Books: A Slaughter for a Quarter

THE LONG WAIT (256 pp.)—Mickey Spillane—Dutton ($2.50).

Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have been seen with Mike Hammer. Mike is a New York private eye, a big, ugly shamus with more brawn than brains, an oversized appetite for oversized nymphomaniacs and a noisy sense of social justice. A genuine Holmesian wouldn't give Mike shelf space, but five books about him in the past four years have become among the fastest selling mysteries of the decade. Four of them have sold well over a million copies each. When The Big Kill is brought out in reprint next month, it will make the biggest first-printing splash...