn't show. Hammer escorts her out of the bar, between flying bullets, and she tells him her story: she's thought by Rich to have $10 million that Wellmann supposedly skimmed from Rich, and so she has a price on her head.

Later, Hammer gets a message from "the Captain," a legless, homeless war vet who's seen something important, but when Hammer arrives at the meeting place, the Captain has gone down with his ship. Now Mike's got two murders to solve (including Wellmann's), a gorgeous blonde to protect from syndicate scum, and a couple more murders to commit before he gets to the bottom of things.

The cast of The Little Death (whose title — la petite mort in French — refers to the belief that orgasm causes a loss of vital "life energy") includes Collins regular Michael Cornelison (Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life), and Collins himself is credited with two roles. Cornelison as Pat Chambers more than holds his own with Keach's Hammer, matching his verbal thrusts with equally skilled parries. Also strong is Franette Leibow's three-dimensional turn as Velda. Collins uses his skill with tough-guy patter to pepper the story with a selection of fun wisecracks and puns.

There are enough familiar tough-guy private-eye tropes floating around in The Little Death to fill a P.I.-fiction instruction manual, but since a lot of what may now be seen as cliches originated with Mike Hammer, they become part of the appeal. The ending will hardly be a surprise to anyone familiar with the genre (though Spillane and Collins jump us through a number of plausible hoops in the meantime), but that doesn't take away from the wonderful use of the audio format.

In addition to the high-quality writing and acting, the events are underscored by noirish jazz compositions written and performed by Stacy Keach himself. The realistic sound effects — you can even hear Hammer swallow his beer (and his bouncing bedsprings!), including a gunshot that fills the room with its explosion — round out this "movie for the mind" and put Mike Hammer in a fully realized world that will be revisited over and over again. The Little Death is a terrific addition to the Mike Hammer canon.