Mickey Spillane

Mickey Spillane was a renowned American author, best known for his hardboiled crime fiction, most notably his Mike Hammer series. Spillane's writing style was characterized by its simplicity and directness, often using short words and lightning transitions. His novels, which were classified as thrillers, mysteries, or dramas, were embraced by a global audience, making him a successful writer with over 225 million copies sold worldwide. At one point, seven of his books were in the top 15 in the list of all-time bestselling novels in the United States.

Despite the criticism from literary experts, Spillane's work was admired by people for its sex and violence, which was more than what was considered normal during his time. His success as a writer was further demonstrated through the adaptation of his novels into movies and TV series, where he also portrayed his main characters. He was involved in the production of the movies based on his novels, which further solidified his status as a celebrity. Spillane's writing career was marked by monumental success, with him selling more than two hundred million novels, and receiving the Edgar Allen Poe Grand Master Award for Mystery Writers and the Junior Literary Guild Award.

In addition to his successful writing career, Spillane was also known for his personal life. He was a struggling comic book publisher when he wrote "I, the Jury," and initially envisioned it as a comic book. He was a house-to-house missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses and expressed great disdain for what he saw as corrosive forces in American life, including antiwar protesters and the United Nations. Spillane was married three times, with his second wife, a model, posing nude for the dust jacket of his 1972 novel "The Erection Set." He had four children from his first marriage and is survived by his third wife, Jane Rodgers Johnson, who was 30 years his junior. Spillane's legacy as a writer lives on, and he remains one of the most popular mystery writers of all time.