Customer Reviews

Wrecking Crew

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Matt Helm is sent to Sweden to kill a mysterious Soviet agent. The only drawback is that until he finds the master spy, he's ordered not to use lethal methods to defend himself. Hamilton keeps the villain's identity hidden well while throwing several obstacles into his protagonist's path. The 2nd in the series, some of the set pieces that will become Hamilton/Helm trademarks are already in place-the treacherous women, the rival agencies and the outdoors location- are familiar to any devoted Hamilton reader.

Matt Helm's marriage is gone, so he's back to his old line of work, hunting game that can shoot back. He's old, slow, and out of shape -- the perfect condition for what his spy-master boss Mac has in mind. Matt is off to Sweden to find Caselius, an enemy agent worth two armored divisions.

I started reading the Matt Helm novels in 1965, before Dean Martin, when THE DEVASTATORS was new on the shelves. That is a much better book however than the one being reviewed: THE WRECKING CREW. WRECKING CREW isn't a bad story, it contains the requisite action, femme fatale and Mac (my favorite character in spy fiction), the necessary base ingredients for any Helm outing. I've read every novel in the series at least twice except for final ones numbered 19 through 27 (once was enough), but in THE WRECKING CREW Eric's voice just doesn't sound right to me. It's off the way Robert B. Parker's is off when doing a Marlowe pastiche (which is not to say Parker didn't do a good Chandler impersonation, he did!).

THE REMOVERS, the third in the series, reads more like the sequel to DEATH OF A CITIZEN than this second entry. My theory is DEATH OF A CITIZEN started life as a standalone book and Fawcett told Hamilton they wanted a series about Helm's shadow world. I can just imagine them ordering him to fire up the production line and crank 'em out. My belief is THE WRECKING CREW was either the current book Hamilton was writing or a reject from the past. He'd never written a series character before and just changed some names and called THE WRECKING CREW the second Helm volume before getting to work on THE REMOVERS.

I give THE WRECKING CREW three stars, but measured only against the spectrum of the first 18 Helms, after THE TERRORIZERS #18 the series died despite nine more published works. Helm's suspenseful adventures thrived in a 140 to 190 page format. In the latter volumes Hamilton had to add 100 or 150 more pages to make a Helm book hefty enough for its $2.95 price tag. The longer stories became lugubrious with superfluous incident and detail that bowdlerized Hamilton's short-form suspense formula. A pity of Hamletic proportion.

The only other discordant note than THE WRECKING CREW in the first 18 exploits of Matt Helm is THE SHADOWERS, a book that starts out great but stumbles to its knees and whimpers to an end. There are two other misfires in those initial 18 editions: THE RAVAGERS #8 had the usual Hamilton verve but lacked his usual punch despite a clever twist in Act III; THE RETALIATORS #17 is a fourth weak point, but only because Helm should have shot the maddening female lead in that one as fast as he could draw that five-chambered .38 S&W snubnose he dislikes so much. These four books don't approach the zenith of the series: Citizen, Removers, Murderers' Row, Ambushers, Devastators, Betrayers, Menacers, Interlopers, Terminators or Terrorizers. Those ten books are the pillars of strength shoring up the Helm legend. The remaining four, Silencers, Poisoners, Intriguers and Intimidators, are excellent reads but not great like the aforementioned ten. They're two different words in my vocabulary. There's a lot of excellence in this world, but so very little greatness.

If you like mysteries, spies, Bond and the like you will like Matt Helm. A lot like the Mickey Spillaine of the cloak and dagger set. The American answer to Bond, and a little quicker to get physical if the need calls for it.

It has action from the beginning to end and a good plot line. No superhero like moves and is a fair chance he may get roughed up a bit along the way but very believable. I have just started rereading my own collection of his books and they are still excellent.

Hollywood tried filming either two or three of Mr. Hamilton's books with Dean Martin as Matt Helm and as much as I like Dean Martin, it failed miserably. The movies are fun to watch if you like tongue in cheek humor with a lot of bedroom chuckles but don't expect to find them in the books. Could be compared to Casino Royale with Woody Allen and what Ian Fleming really wrote.

I'll leave you with the hope you will try one because like a potato chip you will be back for more.

This was my first Matt Helm book (but it is the second one that was written), and I came to it looking for something to replace the James Bond stuff that I have almost finished working my way through. At first, I was a little worried about some "hard-boiled detective" sort of language here and there, but there really isn't too much of that. Just as Ian Fleming sometimes incorporated some slang in ways that took me out of the story a little bit, Hamilton uses some expressions and styles that might or might not have been authentic at the time--but either way, it ends up helping me enjoy the reading experience as a sort of 'time-travel' thing; at least that is how people *wrote* back then. Apart from those occasional phrases, though, the prose is efficient and smoothly done. I don't mean to scare anybody off, I'm just saying it had me worried for the first few pages...

