Fri 17 Jan 2014
DONALD HAMILTON – The Menacers. Gold Medal d1884, paperback original, 1968. Several later printings.
This is Number 11 in the long-running Matt Helm series, and while any of them will do, this is a fine example of why Donald Hamilton made a lot of money for Gold Medal books over his long career. Matt (known as Eric to his superiors) is in Mexico for this installment, chasing down rumors of flying saucers, which in 1968 was still a hot topic to build a spy adventure around. (I haven’t heard much about them recently.)
It seems as though whoever is aboard the saucers has been attacking anyone who comes across them, and with US insignia plastered all over them, they’re (in the process) making it seem as though the US is behind the attacks. Hidden agenda: causing an international (south of the border) crisis.
Before you start thinking it would make a fine vehicle (hmm) for a Dean Martin movie, well, no. This is serious espionage business, and Hamilton as an author is as hard-boiled as they come. Quoting from page 156:
There are a number of women in the story, many many different varieties of them, and who this one happens to be, I will leave you to discover. Some of these ladies are good, some are bad, some very bad, and some are in-between. Here’s a description of the first one he encounters, his initial contact in Mexico:
So, OK, reading a Donald Hamilton book is not like picking up the latest by Le Carré, but you do have to keep thinking, and I mean all of the time. Matt Helm tells the story, but he won’t tell you everything, or at least not right away. He will give you the facts, and it’s up to you to make of them what you will.
The middle of the this one sags a little, and Hamilton is a little vague about patching a couple of seams together, but the ending certainly makes up for it.
January 18th, 2014 at 11:22 pm
This was in part the basis of the third Helm film, THE AMBUSHERS.
This one has two real boners in it though. One is just resorting to the oldest trick in the book, the knockout gas in the car with locked doors and windows. Fritz Lang used that one. Hamilton tries to excuse it with irony, but it’s still a serious lack of imagination or effort on his part.
The other is only annoying because Hamilton and Helm tend to rant about guns so much as proposed experts. In the shootout at the end Helm and the woman have a .22 and a Luger available, and Helm gives the inexperienced woman the Luger because it is ‘simpler.’
There is nothing simple about a Luger, it is one of the most complex weapons ever designed for combat and is best handled by a expert in handguns. The .22 revolver is about as simple a gun as you can find. Both are equally accurate though the Luger has more rounds. Just what Hamilton was thinking I don’t know, but I’m not a gun nut and even I know better than this.
The worst Ian Fleming did was to put a Walther in a Berns Martin shoulder holster. Even Bond’s ladies gun the Beretta .25 was a perfectly good gun for an agent who wasn’t supposed to be carrying a cannon.
I don’t mind gaffs normally, but I hate it when a supposed expert is 100% wrong about his area of expertise on something this simple.
That said Hamilton and Helm are almost always fun (I like his westerns and non series books better, but still like Helm) and I’m glad he is in print again.
This one reads as if it was rushed to fulfill a contract, no where near up to his other work in this period. It’s a perfectly decent read, but this one feels as if it was written on cruise control.
January 20th, 2014 at 10:50 am
According to IMDb,THE AMBUSHERS was based on the Matt Helm novel of the same name. I’d have to say you’re right, though, David. Here’s the synopsis of the movie that I found on IMDb:
“A government space saucer is hijacked mid-flight by a powerful laser beam under the control of Jose Ortega, who then proceeds to rape the female pilot, Sheila Sommars. ICE sends agent Matt Helm to Acapulco with Sheila to recover the saucer, under the guise of Matt taking fashion photographs of beautiful models. Matt is temporarily side-tracked, falling prey to the seductive charms of enemy agent Franceca Madeiros.”