Hamilton took a break from writing Matt Helm novels after this book; the next volume would not appear until 1992.
Plot summary
Helm is assigned to impersonate a rich oil baron in order to track down a shipment of weapons before it can be used to overthrow the Mexican government.
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Matt Helm starts by taking the place of an oil millionaire -- one of the assignments where Mac is helping another agency by loaning out the services of his agent, Matt Helm. As usual, Mac is not doing this from purely altruistic purposes and gives Matt his usual warning - "Don't trust anyone" in the beginning of the novel. Head of the agency borrowing Matt Helm, a man called Somerset, wants Matt to go into Mexico and help trace a shipment of illegal arms, supposedly being smuggled to be supplied to Mexican revolutionaries by the said millionaire Horace Hosmer Cody.
In the beginning of the novel, Cody is arrested by Somerset's people and Helm takes his place with a make up job that he thinks will fool no one and it doesn't. Almost all of the story takes place in Mexico where Matt once again runs into his old ally Ramon Solana-Ruiz of the Mexican security.
The novel has much intrigue and is typical of Matt Helm style action. Most of the characters turn out to be different than from what they are portrayed at the beginning of the story and many of them go through transformation, including some of the dead characters. Matt, of course, succeeds in the mission completing all of the objectives, sometimes with help from others.
Spy fiction, a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device, emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
The Wee Free Men is a 2003 comic fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, which takes place in his Discworld setting. It is labelled a "Story of Discworld" to indicate its status as children's or young adult fiction, unlike most of the books in the Discworld series. A sequel, A Hat Full of Sky, appeared in 2004 ; a third book called Wintersmith appeared in 2006; and the fourth, I Shall Wear Midnight, was released in September 2010. The final book in the series, The Shepherd's Crown, was released in 2015.
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.
"Pip" is the fourteenth episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series South Park. The 62nd episode of the series overall, it first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 29, 2000. Going by production order, it is the 5th episode of Season 4 instead of the 14th. The episode is a parody and comedic retelling of Charles Dickens's 1861 novel Great Expectations, and stars the South Park character Pip, who assumes the role of the protagonist of the novel, who is his namesake. "Pip" features no other regular characters from the show. The story is narrated in a live action parody of the anthology television series Masterpiece Theater, with the narrator played by Malcolm McDowell.
Oil! is a novel by Upton Sinclair, first published in 1926–27 and told as a third-person narrative, with only the opening pages written in the first person. The book was written in the context of the Harding administration's Teapot Dome Scandal and takes place in Southern California. It is a social and political satire skewering the human foibles of all its characters.
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 1968 American spy comedy film directed by Phil Karlson and starring Dean Martin as Matt Helm, along with Elke Sommer, Sharon Tate, Nancy Kwan, Nigel Green, and Tina Louise. It is the fourth and final film in the Matt Helm series, and is loosely based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Donald Hamilton. The film opened in Canada in December 1968 before premiering in the United States in February 1969.
Micah is a horror/mystery/erotica novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the thirteenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.
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. 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.
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.
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 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 Terminators by Donald Hamilton is a spy novel first published in April 1975. It was the sixteenth episode in the Matt Helm series and was the first of the Helm books to portray him, on its cover, as a long-haired, side-burned citizen of the 1970s. This image was subsequently used for reprinted editions of a number of the earlier stories.
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 Threateners is the title of a spy novel by Donald Hamilton first published in 1992. It was the twenty-sixth installment of the Matt Helm series, and saw the return of the character after a three-year hiatus.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 American Western film written and directed by John Huston. It is an adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name, set in 1925, and follows two downtrodden men who join forces with a grizzled old prospector (Walter Huston, the director's father), in searching for gold in Mexico.
Fear Is the Key is a 1972 British action thriller film directed by Michael Tuchner and based on the 1961 novel of the same title by Alistair MacLean. It stars Barry Newman and Suzy Kendall, with supporting roles by John Vernon, Dolph Sweet, and Ben Kingsley in his feature film debut. The film features a soundtrack by Roy Budd.
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