Sun 26 Jul 2020
Reviewed by Jeff Meyerson – DONALD HAMILTON – The Ravagers.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
REVIEWED BY JEFF MEYERSON:
DONALD HAMILTON – The Ravagers. Matt Helm #8. Gold Medal paperback original, 1964.
Like many other people I avoided the Matt Helm series for years because of the awful Dean Martin movies. Last year, while trying several paperback series, I read Death of a Citizen (1960), the first Helm book, and was very pleasantly surprised to see what I’d been missing. The Ravagers confirms for me that Hamilton is a fine writer and that this is one of the best series around.
Matt Helm did undercover work for a special unit under a man named Mac during the war. Afterward he left the organization and settled own as a western writer and a photographer in Santa Fe with his wife and (ultimately) three children. This life comes apart with the sudden reappearance of a former colleague in Death of a Citizen. By the end of the book Matt is back working for Mac, and his wife is divorcing him.
In The Ravagers Helm is involved in a complicated plot which has him protecting a woman, her lover (a Russian agent), and her fifteen year old daughter from other American agents who want to stop her from passing documents to the Russians. Only Helm’s group knows that the documents are a plant, and Matt must see that they get through at whatever cost.
The ensuing cross-Canada car trip has plenty of action and surprises, with a big surprise coming at the end. Matt must let the documents get through without letting on that this is just what he is doing, which makes for a lot of complications. I’ve looking forward to reading more of Helm’s adventures.
July 26th, 2020 at 9:34 pm
The first ten or so Helm novels have many things going for them, though the rot starts to set in early with Hamilton’s insistence in making Helm into the worst “old woman” in the spy genre with his rants on women in pants (which he sees as an excuse for rape in one book), American cars, and guns among other things.
Most of this is kept well in hand in the early books, but eventually the plots get repetitive, Helm gets crankier, and as the books get longer they get harder and harder to get through. The late Helm books are hard to tell apart.
I particularly recommend the first eight which are mostly fun and suspenseful, though incident always overwhelms the plots such as they are.
Hamilton’s standalone novels and Westerns are well worth reading, better than the Helm’s for my money, and include the basis for the films FIVE STEPS TO DANGER, THE BIG COUNTRY, and THE VIOLENT MEN.
July 26th, 2020 at 10:52 pm
There were 27 Helm books in all, and when they’ve come up for discussion on this blog before, the consensus has been that as time went on, the books became more formulaic and far less interesting. Hamilton obviously had strong views on the world, and midway through the series, if not before, he became a lot less restrained in telling his readers about them.
By the end, I have to agree, and sadly, the books were thicker but there was little juice left in them.
July 27th, 2020 at 6:26 am
So true. The books got longer and longer, but the earlier, shorter ones are the ones you should read.
July 27th, 2020 at 2:49 pm
This seems to be true for a lot of series; the books get longer but the stories don’t get better. I think the shorter length kept the author focused on the story.
July 27th, 2020 at 3:41 pm
Yes. We all know the examples. Well said.