Matt Helm was much closer to the real deal. Allan Dulles, the most sociopathic of all our Cold Warrior political psychopaths would probably have built a shrine to Helm. Which is to say that Helm was a true blue Cold Warrior himself, so certain in his job of destroying Communism that assassinating people rarely troubled him morally.
But Hamilton was so skilled in presenting him, so deft at making Helm's war our own, that we at least understood him if not always agreed with him. The novels remain fresh today and given Putin's recent sociopathic moves) even the Cold War atmospherics are once again realistic.
Unlike all the writers influenced by Ian Fleming and other upper crust British espionage novelists, Matt Helm is very much blue collar. Parts of his books set in the American west read like early Elmore Leonard westerns. Like most workingmen and workingwomen, he knows how to do stuff, whether it's fixing the hinges on a door getting an obstinate car to start.
They are nodal available again beautiful inexpensive editions. Buy them now.
2 comments:
I love the Matt Helm novels, and I've read several in their new Titan editions. They are mass market, nicely designed, and very easy to read. It doesn't that your reading words written by Donald Hamilton, either.
Good news indeed. I read them all, but gave most if not all of them away years ago. The only one I didn't see among the covers you've posted is my favorite, #1, Death of a Citizen.
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