I read my first Matt Helm spy novel when I was 11 years old in 1960. Matt Helm works for a super secret spy agency and specializes in assassinations (he’s great with a rifle!), a master of hand-to-hand combat, and a stone-cold killer.
I enjoyed Matt Helm novels more than James Bond novels…at least for the first 10 books in the series. The novels got longer, Matt Helm didn’t crush as many enemy spy kidneys, and there was more and more blah, blah, blah in the later books. I stopped reading Matt Helm novels in 1977 with The Terrorizers. And, don’t get me started on the goofy Matt Helm movies starring Dean Martin!
I recently attended a Library Book Sale and there was Matt Helm #21, The Infiltrators. And, in a moment of weakness, I bought it and read it. Matt Helm’s mission is to protect a woman, Madeleine Ellershaw, who just finished serving 8 years in prison for assisting her scientist husband in spying for the Russians. Matt Helm quickly decides the Ellershaws were framed. The proof that something is wrong happens early as assassination attempts on Madeleine Ellershaw are thwarted by Helm and a backup team of agents.
These are low-tech spy novels: no satellites, no computers, no exotic weaponry. It’s rifles, pistols, and machine guns. Helm takes more than normal physical punishment in this book, but he gets the job done. If you’re in the mood for a traditional spy novel with blah, blah, blah, The Infiltrations might just qualify as a moderately entertaining Summer Book. GRADE: C
MATT HELM SERIES:
1 Death of a Citizen (1960)
2 The Wrecking Crew (1960)
3 The Removers (1961)
4 The Silencers (1962)
5 Murderers’ Row (1962)
6 The Ambushers (1963)
7 The Shadowers (1964)
8 The Ravagers (1964)
9 The Devastators (1965)
10 The Betrayers (1966)
11 The Menacers (1968)
12 The Interlopers (1969)
13 The Poisoners (1971)
14 The Intriguers (1973)
15 The Intimidators (1974)
16 The Terminators (1975)
17 The Retaliators (1976)
18 The Terrorizers (1977)
19 The Revengers (1982)
20 The Annihilators (1983)
21 The Infiltrators (1984)
22 The Detonators (1985)
23 The Vanishers (1986)
24 The Demolishers (1987)
25 The Frighteners (1989)
26 The Threateners (1992)
27 The Damagers (1993)
I liked the Matt Helm novels in their early years but not so much later on. Tried rereading a couple early novels a couple of years ago. The sexism I didn’t catch 60 some years ago is now quite obvious. How many times does he have to mention that women should always weat shorts/dresses and high heels and long hair.
Steve, Matt Helm hated women in pant suits and jeans. Yes, male chauvinism lurks in each Matt Helm spy novel.
Sounds a bit like what happened with Travis McGee, only more so.
And one comment by me might be hung up awaiting approval.
Todd, both Matt Helm and Travis McGee got more talkative (and not in a Good Way) as the series went on.
I find it hard to resist any book with Blah Blah Blah!
Dan, I prefer action to blah, blah, blah!
I didn’t read these for years because of the horrible Dean Martin movies. Then Bill Crider recommended them, I tried one, and I was hooked. The first dozen or so were really good, but, as you said, they got longer and longer and we got more and more of his “philosophy” about things (women, etc.) and the books bogged down. I still have a number of the later ones unread on the shelf, but I doubt I’ll get to them. Though every once in a while, I’m tempted to pick up the next one… .
Jeff, I picked up THE INFILTRATORS on a whim and it was an exercise in nostalgia. I’m not likely to do that again.
I started in 1966 at age 16 with MURDERERS ROW, then read the novels that preceded it in the space of a few months, many of them in study hall–those good old days when Gold Medal kept its Donald Hamilton and John D MacDonald backlists in print. I stayed with the series until THE POISONERS, and read only a couple of the later books after that. I found the series finale, THE DAMAGERS, in a used book store a few years ago; it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t a patch on MURDERERS ROW, DEATH OF A CITIZEN, THE REMOVERS, and THE WRECKING CREW, four of the best hardboiled novels of the ’60s. I liked the Dean Martin movies as a kid, but watching a couple of them again recently, I was stunned at how threadbare they were for major studio releases. There was talk of a new series of movies in the early ’00s, but it didn’t seem to lead to anything.
Fred, Titan Books reprinted the Matt Helm series. There were “rumors” that additional Matt Helm books–found in Donald Hamilton’s desk–were to be published but nothing has come of it.