Death's Carving Knife

After reading Donald Hamilton’s books, it’s impossible to watch films about super-heroes or secret service agents without smiling. For a broad readership, the author is known as the creator of the series of novels about special agent Matt Helm.

Each novel is one assignment for Matt Helm and a story about how he completes it. Their plot is fairly simple (although the ending always hides a surprise): in the U.S., there exists a secret organization engaged in eliminating enemy spies, sometimes— the heads of mafia structures. And in this service works the hero of the book series. Even the titles of the works are simple—most often consisting of a single word: “Dilettantes,” “Poisoners,” “Traitors,” “Wrongdoers.”

Somewhere, an agent’s work looks like James Bond’s adventures. And one of the mafia bosses described the activity of the main character as follows: “The FBI doesn’t send people to kill like that without talk. They have principles. They’re gentlemen… but you’re a professional killer, right? You’re the exterminator, a one-man punitive detachment.”

And then, when you read, you understand that you’re not dealing with an agent 007 at all. He’s awkward, “long and lanky like a pole,” and women notice him only if they want to extract information from him. And the striking differences from the glamorous heroics of Ian Fleming’s novels follow one after another—almost on every page.