Death of a Citizen by Donald Hamilton

I sampled most of the great thriller series as a kid, Doc Savage, Tarzan, James Bond, Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer, Travis McGee, The Executioner and so on. I saw Matt Helms around the used book store too and even wound up with a couple of Donald Hamilton volumes, but I never delved into the series.

Happily the ebooks were on sale the other day, and someone told me it's best to begin at the beginning with the Helm books. This is an experience from the Kindle and not the book boxes in the attic.

I'd always known they were more serious than the Dean Martin movies, which I did watch on TV as a kid, but I didn't realize quite how crisp and grim the books would be.

While his focus is espionage, Hamilton delivers in the tough-edged style of Fawcett Gold Medal heroes of the day, though Matt Helm may be the most pragmatic, ruthless and relentless of the lot.

It's 15 years after World War II, and while he was a fierce operative during the war years, Helm has settled into the comfortable life of a writer of Western novels and occasional travel articles. He's living in New Mexico and is part of a comfortable suburban circle of friends. Things open with him carrying a Martini at a party.

But Tina, a wartime co-worker turns up, a co-worker who's never left the game. Almost in the blink of an eye Helm has a body in his study and this ruthless former girlfriend/partner in assassination on his doorstep. She has her current husband in tow, a formidable figure with little love for Helm.

The dead woman is a young writer who'd asked Helm for assistance, but she was also an enemy operative who had her sights trained on his physicist friend Amos Darrell, Helm is told.

He drawn into disposing of the body and soon on the run across the Southwest along with Tina because others are following.

Possibly enemies have to be identified and eluded, and as they travel the situation grows increasingly complicated. Helm's old boss is still at work, and a complicated web of twists and betrayals begins to unravel.

Matt's family doesn't exist by accident in this tale. Ultimately they're placed in peril, and he's forced to re-channel all of his wartime cunning and unflinching amoral outlook and abilities.

Sure, they're called spies here, but this is a tough, noir-tinged crime thriller with pages to be turned rapidly at the end and a final, blood-stained confrontation to wrap things up.

I see now why Helm books have ranked among the other thriller greats with many fans. I'll definitely stick with the series now that's it's finally caught my attention.