Stacy Keach stars as Mickey Spillane's hardboiled private eye Mike Hammer in “The Little Death.”

Private eye Mike Hammer is no stranger to murder, but this time he has two to untangle –  the killing of the Captain, a legless, homeless panhandler, dismissed by the police as minor, and the slaying of gambling kingpin Marty Wellman, whose lady friend, Helen Venn, turns to the P.I. for help when the Mob fingers her for the next kill. Seems the new kingpin, Carmen Rich – with whom Hammer has a violent history – thinks Helen made off with ten mil in skim money courtesy of her late lover, or anyway, so Rich claims. But Mike Hammer knows a damsel in distress when he sees one and takes up Helen's cause, igniting a series of hit attempts on the P.I. by a small army of out-of-town shooters – some as far out of town as Cuba.  Such minor distractions can't prevent the toughest detective of them all from solving two murders and avenging a "little death" in a big way.

“I first discovered Mickey when I was a budding teenager growing up in southern California.  I, the Jury was required reading among the cool cats in my coterie of friends, and I have to confess that I read it more than once.  Kiss Me Deadly and Vengeance Is Mine followed, and I began to totally identify with the character of Mike Hammer.  Little did I know at the time that some 30 years down the line I would be playing him.  For me, being cast to play one of my childhood heroes was like entering a dream.”—Stacy Keach

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) introduced his signature detective character, Mike Hammer, in 1947 with I, the Jury. His books have sold over 225 million copies worldwide.

Max Allan Collins, friend of and collaborator on books with Mickey Spillane, is the author of the graphic novel Road to Perdition, which was made into a major motion picture