Hamilton's career can be broken into three distinct
stages--his early
noir novels up through Assassins Have Starry Eyes, the Helm
novels
through The Terrorizers, and last, the period begun by The
Mona
Intercept through today. Much of his early work is a build-up
to what
he would accomplish in DEATH OF A CITIZEN, and he continues
with
variations on that story through The Terrorizers, in which
Helm goes on
a rampage against a group of domestic terrorists and is
nearly killed in
a spectacular fight. There were no more Helms for several
years, during
which he wrote a rather windy and over-populated thriller
called The
Monda Intercept, then followed it up with Helm novels that
had virtually
no resemblance to the early Helms. Hamilton told me in a
letter that it
was his publisher that pushed him into the larger format, and
although
he didn't say so, I think he shared my view that they'd lost
some of the
tension and resonance of those earlier books. Although I've
read all of
them many times and found some enjoyment even in those later
books, I'd
have to say that those fifteen books or so between DEATH and
TERRORIZERS
are the real Matt Helm saga and the others are more like
"apocryphal
tales" in which a tough agent named Matt Helm is the
hero--but he ain't
the original Helm by a mile.
-- ************************************** Robert E. Skinner, Director Xavier University of Louisiana Library 7325 Palmetto Street New Orleans, LA 70125 (504) 483-7303 (voice) (504) 485-7917 (FAX) e-mail: rskinner@mail.xula.edu ************************************** # # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.