My Gun Is Quick — Mickey Spillane

As My Gun Is Quick begins, Hammer has just closed another case and he's tired, too tired to drive home without some very strong Java. In an all-night hash-joint the health inspector should have closed down, Mike meets Nancy Sanford, a.k.a. Red. She was taking a break from walking the streets; he just wanted his caffeine. But they became friends in their brief meeting -- the fallen angel and the flatfoot. Mike protected her from a greasy hood and he left Nancy safe and happy, happier than she thought she could ever be again. The next day she was dead. The papers said hit-and-run; Hammer said murder. The reasons behind her death sicken Hammer -- it makes him hot under the collar, and the filth that caused Red's death dirties his life, too. At great cost and pain, she had given her life to rid New York of some of its filth, and Hammer is there to see the cleanup through.