Author | Donald Hamilton |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Matt Helm |
Genre | Spy novel |
Publisher | Fawcett Publications |
Publication date | 1960 |
Media type | Print (Paperback) |
Preceded by | First book of series |
Followed by | The Wrecking Crew |
Death of a Citizen is a 1960 spy novel by Donald Hamilton, and was the first in a long-running series of books featuring the adventures of assassin Matt Helm. [1] The title refers to the metaphorical death of peaceful citizen and family man Matt Helm and the rebirth of the deadly and relentless assassin of World War II.
The book sees Matthew Helm, a one-time assassin and special agent for the American government during the war, being reactivated (code name: Eric) when a former colleague turns rogue and eventually kidnaps Helm's daughter. Afterwards, he agrees to return to duty as an assassin and counter-agent working for a secret agency run by "Mac," his superior officer from 13 years earlier (although published in 1960, the story itself takes place in 1958).
Death of a Citizen is notable for its grimness of tone and events as compared to the usual thriller of the late 1950s and early 1960s. After a few initial missteps as his "citizen" persona is shucked off, Helm re-becomes the competent, hard-boiled, and ruthless agent he had been earlier. The ending of the book is particularly shocking, perhaps, in that he shoots down an adversary who is not directly threatening him and then tortures and kills the person responsible for kidnapping his baby daughter. As a result of his actions, his daughter is rescued — but as the book ends his peace-loving wife is staring in horror at the bloody-handed monster that her apparently sedentary husband has become.
Hamilton would write a total of 27 Matt Helm novels between 1960 and 1993 (with a 28th volume as yet unpublished). The books maintain a loose continuity between each other, although later volumes would downplay Helm's Second World War connections in order to keep the character up-to-date. In the late 1960s, several motion pictures starring Dean Martin as Helm were produced; these films were produced as comedies and contained little of Hamilton's concepts. Death of a Citizen was one of the source novels for the film The Silencers , which was based upon one of the novel's early sequels. Death of a Citizen is nearly unique as one of two Matt Helm novels not to use a noun as the title (i.e. The Silencers, The Ravagers, etc.), the other being the fifth book in the series, Murderer's Row.
Donald Bengtsson Hamilton was an American writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction about the outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally spy fiction, but also crime fiction and westerns, such as The Big Country. He is best known for his long-running Matt Helm series (1960-1993), which chronicles the adventures of an undercover counter-agent/assassin working for a secret American government agency. The noted critic Anthony Boucher wrote: "Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told."
Matt Helm is a fictional character created by American author Donald Hamilton (1916-2006). Helm is a U.S. government counter-agent, a man whose primary job is to kill or nullify enemy agents—not a spy or secret agent in the ordinary sense of the term as used in most spy thrillers.
Jason Bourne is the title character and the protagonist in a series of novels and subsequent film adaptations. The character was created by novelist Robert Ludlum. He first appeared in the novel The Bourne Identity (1980), which was adapted for television in 1988. The novel was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 2002 and starred Matt Damon in the lead role.
Irving Allen was a theatrical and cinematic producer and director.
The Silencers is the title of a 1962 spy novel by Donald Hamilton, the fourth in a series of books featuring assassin Matt Helm.
The Ambushers is a novel by Donald Hamilton first published in 1963, continuing the exploits of assassin Matt Helm.
Murderers' Row is a 1966 American comedy spy-fi film starring Dean Martin as Matt Helm. It is the second of four films in the Matt Helm series, and is very loosely based upon the 1962 spy novel Murderers' Row by Donald Hamilton.
The Wrecking Crew is a spy novel written by Donald Hamilton and first published in 1960. It was the second novel featuring Hamilton's ongoing protagonist, counter-agent and assassin Matt Helm. In this book Hamilton continued the hard-headed and gritty realism he had built up around Helm in the first novel of the series, Death of a Citizen.
Matt Helm is an American mystery television series which aired on ABC from September 20, 1975 to January 3, 1976. The title character was played by Anthony Franciosa.
Murderers' Row is the title of a 1962 spy novel by Donald Hamilton. It was the fifth novel featuring his creation Matt Helm, a Second World War assassin recruited as a counter-agent by a secret American agency. This was the last Matt Helm novel to not use Hamilton's naming convention of The (Verb)-ers. The expression "murderers' row" had been used previously to describe the batting line-up of the New York Yankees baseball team in the late 1920s.
The Silencers is a 1966 American Pathécolor spy film spoof motion picture released in 1966 and starring Dean Martin as agent Matt Helm. It is loosely based upon and takes its title from the 1962 novel The Silencers by Donald Hamilton, and also adapts elements of Hamilton's first Helm novel, Death of a Citizen (1960).
The Ambushers is a 1967 American adventure comedy spy-fi film starring Dean Martin as Matt Helm, along with Senta Berger and Janice Rule. It is the third of four films in the Matt Helm series, and is very loosely based upon the 1963 novel of the same name by Donald Hamilton as well as The Menacers (1968) that featured UFOs and a Mexican setting. When a government-built flying saucer is hijacked mid-flight by Jose Ortega, the exiled ruler for an outlaw nation, secret agent Matt Helm and the ship's former pilot Sheila Sommers are sent to recover it.
The Dominators is the title of an unpublished novel by Donald Hamilton. The book, which was completed in the early 2000s, was intended to be the 28th novel in Hamilton's Matt Helm spy series, continuing the adventures of the character introduced in the 1960 novel Death of a Citizen and later popularized by actor Dean Martin in a series of late-1960s motion pictures.
The Shadowers is a novel by Donald Hamilton first published in 1964, continuing the exploits of assassin Matt Helm. It was the seventh novel of the series.
The Ravagers is a novel by Donald Hamilton that was first published in 1964. It was the eighth novel in his long-running series of adventures featuring secret agent Matt Helm.
The Interlopers, first published in 1969, was the twelfth novel in the Matt Helm spy series by Donald Hamilton, which began in 1960. It represents a middle period in the Helm novels, being about 80,000 words in length, somewhat longer than the first four or five in the series, but considerably shorter than most of the Helm books of the eighties and nineties, which were generally well over 100,000 words in length. At this intermediate length, the action moved swiftly while still allowing for plot complications, but avoided the occasional padded-out-by-dialogue tedium of the later books.
The Revengers, published in 1982, is a novel in the long-running secret agent series Matt Helm by Donald Hamilton. It was the first Helm book published since 1977 and the nineteenth book published overall since 1960.
The Vanishers is the title of a spy novel by Donald Hamilton which was first published in 1986. It is the twenty-third book in a series of novels featuring the adventures of assassin Matt Helm.
The Damagers, published in 1993, is a spy novel by Donald Hamilton, and the twenty-seventh volume of the adventures of government assassin Matt Helm. Hamilton had launched the series in 1960 with Death of a Citizen and this novel is a sequel to the second Helm book, The Wrecking Crew, also from 1960.