DEATH OF A CITIZEN by Donald Hamilton

Matt Helm is a solid citizen. He is married with three children. He makes a living writing popular novels (western’s mostly), and lives with his family in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His picture perfect American dream is mangled when Tina, an operative he briefly worked with in Europe during World War II, walks through the front entrance of a cocktail party. She passes an old signal to Matt—“I’ll get in touch with you later. Stand by”—and in an instant (and without much fuss) Matt’s idyllic existence shatters.

Death of a Citizen is the first (of 27) Matt Helm novels, and it is absolutely terrific. In the opening sequence Helm is an everyman; likable and stable with a pretty wife and a family, but it only takes a few hours for his old habits to take over. It starts with a dead woman in his writing room, and then a confrontation with Tina who, after some convincing from Matt, weaves a fantastic story about a Soviet agent hunting a nuclear scientist working for the Atomic Energy Commission at Los Alamos.

The action is convincing, the prose is smooth and cool—

“Suddenly I was feeling fine. You can stay tense only so long. I was over the hump. I was driving ten miles out of the way, with a corpse in the bed of the truck, just to take a worthless alley cat home.”

And the plot is as tight and smooth as a guy wire. There is more than the usual backstory about Helm’s World War II exploits, and post war life, but it is done without interrupting the forward momentum of the plot. Even better, Mac—the leader of the “organization” Matt worked for, and is once again working for—makes an appearance in the field, and Helm’s doubt and operational rust give him an element of believability. 

Death of a Citizen is the first of the Matt Helm novels, but it is as convincing, urgent, and well written as any. In a sense it is the primer. It introduces Helm, the organization, and everything it is, which is essentially a kind of counter intelligence wet work squad. It is the cold war on a small field. The best part, the citizen who lost his life (from the title) is Helm himself, and what he gains is a certain freedom, his code name Eric, and an outlet for his violent nature.

Death of a Citizen was originally published by Gold Medal in 1960, and it was recently reissued as a paperback by Titan Books.

DEATH OF A CITIZEN by Donald Hamilton

Matt Helm is a solid citizen.  He is married with three children.  He makes a living writing popular novels (western’s mostly), and lives with his family in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  His picture perfect American dream is mangled when Tina, an operative he briefly worked with in Europe during World War II, walks through the front entrance of a cocktail party.  She passes an old signal to Matt—“I’ll get in touch with you later. Stand by”—and in an instant (and without much fuss) Matt’s idyllic existence shatters.

Death of a Citizen is the first (of 27) Matt Helm novels, and it is absolutely terrific.  In the opening sequence Helm is an everyman; likable and stable with a pretty wife and a family, but it only takes a few hours for his old habits to take over.  It starts with a dead woman in his writing room, and then a confrontation with Tina who, after some convincing from Matt, weaves a fantastic story about a Soviet agent hunting a nuclear scientist working for the Atomic Energy Commission at Los Alamos.

The action is convincing, the prose is smooth and cool—

“Suddenly I was feeling fine.  You can stay tense only so long.  I was over the hump.  I was driving ten miles out of the way, with a corpse in the bed of the truck, just to take a worthless alley cat home.”

And the plot is as tight and smooth as a guy wire.  There is more than the usual backstory about Helm’s World War II exploits, and post war life, but it is done without interrupting the forward momentum of the plot.  Even better, Mac—the leader of the “organization” Matt worked for, and is once again working for—makes an appearance in the field, and Helm’s doubt and operational rust give him an element of believability. 

Death of a Citizen is the first of the Matt Helm novels, but it is as convincing, urgent, and well written as any.  In a sense it is the primer.  It introduces Helm, the organization, and everything it is, which is essentially a kind of counter intelligence wet work squad.  It is the cold war on a small field.  The best part, the citizen who lost his life (from the title) is Helm himself, and what he gains is a certain freedom, his code name Eric, and an outlet for his violent nature.

Death of a Citizen was originally published by Gold Medal in 1960, and it was recently reissued as a paperback by Titan Books—purchase a copy at Amazon.

This is another reprint of a Matt Helm novel I enjoyed. It was originally posted March 30, 2014. I’ve been desperately busy the last several weeks, but there will be new content coming very soon.

MURDERERS' ROW by Donald Hamilton



Murderers’ Row is the fifth Matt Helm novel.  It was originally published by Gold Medal in 1962, and it is the best of the ten or so Matt Helm titles I’ve read.  Helm is anxious for a long awaited vacation to visit a new lady friend in Texas when Mac calls him on assignment; Mac is the chief of the counter spy agency referred to as “the organization”.  He is directed to help an agent with her bone fides, and play her second chair, to infiltrate a Soviet ring that kidnapped an American scientist.  Her orders.  Extract the scientist, or close his eyes permanently.

