Is My Book Cover Finished?

            On Tuesday it rained on and off from the late morning on and sometimes it came down quite hard. It was definitely too wet for a bike ride and so I just got caught up on my journal. In the late afternoon I took my camera and tripod out on the deck and took a few pictures of myself and my new haircut.

            I worked on my book cover and I think it’s very close to being done.

            I roasted five chicken legs in the oven and had one for dinner while watching Mike Hammer, Private Eye. In the story, a Father Dressler comes to Hammer for help. We learn that Dressler was Hammer's priest when he was a child and a choirboy. I haven't read all the novels but I've seen a lot of Mike Hammer shows and movies and this is the first one that refers to Mike Hammer as being Catholic. I know that Mickey Spillane’s father was Catholic and his mother was Presbyterian and he was Baptized in both churches but he wasn’t raised as either and he didn't get religious until he joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I think it’s a mistake to pin Catholicism on Mike Hammer because I don’t think that Spillane would have approved.

            Father Dressler administers to prostitutes and he comes to Mike Hammer because hookers are being murdered. They are found shot, with a wooden cross wrapped around their necks and wearing a red wig. Shortly after talking with Hammer, Father Dressler is also murdered. We don’t see the killer’s face but he talks through an electrolarynx like some throat cancer survivors do. The priest that takes over after Father Dressler is Father James, who does not think the church is a place for prostitutes. Father James is more interested in the new church that is being built for the parish by wealthy developer, Jason Carter. Jason’s father died of throat cancer and his mother, a redhead, committed suicide with the same kind of derringer that Jason has been using to kill the prostitutes. One hooker named Candy is fed up and she asks Hammer to let her serve as bait to trap the killer. Hammer arrives just in time to save Candy at the site of the new church.