Tough Guys Don't Dance (1984) is a noir thriller and murder mystery novel by American writer Norman Mailer[1] reminiscent of the works of Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, and Raymond Chandler.

After waking one morning with a hangover 24 days after his wife has left him, Madden discovers that he has a new tattoo, the passenger seat of his car is covered in blood, and he has no memory of the previous night.

Following a tip from the Acting Chief of Police, Madden travels to his marijuana patch to check on its status and finds, to his surprise, the head of an attractive blonde woman has been deposited in a burrow in the exact place he stashes his cannabis harvest.

With all the evidence for the murder pointing towards him, Madden elects to solve the mystery himself, which brings him into contact with one shady character after another, including corrupt police, criminals, and washed-up boxers.

Throughout the story, Mailer's reliance upon sex as a tool is evident, appearing in the form of Madden wanting to 'screw' someone, Jessica Pangborn's "large, well-turned promiscuous breasts," the "part-queer" Bolo Green, and a dependence for the storyline upon a number of nude, obscene photographs of dead women.

Unknown new policemen, a spirit inducing medium, his own father, and many faces from Madden's past enter the fray as he must delicately find a balance between who to trust, who beheaded the woman and left her head in his burrow, and how to avoid appearing guilty.

"[4] Also, the title of the book appears in the text about halfway through the story, with a flashback from Tim Madden's days a child learning how to box when his dad told him that "tough guys don't dance."

"[6] Additionally, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, in his segment "The Books of the Times" writes, "On top of the faults I've already hinted at - its implausibility and strutting out of too familiar stratagems and obsessions - one could knock it for being rushed, repetitious, all too nearly an unintended parody of itself.