Milestones Jul. 31, 2006

DIED. Mickey Spillane, 88, scribe behind the gory, hard-boiled Mike Hammer detective novels , which appalled critics with their stilted prose ("Her eyes were a symphony of incredulity," Spillane wrote of a victim whom Hammer had romanced, then shot) but enthralled readers, who bought more than 100 million copies over six decades; in Murrells Inlet, S.C. Spillane's anticommunist bent and good-vs.-evil plots in such yarns as My Gun Is Quick, One Lonely Night and I, the Jury resonated with weary postwar Americans. He also built a multimedia juggernaut: the hard-drinking, gleefully sadistic Hammer inspired film noir (Kiss Me, Deadly), made-for-TV movies and three TV series. The author, who got his start in comic books, bore similarities to his cavalier hero ("I don't give a hoot about ... reviews. What I want to read are royalty checks," he liked to say) but revealed a softer, subtler side in the '70s and '80s, writing two well-received children's books and parodying his macho image in TV ads for Miller Lite beer.