There's no doubt the idea of women impersonating men and
vice-versa has been popular throughout the history of
literature. One of the finest recent noir movies "The Crying
Game" used it to devastating and audience shocking
effect.
However, when Mike Hammer is both A) Allegedly one of New
York's finest detectives, and B) Allegedly one of New York's
biggest studs, the fact that he mistakes a "hot dame" with
a
"killer body" for a dude elicits only derision and disbelief.
It is an utterly stupid twist in the context of that
particular book. And it is simultaneously both obnoxiously
homophobic and sexist as Hammer gleefully blows the offending
transvestite away. Sure it may reflect some of the 1950's
paranoia towards women, but read from the modern viewpoint
it's insulting.
However, to further give Spillane some more credit as a
writer, not only was he great at writing hard-boiled action,
but he was skillful in creating page-turning stories and was
the master of ending a book on a stunner of a sentence to
finish off the book with maximum impact.
Jim Thompson was no slouch at that last trick, either.
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