THE BIG KNOCKOVER by Dashiell Hammett. 355 pages. Random House. $5.95.
THE BY-PASS CONTROL by Mickey Spillane. 220 pages. Duffon. $3,95.
Mickey Spillane is a direct literary descendant of Dashiell Hammett, although it would be imprecise to stress the word literary in reference to Spillane. Hammett, who died in 1961, created the tough-guy private eye, who has since taken up permanent residence in the ghetto world of detective fiction, but none of Hammett's many imitators ranks lower than Mickey Spillane. Anyone who bothers to measure Spillane's latest Tiger Mann mystery against this posthumous collection of Hammett's Continental Op stories, first published in the...
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