The Ambushers (novel)

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The Ambushers
TheAmbushers.jpg
Original 1963 paperback cover
Author Donald Hamilton
Cover artist John McDermott
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Series Matt Helm
Genre Spy novel
Publisher Fawcett Publications
Publication date
1963
Media typePrint (paperback)
Preceded by Murderers' Row  
Followed by The Shadowers  

The Ambushers is a novel by Donald Hamilton first published in 1963, continuing the exploits of assassin Matt Helm.

Contents

Plot introduction

Matt Helm conducts a by-the-book assassination in the (fictional) Central American nation of Costa Verde. Afterwards, he finds himself pursuing an ex-Nazi named von Sachs, who has obtained one of the nuclear missiles that had been bound for Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and who is threatening the United States with the weapon. Along the way he finds himself working with a Russian agent named Vadya (who would return in later Helm adventures).

Film adaptation

The Ambushers was very loosely adapted for the cinema in 1967 as the third film in a series starring Dean Martin as Matt Helm. Like the other Martin films, The Ambushers took only a few elements of Hamilton's original story and recast the plot in the vein of an action comedy.

Related Research Articles

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 known best 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.

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