Helm’s cover is a low level mob enforcer named Jimmy (the Lash) Petroni.  His mission: “plausibly,” and effectively beat up the female agent tasked with infiltrating the Soviet kidnap ring to buttress her cover as a breaking down alcoholic agent.  Helm reluctantly accepts the task, but everything goes wrong in short order.  The female agent dies at Helm’s hand.  Helm is arrested for murder by the local police, and Mac wants him back in Washington with no further action. 

Murderers’ Row is to thrillers as the 100 yard dash is to track and field; fast, hard, and entertaining as hell.  The opening sequences deftly alternate between Helm’s botched assignment and Mac’s orders.  The tone of the narrative in the opening scenes is clinical and professional; very much like a briefing of events without emotion or introspection.  When the female agent dies at his hands, he explains:

“It wasn’t the worst moment of my life.  After all, I’ve been responsible for the deaths of people I knew and liked: it happens in the business.”

But as the novel moves forward the narrative wobbles from the clinical to the personal.  Helm begins to doubt his motives and even, at least regarding the death of his fellow agent, his reality.   His concern: his “hand slipped” during the assault intentionally rather than accidently, which brings to mind a comment Mac made about the psychology of men who kill for a living —

“After a while…their judgment becomes impaired, since human life has ceased to have much value for them.”

Helm doesn’t spend more than a few passages worrying it, but he spends just enough time to give him credibility with the reader.  A credibility that removes him from the classless sociopath to a workman doing a dirty, nasty, but very necessary job. 

Murderers’ Row has everything the Matt Helm novels are known for—action, a vivid cast of characters, a tight and lean plot, and a touch of humor.  As an example of the humor, in the opening scenes Mac explains why Helm needs to perform the assault rather than a young agent previously assigned—

“Not one of them would kill a fly, I sometimes think, to save an entire nation from dying of yellow fever.”

Helm responds—“‘Yes, sir’….’Yellow fever isn’t carried by flies, sir.  It’s transmitted by mosquitoes.’”        

Mac—“‘Indeed?’...‘That’s very interesting.  I could have made it an order, but the young fool…’”

The best part, if you read closely Mr Hamilton always explains the title, which is usually far from intuitive.  In this case, “murderers’ row” is a euphemism for the organization’s headquarters in Washington, D. C.  

Murderers’ Row was recently republished in mass market by Titan Books.  Purchase a copy at Amazon.

This review originally went live November 22, 2013 and since there has been some talk about the Matt Helm novels on a few other blogs I decided it was a good time to kick some new life into this one.

THE REMOVERS by Donald Hamilton

The Removers is the third novel to feature cold war spy, or more accurate, enforcer Matt Helm.  He is less spy and more enforcer because he acts as a counter intelligence wet work operative rather than an intelligence gatherer; or as Helm’s boss explains:

“If you were working for a criminal organization, you’d be enforcers.  Since you’re working for a sovereign nation, you can call yourselves… well, removers is a very good word.”

Matt Helm receives a cryptic note from his ex-wife seeking help.  She left Helm, and took their two small children with her, when his violent past found him.  She lives with her new husband on a ranch outside Reno, Nevada where a local hood is making subtle threats to Helm’s children.  Helm’s boss gives him permission to head west, but asks him to make contact with another agent working a case against a Soviet agent called Martel.

Not surprising, Helm’s personal business and the Soviet operation are one and the same.  The agent working the case is inexperienced and in short order Helm finds only he is standing between Martel, the safety of his children, and the Soviet plot. 

The Removers is a smooth and exciting novel.  There aren’t many surprises, mainly because similar plots have been rolling over and over since it was published fifty years ago, but its execution is pitch perfect.  It is constructed from the ground up—the early action and plotting is interesting enough to keep the reader fully invested, while still leaving room enough for additional tension, action, and suspense without becoming overblown, unbelievable, and tedious.

The characters also contribute to the success of the novel.  There are the expected characters, whose only role is to fulfill the plot, but there are also the unexpected.  There is the flash bang daughter of the hood who is something close to a Helm ally, his ex-wife who is both less and more than expected; less because Helm wants her to behave as an operative, and more because she really is a decent woman. 

The element which differentiates The Removers, and all of the Matt Helm novels, is the protagonist.  He is something other than.  Meaning he is an uneasy categorization; he isn’t sympathetic, and while he constantly plays the angles and never fully risks himself for another, he is far from amoral.  Which is something he would rather you didn’t know.  Although you should know this title, and all the other Matt Helm novels, are pretty damn terrific.

Titan Books is republishing the Matt Helm novels as attractive mass market paperbacks.  To date the first six novels in the series are back in print and two more are scheduled.  I hope there is enough success to get all 27 of the titles back in print because they represent the best the genre has to offer, now and then.

