My Gun Is Quick (1950) Mike Hammer, a private detective helps a prostitute being assaulted, and notices that she is wearing a very unique ring. She is later found murdered and there is no trace of the ring, which turns out to be part of a cache of jewelry stolen by the Nazis during World War II and smuggled out of France after the wary by an American army colonel. The private eye decides to try to find the ring, is hired by the former colonel to find the rest of the jewels, and runs up against a murderous French gang that is also looking for the jewels.

Vengeance is Mine! (1950) Mike Hammer, private eye detective, wakes up to find himself alone with a murder victim and being accused of the crime. He flees and has to solve the mystery of who set him up. He uncovers a conspiracy against him. The plot has many twists and at first not even Hammer is positive of his innocence.

One Lonely Night (1951) Hard boiled private investigator Mike Hammers stumbles on a murder and suicide while taking a walk on a bridge late at night. The suicidal girl jumps in the river after Hammer murders a man trying to pursue her. As the suicidal girl jumps in the river she leaves only a green communist card behind. Hammer is left looking for answers of why the girl was being pursued and stumbles on a communist conspiracy to take over the government.

The Big Kill (1951) Mike Hammer witnesses a man, William Decker, kissing his toddler son goodbye and walking right to his death to be gunned down. Hammer takes one of the killers out but feels a responsibility to find out who wanted this man killed. Hammer uncovers Decker's connection to bookies and the criminals Decker worked for keep turning up dead. As the investigation heats up, Hammer is almost killed for knowing too much and arrested by the D.A. for butting into police business. Hammer avenges himself and the police by bringing all of the bookies down and finding out the real reason Decker was murdered.

Kiss Me, Deadly (1952) While driving down a lonely road late one evening, Hammer picks up a beautiful blonde hitchhiker dressed in nothing but a raincoat. At first, Hammer assumes that the incoherent girl is an escaped lunatic; his mind is changed when he and the girl are abducted by two thugs. The men torture the girl to death as the semiconscious Hammer watches helplessly. He himself escapes extermination when the murderers' car topples off a cliff and he is thrown clear. Seeking vengeance, Hammer tries to discover the secret behind the girl's murder.

The Girl Hunters (1962) Hammer has spent seven years in an alcoholic funk after the supposed death of his secretary, Velda. He is brought back to the land of the living by his old friendly enemy, police lieutenant Pat Chambers, who wants Hammer to extract some information out of a dying federal agent. This puts Mike on the trail of a subversive communist organization, the key to which seems to be sexy Laura Knapp, the widow of a murdered senator.

The Snake (1964) The novel picks up exactly where The Girl Hunters left off. Hammer has discovered the location of his long lost love and secretary, Velda. In a race against the clock, Hammer tries to move Velda from the location as soon as possible, only to find that she is harboring a 21-year-old runaway who fears for her life. Before they vacate the premises, they are attacked by two assassins, who they later discover are working independently of each other. Hammer quickly dispatches one of the men and severely wounds the other. However, the wounded killer escapes.

The Twisted Thing (1966) This client wasn't Mike Hammer's usual. He was a man Hammer had sent to prison and he wanted desperately to find his missing sister. The only clue was a mound of filmy, exotic garments. As Hammer followed the little he had to go on, something like a pattern began to emerge. He knew he was missing something, and whatever it was kept gnawing at the corners of his mind. The single strand he had seemed to tie in to the deaths of two women, but red herrings fouled the trail. Then he stumbled on it - shielded in diplomatic immunity!

The Body Lovers (1967) Mike Hammer finds himself investigating a sex-orgy cult with money and murder on the agenda.

Survival...Zero! (1970) The murder of Lippy Sullivan earned very little news space. Lippy was a loser and a pickpocket whose only claim to fame was his acquaintance with Mike Hammer. But was that reason enough for someone to torture and kill him? By the time Hammer figures out that the wrong man was killed, it's almost too late. Containers of a viral bacteria are already hidden around the country. Hammer tracks down clues, but instead of leading him to the canisters, they lead to another corpse...

The Killing Man (1989) The image of bloodshed in his office remained etched in Mike Hammer's mind forever - his secretary sprawled on the floor and a stranger sitting dead and mutilated at his own desk. In one moment a storm of madness entered the private eye's life. As he starts hunting for the killer, Hammer is haunted by the message left on his desk: "You die for killing me." Suddenly, he is in too deep with a lethal blonde who has big ideas, a CIA secret, another set of murders, and the trail of an international hitman named Penta. Now Hammer knows it's only a matter of time...

Black Alley (1996) Mike Hammer awakens from a near-fatal coma to find himself in more trouble than ever before. There’s the gunning down of an old Army buddy to pay back in spades, directly connected to $89 billion in missing Mafia money that the crime family and the Feds want their hands on. But no one’s counting on Hammer getting in the middle of things...with quick fists and an even quicker .45!

Something's Down There (2004) Retired from his harrowing operative career, American Mako Hooker spends his time fishing from his boat, the Clamdip. However, his solace at sea ends when his former employers order him back to work. They want Mako to investigate the explosive attacks on ships in the Bermuda Triangle where the former agent conveniently is spending his time.

The Goliath Bone (2008 Completed by Max Allan Collins) Hammer is forced to put off retirement and his marriage to his long time love interest and secretary, Velda, after he falls into the middle of an international crisis. Hammer saves a couple of archaeologists from unknown muggers somewhere in New York. Lo and behold, the archaeologists are the target of Al Qaeda agents who believe they possess a thigh bone that belonged to the Biblical character, Goliath. Hammer now finds himself going against Islamic terrorists, including a 7-foot agent code named, of course, Goliath. Will Hammer hold up against the new enemies of the US?

The Big Bang (2010 completed by Max Allan Collins) It's the middle of the Swinging Sixties in midtown Manhattan. Hammer, recuperating from a near fatal mix-up with the Mob, disturbs some drug dealers assaulting a young motorbike messenger who was transporting medicine for a hospital. He saves the kid but the muggers are not so lucky. The Mob and a new young breed of drug trafficker assume he will target them, and they target him right back, with a street-corner knife attack. Hammer and his beautiful, deadly partner Velda take on the drug racket in New York. In a world of flashy discos, swanky bachelor pads and the occasional dark alley. Hammer deals with doctors, drug addicts and hit men, and meets changing times with his trademark brand of violent vengeance.

Kiss Her Goodbye (2011 Completed by Max Allan Collins) Mike Hammer has been away from New York too long. Recuperating in Florida after a deadly mob shootout, the private eye learns that an old mentor on the New York police force has committed suicide. Hammer returns for the funeral—and because he knows that Inspector Doolan would never have killed himself. But Manhattan in the 1970s no longer feels like home. Hammer’s lovely longtime partner, Velda, has disappeared after he broke it off for her own safety, and his office is shut down. When a woman is murdered practically on the funeral home’s doorstep, Hammer is drawn into the hunt for a cache of Nazi diamonds that makes the Maltese Falcon seem like a knickknack, and for the mysterious beauty who had been close to Doolan in his final days. But drug racketeers, who had it in for the tough old police inspector, attract Hammer’s attention as well. Soon he is hobnobbing with coke-snorting celebrities at the notorious disco Club 52 and playing footsie with a sleek lady D.A., a modern female on the make for oldfashioned Hammer. Everything leads to a Mafia social club where Hammer and his .45 come calling, initiating the wildest showdown since Spillane’s classic One Lonely Night.