Book 8 of 7

Because seven isn't quite enough.  Juxtaposed to Enid Blyton and her violence free world is the hard boiled detective genre, and the hotly disputed leader of the pack is Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer.

Spillane wrote The Big Kill because he needed money to buy a house.  The general public loved it, the critics panned it, and Mick laughed all the way to the bank, and then bragged about it.  Spillane publicly commented that the one thing all those big shot writers didn't understand is that the world eats more salted peanuts than they do caviar.  And he was right.  Spillane sold over 200 million books, a half-dozen films, and two TV series (one of which he played Mike Hammer).

The Big Kill by Mickey Spillane

So if you're ever getting a little fed up with overly sensitive heroes that are the quintessential 1940s Boy Scout in disguise, go read about Mike Hammer.  Especially the early work.