Like in Bond novels, there are characters that should or shouldn't be trusted, and the protagonist has some tricks and techniques to help him through it all. But Matt Helm is different than James Bond. Helm (in this story, at least) seems just a little rougher to women maybe (and is divorced), less adoring of his boss, and there is the interesting question of which one of the two agents is more brutal or remorseless towards his enemies. Some of the best parts in this book are when Helm is thinking about what it means to do what he does.

Anyhow, if you like Fleming's Bond, this book is quick-moving, interesting, and probably worth checking out if you keep in mind that it was written by an American, and is gonna be a little different. It has a lot of the same elements, but is a distinct reading experience.

Mission Two: The Wrecking Crew
Matt Helm series Reviews by Ujjwal Dey

Well the first one is beaten to grit and grim by this second one in the series. A little longer at 176 pages, still an easy read for my weekend; this one brings Helm into a whole new line of action in espionage business.

Now Matt Helm has had his refresher course in the covert groups training - the American Mordgruppe - The Wrecking Crew - an unknown, unspoken elite group of operatives who generally work alone to do what armies and clouts of bureaucrats can't achieve. The man is just right for the job. The trainers believe he is in no shape to be an operative and certainly past his prime. His bad new resume was certain to get him killed on a field mission. Mac agrees - he is just the man for this job.

Matt Helm now has to play dumb; to act like a clumsy ancient World War trooper who can't call the shots in this peacetime covert warfare. As a photographer for an American magazine he lands up in Artic Europe to shoot innocent bland photos of mines for a girl who could be a double-agent or simply a fool in this foolish game. The girl in question has survived a bullet meant for her journalist husband who had the gall to write a tale describing a Russian agent - The Man No one Knows. Of course this deadly Russian operative has no sympathy for such breakthrough journalism, and now the supposed widow is carrying out her husband's journalistic inclinations.

There is more than meets the eye and pretty women are lethal in more ways than one. Helm's contact in Sweden is shot dead in the face, double-crossed by her evil mysterious agent. Helm has to contend with getting bruised and bashed around to prove himself harmless to a variety of operatives - biding his time to get his orders.

Yes, the men in Washington call off lethal action - no Government ordered assassination during peacetime - but that is not a restriction upon Helm's enemies. Matt Helm goes through unraveling intricacies in the players' cards, as a poker player who has to display ignorance of any known card game. As people show up dead around him, things come to light and when the final game is afoot - Matt has the aces up his sleeve to vindicate Mac's faith in him.

The violence is as bad if not worse than the first book - which is a good thing in any gritty espionage thriller. The brief reflections on the first book events such as him carving up an old lady friend and his separation from his wife also come up very much accurately into the new plot. His handiness without a gun is seen very well in this story as essentially he has to go out there unarmed to convincingly play the role of an American photographer, even if the cover doesn't fool his targets.

The geographical descriptions and accuracy in detail is wonderful and you can imagine yourself tracing his trail across the mountains and into wilderness in the Arctic. He has to "make the touch" - Group M speak for killing the target - similar to what mafia would say "making a hit". But he has to be patient enough to identify the mysterious Russian spy, wait for the go ahead from his Boss, and then make sure he does it cleanly - being in a friendly country during peacetime.

Putting up a classy display of ineptness, we also get to read about all that he could have done as a master agent but doesn't to keep himself useful to the Russian agent - he is able to prove himself harmless on more than one occasion until finally its time for a showdown.

Cars, guns, women's choice of clothes, all again feature in this sequel in Matt Helm's ponderings. There are women he trusts and they assuredly betray him and Helm is not one to be heartbroken or sentimental - he goes about his business with determination and calculation - even surprising his own Government's other operatives (of other departments) - who fall for his "clumsy" act. At the end Helm proves himself to be as cunning and ruthless as his Russian rival. The climax action with its cold-blooded moves sees Helm make his touch and save a damsel from distress as well. The last chapter adds more to Helm's personality and legend. His un-emotive demeanour at what could have been a tragic romantic scene ensures he is the man with a job he is good at.

If you thought gadgets and expensive machinery with latest guns was the way an agent wins a war - you have watched too many James Bond movies. This book's account shows us in a believable and clinical clarity how a secret agent would go through with his mission in a foreign country. Matt Helm is no great fist-fighter but he knows how to fight and here we see him use more of the matter between his ears in contrast to the trigger in enemy hands.

Extract: When you act like a nice guy, everyone examines your motives with a microscope. When you act like a conscienceless louse, they generally take you at face value.

****