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Swedish-American author Donald Hamilton brought a fresh, hard-boiled approach to the post-war espionage novel when he introduced cold-blooded U.S. assassin Matt Helm to the world in 1959.
Today Hamilton’s greatest creation is best remembered for his portrayal by Dean Martin in a series of larky swinging sixties spy movies. But these bear as much resemblance to the original books as Austin Powers does to Jason Bourne
Born in Uppsala, educated in Chicago, and a resident of Santa Fe, Hamilton was a jobbing pulp author who’d turned his hand to crime and westerns (he wrote The Big Country, which was made into a successful movie starring Gregory Peck). In the 1950s, the success of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels created a new market for spy thrillers.
In response, Hamilton created Matt Helm. In doing so he introduced his readers to a new, tougher, and more ruthless style of spy.
Helm is a man in the mold of Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op, or Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer. A veteran of covert operations in World War Two, he is cynical, pragmatic, highly competent impressed with nothing and nobody—and that includes himself.
The job he does for the unnamed U.S. counter-intelligence agency that employs him is hardly the Boys Own Adventure stuff of John Buchan, either. Helm’s task is to uncover enemy agents and eliminate them.
Helm is a professional. He takes a craftsman’s pride in his work. That his work is killing people is immaterial to him. He is no chivalrous Cold War knight in shining armour. Asked why he has shot a man in the back, Helm replies matter-of-factly that that was the way he was facing.
Matt Helm made his debut in the 1959 novel Death of a Citizen. The book sets the tone for the rest of the series. Helm is retired from service, apparently happily married with children, and making a living as a freelance photojournalist in New Mexico.
Out of the blue, he is contacted by his wartime boss, Mac, a silver-haired veteran intelligence officer who plays a paternal role in the agent’s life. Mac asks Helm (Code Name: Eric) to come out of retirement for the fateful “one last job”.
The mission turns visceral and messy, not only destroying Helm’s happy suburban life, but also convincing him that killing is his calling, whether he likes it or not.
Death of a Citizen
Though Hamilton had no further plans for Helm after Death of a Citizen, the book’s success both with readers and critics would change all that. Over the next 33 years, Helm—who narrates the books—would appear in 27 taut and gritty novels.
Hamilton would write barely anything more that didn’t feature the coldly deliberate assassin.
Hamilton followed Death of a Citizen with The Wrecking Crew in which Helm is sent to Sweden to deal with an enemy operative named Caselius. Unlike James Bond, Helm does not slip seamlessly and charmingly into exotic settings. He does not enjoy himself when abroad.
In fact, he seems annoyed by foreigners and foreign places—as if their only purpose is to make his job more difficult. His approach to the task of dealing with his nation’s enemies, meanwhile, is summarised by his explanation of why he shot a man who had his hands in the air.
“It was my job…I had to finish it, no matter where his hands were”.
The Wrecking Crew
Helm returned in The Removers, called in for help by his estranged wife, Beth who is being menaced by a foreign agent named Martel.
Helm rubs out everybody in his path (his favored method is using a sniper’s rifle—Hamilton himself was an excellent marksman and hunter) but finishes the novel in hospital with a bullet in his chest. Suffice to say, he does not get back together with Beth whose loathing for his bloody career is plain.
There are no happy family moments for Helm—he is no Jack Ryan.
The Removers
By the time the ninth Helm book, The Devastators appeared (in it Helm travels to the UK to kill a scientist who is plotting a germ warfare terror campaign), the success of the James Bond movies had created a scurry to create something similar in the US.
One of the properties the Hollywood moguls seized on was Hamilton’s. If they had been casting somebody who fitted the tone of the original novels, they might have gone for Steve McQueen or Paul Newman, instead, Colombia Pictures opted for the 49-year-old singer Dean Martin, then at the peak of his fame thanks to his TV series.
The Devastators
The tough, realism of Hamilton’s Helm was ditched in favor of a campy, primary-colored world of sexy girls in orange bikinis, Hugh Hefner-style bachelor pads, and agencies with wacky acronyms (in the movies Helm works of ICE).
Martin played Helm as a version of himself: boozy, louche, lazy, and wise-cracking. It was Martin’s Helm who inspired Mike Myers’ Austin Powers.
The first film, The Silencers (1966) was a big enough hit to spawn three more, culminating in The Wrecking Crew (1969). Money was made and fun was had, but the films did the author and his great creation no favors.
Those who liked the books were horrified by the movies (as indeed were the critics) and those who liked the movies wondered why the books weren’t filled with jokes and cocktails.
Hamilton was reputedly unimpressed with the films and carried on writing his books in the same tough, cold, and lucid style he’d always done.
Helm remained implacable and merciless throughout, an amoral Jack Reacher and a true original.
