Bookbeat Review: Detective work in bio leads to real Mickey Spillane

In fiction, an “unreliable narrator” can’t be trusted as he or she spins the story at hand. In real life, the term “fabulist” is used by those seeking a softer word than “liar.”

Friends of the popular crime writer Mickey Spillane noted that Spillane could pile the tall tales pretty high when talking about his own life, a character trait they acknowledged with fondness.

The authors of the biography “Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction” wisely dug deep into available records, not an easy task, to tease out fact over fancy. And they didn’t get too caught up in judging their subject for what’s true and what’s not — after all, Spillane was writing fiction for a living, not running for Congress.

Spillane (1918-2006) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, his father a sometime bartender who worked other jobs here and there and his mother a homemaker. Football and swimming were for fun, but writing combined young Mick’s interests in making money and storytelling. Comic books were his initial outlet, and after service as a flying instructor during World War II he turned to writing novels.

He invented private eye Mike Hammer, one of crime fiction’s icons, with the book “I, the Jury” (1947). That tale of revenge and those that followed were eaten up by the general public — mainly readers less interested in literature than a pulse-pounding narrative with what passed in the postwar era for startling violence and sex.

Spillane was so successful, selling title after title in the millions, that his own name became iconic in…