Top Five Reads of 2009

I’m not sure why I do a top of the year list; probably the same reason I do anything on this blog: to hear myself type. But damn if I don’t enjoy it. So here is the fourth annual Gravetapping Top Five Reads of the Year…enjoy…. And, a little refresher on the rules. The book must be new to me, but its publication date is unimportant.

This year’s list was more difficult to create than its predecessors because, simply, I read so many wonderfully entertaining novels. The year was a year of discovery. I discovered a dozen or so new authors, the bulk of them wrote during the paperback revolution in the 1950s and 60s and I also rediscovered a bevy of authors whom I had ignored for years. The most important from the latter group is Brian Garfield and Donald Hamilton, and from the former H. A. DeRosso, Merle Constiner and Robert Colby.

Here it is, in ascending order.

5. Line of Fire by Donald Hamilton. I read this title in March and I was awed by the power of both its linear storyline and tight, literate, prose. A perfect suspense novel.

4. Cage of Night by Ed Gorman. This is another early 2009 read; I read it in April. It is a story that doesn’t fit a category, exactly, but it lives somewhere between dark suspense, supernatural horror and crime. It is one of the finest horror novels I have ever read.

3. Under the Burning Sun by H. A. DeRosso. I read this one in December. This is a collection of stories written, for the most part, in the 1950s and 60s. The stories, particularly the “shadowlands” westerns are unforgettable. DeRosso was thirty or more years ahead of his time.

2. Fear in a Handful of Dust by Brian Garfield (originally published as by John Ives). I read this title in July. This modern western / suspense novel knocked me off my feet. It is literally perfect. A masterpiece of suspense.

1. Violent Saturday by W. L. Heath. I read it in May. There are only a few crime novels I would ever refer to as beautiful—defined as haunting, sharp, and meaningful—and this is one of them. It is a novel that everyone should read. Really, I mean everyone.

This list easily could have gone to ten of fifteen titles, but I sweated, worked, chaffed, and even cried a few times in my attempts to reduce it to the mandatory five. A few more titles that could have made the list but didn't are: Northfield by Johnny D. Boggs, North Star by Richard S. Wheeler, The Midnight Room and Ticket to Ride by Ed Gorman, Necessity by Brian Garfield, Binary by John Lange, and Slammer by Allan Guthrie.

All in all 2009 was a fine year for reading. I bet 2010 will be just as good.

LINE OF FIRE by Donald Hamilton

Paul Nyquist is an expert shot. He owns and operates a gunsmith shop in Capitol City and his evenings are spent with a local gangster—Carl Gunderman. A man with whom he shares a dark secret and also a man who is, while not a really a friend, the only person Nyquist feels comfortable with.

The novel opens with Nyquist at the window of an upper floor of an office building. He has a rifle in his hand and a jumpy low-level tough guy at his side. It is a warm day. And when the target walks from the building across the street Nyquist carefully takes aim and fires. The man goes down hard, and unexpectedly, the door of the little office the two men occupy opens by the hand of a young woman who asks: “What was that awful noise?”

The job goes sour in a hurry and Nyquist is forced to take an action he isn’t proud of. The rest of the novel is Paul Nyquist’s dangerous and unhealthy attempts to get himself and a witness out the quagmire of a favor gone very badly wrong. And it very well may be the end of not only Nyquist’s relationship with the gangster, but the end of Paul Nyquist.

Line of Fire was first published in 1955 and it has all the hallmarks of the era; it is dark, sparse, quick and very entertaining. It is filled with an abundance of technical shooting details. The plot is thrilling—there are more than a few jolts and twists that I didn’t see coming. There is murder, betrayal, suspicion, and even a dab of friendship, tenderness and love.

The prose is tight and very readable:

“Four hundred yards is a long way, even for a bullet traveling better than twice the speed of sound. The gun came back at me with authority, throwing the scope up off the target; the room shook with the blast of the .30-caliber cartridge.”

The action is well-scripted and perfectly paced within the bullet-fast plot. The dialogue has the feel of authenticity, and the dark sorrow and regret of the protagonist is done without the self-pity that would turn the reader off. The truly amazing element of the novel is the setting and description. Hamilton creates a detailed atmosphere with seemingly minimal effort. The reader is in the room with Nyquist when he pulls the trigger and that tangible sensibility and realism is carried to the final page.

Line of Fire is, without a doubt, the best novel I have read in 2009—some 54 years after its first publication. I have read a handful of Donald Hamilton novels, mostly from his Matt Helm series, but I have never had a great affinity to his work until this minor masterpiece.

Everything worked; the plot, the characters, the dialogue, the action, the setting, the description. It is a novel that packs more punch than any modern thriller I have read and it comes in at a shockingly short 159 pages. And I can tell you that Donald Hamilton is now on my watch list. Permanently.