The Long Wait

Description

Lyncastle is a small town that likes to be dirty: gin joints, gambling dens and brothels make sure of that, and bring in more money than the State Capitol. One night, a man named Johnny McBride returns to the town, and nobody is happy about it. Supposedly he ran away from embezzling and murder charges five years ago - he's believed to have killed no less than the town's DA. But Johnny doesn't scare easily when he's rousted by angry cops, or when harder men try to kill him. He's back to clear his name and settle some scores, and the forces that control the town from its shadows are nervous. But is Johnny really the man everyone thinks he is? Whoever he may be, his road to revenge isn't for the faint of heart . . .

Born Frank Morrison Spillane in Brooklyn, New York City, Mickey Spillane started writing while at high school. During the Second World War, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and became a fighter pilot and instructor. After the war, he moved to South Carolina. He was married three times, the third time to Jane Rogers Johnson, and had four children and two stepchildren. He wrote his first novel, I, the Jury (1947), in order to raise the money to buy a house for himself and his first wife, Mary Ann Pearce. The novel sold six and a half million copies in the United States, and introduced Spillane's most famous character, the hardboiled PI Mike Hammer. The many novels that followed became instant bestsellers, until in 1980 the US all-time fiction bestseller list of fifteen titles boasted seven by Mickey Spillane. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. He was uniformly disliked by critics, owing to the high content of sex and violence in his books. However, he was later praised by American mystery writers Max Alan Collins and William L. DeAndrea, as well as artist Markus Lupertz. The novelist Ayn Rand, a friend of Spillane's, appreciated the black-and-white morality of his books. Spillane was an active Jehovah's Witness. He died in 2006.

Remorseless . . . Spillane keeps the action coming - Publishers Weekly Spillane is a master in compelling you always to turn the next page - New York Times Spillane is still shooting the same tasty dish - New York Times Book Review