Matt Helm - The Silencers

Matt Helm in novels is nothing at all like the Dean Martin films of the 60s. Now, I do actually enjoy watching them, but other than a few character names they have nothing to do with the books. That being said, the reprints and Kindle books of Donald Hamilton's spy novels are a fantastic chance to revisit these great works.Matt Helm is not the typical spy. He is a cold blooded assassin. His missions usually involve killing someone just because they are the enemy. If he happens to save the country in the process, so be it but his primary mission is to kill the bad guy.The Helm books are dated in their references. Helm, at least at the start of the series, is a WW2 veteran who worked at his profession during the war. Later on in the series these references were dropped since he would have been a bit too old to still be an agent.With these books you have a fairly straightforward premise that can often go off in unexpected paths. People who you get to know can wind up dead or may seem to be one thing and turn out to be something else. You never quite know. It isn't Le Carre or Fleming but pure Hamilton.Helm can be quite brutal. As a fan of various authors of espionage I think he comes out as one of the toughest. It really is great to have these books out again. I have old paperback copies that I collected over the years but they have a habit of falling apart while reading them. Having them available electronically is great. Portable and a space saver.When I think of Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm I always remember how I started reading them after seeing the films and enjoyed them so much more because they were so well done. If you know Helm and want to catch up,with an old friend or if you are a fan of action packed spy fiction I suggest you grab these books but savor every bite.

I have always enjoyed Donald Hamilton's books. While I am younger than he, I grew up overseas in some very volatile countries. In fact, I witnessed several revolutions and over twenty major uprisings before the age of thirteen. After twenty-five years in the military, serving from Vietnam through Desert Shield his books are fairly pragmatic about life and death. I still find the stories interesting. However, to be truthful, I have never met anyone in the special forces, revolutionary forces, or even those that were underground during WWII that would have survived that many sorties without dying. I like his stories, he seems to have a firm grasp of his subject, and the good guys always win. Just remember his books are fiction. Nobody can suffer that many concussions without suffering major damage.

Donald Hamilton , awesome writer. The Matt Helm reads are realistic & fun to read.There hard to put down,wish they where a avalable on audio books.When reading a Bond book, it's mostly a farce, reading Helm is realistic . For most older readers,the earlier Dean Martin movies sort of turned off the interest as they where only good if you where high,like watching a B rated SiFi.However the books great readsJimmy

After reading The Wrecking Crew and the The Silencers I have to ask "What was the point of the Matt Helm series of so-called spy books?" The way Helm bumbles his way in and out of trouble, and in and out of womens' beds is just silly and completely unbelieveable. Helm gets himself beaten, shot at and missed, and shXX on and hit, captured, and generally escapes at the cost of other peoples' lives over and over again. In the words of one movie actress describing her ex-husband, "He attracts women like flies, treats women like flies, and has his brain in his fly", and this describes Matt "Eric" Helm perfectly. I actually purchased three of these books but passed on The Removers after reading the first two noted. Funny, the cover says "A Real World with a real character", perhaps as a slam toward Fleming and his James Bond, but sorry Mr. Clancy, I didn't find that remotely true. There were some geographic facts sprinkled throughout, so not a total loss, but beyond that not worth another look. How the series ran to 27 books is a mystery in and of itself. If these books were written today no publisher would accept them if only because of the rapes, rape fantasies, and misogynistic treatment of women throughout. Ian Fleming's detractors labled his James Bond thrillers, derogatorally, as "Sex, sadism, and snobbery", but in the case of Matt Helm no one could honestly call him a snob, just an sob. Of course my idea of a worthwhile read is anything by Daniel Silva, so depending on your expectations YMMV. For my tastes, the Matt Helm series stops here with the Silencers. Three stars for Cold War intrigue, two off for being stupidly unbelievable escapism.

I'm noticing some poor proofreading in this edition. A lowercase 'L' turned into a capital 'I' in one case, 'nuke' replaced 'mike' in another. I'll bet they're OCR errors. So far, not as bad as the Ace reprints of the 90's, but not up to the quality of the previous reprints. The next & previous books were better in this regard. Guess this didn't get the TLC.The story was still pretty good. It's set back in the 60's but holds up well, at least for me. Few use tire chains any more & phone booths need to be sought out, but otherwise not bad. Good mystery & Helm is at his cold blooded best.

Matt Helm is sent to Mexico to to rescue Sarah, a fellow US agent. Sarah is working in a bar called The Chihuahua. She gets knifed and mutters something to her sister, Gail, as she is dying.Matt meets up with Gail shortly afterwards and tries to find out what Sarah told her. Gail is best described as a real character!Supposedly, there will be an underground test at a facility which must be stopped. Gail and Matt take off in a snowstorm to stop this test. Gail turns out to be a double crosser which adds to the plot.There is some great humor in this book. I would describe it as off the wall so it really fit the characters.Any chance that Matt and Gail will end up together?Highly recommended.

Anyone expecting Dean Martin to pop out of the pages of Donald Hamilton's The Silencers is in for a surprise, albeit a pleasant one. Looking for a change of pace, I decided to try the Matt Helm series for some light summer reading. I knew it only from the movies, so the books at first glance are definitely a different experience. Matt Helm is a counterintelligence agent for an unnamed US government agency ordered to track down a potential rogue agent in Mexico. It all goes terribly wrong, and in the aftermath, he enlists the aid of the agent's sister to foil a nefarious Commie plot in New Mexico. Helm is a capable if jaded company man, who gets by more with bluff and good luck than skill. In this respect, Matt Helm is a nice change from the largely invincible special ops heroes you see in today's spy fiction. Some readers may roll their eyes at Helm's sexism, but remember it was written in 1962 – a lot has changed. This is light reading and Hamilton keeps the story moving along at a good pace, not allowing it to wear out its welcome by getting bogged down in details.

Wie alle Matt-Helm-Romane, die ich bislang gelesen habe, war auch THE SILENCERS sehr gelungen.Matt Helm ist ein klassischer Anti-Held, da er im Gegensatz zu James Bond nicht nur die Lizenz hat, im Notfall zu töten, sondern das Beseitigen feindlicher Agenten seine Hauptaufgabe ist. Verglichen mit Matt Helm ist 007 geradezu politisch korrekt.Helm ist auch extrem cool und kaltschnäuzig, und doch muss man ihn einfach mögen, wenn er aus seiner Sicht und mit knochentrockenem Humor seine Abenteuer schildert.Diese Abenteuer werden von Donald Hamilton flott und elegant erzählt. Man merkt, der Autor hat sein Handwerk verstanden. Hamilton bringt die Dinge auf den Punkt, ohne die Story durch Überflüssiges zu verlangsamen. Die einzigen Ausschmückungen betreffen Helms immer wieder amüsante Kommentare zu Dingen wie Frauenmode, Autodesign und Texanern.Wer Ian Fleming mag, dem wird auch Donald Hamilton gefallen, der mit Matt Helm eine eigenständige Figur geschaffen hat, die weit mehr ist, als ein amerikanischer Bond.

Well crafted spy story nothing like the film apart from a few shared characters and plot points

A good book in a great spy series.