Matt Helm novels returning to print in 2013, Titan Books says

Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm novels will return to print in 2013, Titan Books announced in a post on its company blog.

An excerpt:

London, U.K. – December 9, 2011 – Titan Books announced today that beginning in 2013, they will reissue the original Matt Helm® spy thrillers written by Donald Hamilton, starring the famed counter-agent whose career included 27 novels spanning more than three decades, four films, and a network television series.

The first Matt Helm® novel, Death of a Citizen, was released in 1960, just two years after publication of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale—which hadn’t yet caught on in the United States. Otto Penzlernoted, “Whereas Bond was a sophisticate who knew wine, expensive cars, and tuxedos, Helm lived much of the time in the American Southwest, drove a pickup truck, and wore flannel shirts.” The novel introduced a man in his mid-thirties, 6’4” and intelligent, who had been a military assassin eliminating Nazis during World War II.

Actually, Casino Royale was first published in 1953, but we’re not going to quibble with the other details. The Helm novels were like a mix between Mickey Spillane (the first person narration) and Ian Fleming (international intrigue). The 27 novels were originally published between 1960 and 1993. The author penned a last, unpublised Helm story around 2001. Hamilton died in 2006.

The news was reported earlier at a post on the Existential Ennui Web site. You can learn more about the Helm novels BY CLICKING HERE to read an essay by journalist and spy novelist Jeremy Duns. We first found out about the news from a post Mr. Duns did on Facebook, linking to Existential Ennui.

Finally, CLICK HERE to view a 2000 HMSS article about how the Helm novels weren’t exactly faithfully translated to the screen in the four Dean Martin films of the 1960s.