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A review by quirkycynic
Death of a Citizen by Donald Hamilton
2.0
Sometimes I read these old pulp books and am genuinely impressed and think they're amazingly vibrant pieces of fiction that happen to be buried beneath the disreputably of their genre -- and then other times I think they're kind of just masculine dude-bro fantasy wish-fulfillments. This book is the latter. Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm honestly reminds me a lot of John D. Macdonald's Travis McGee in that both of them are obsessed with constantly telling us what big, strong alpha dudes they are who are good at absolutely everything, which even as short as these books are makes for a pretty damn claustrophobic reading experience. There is a trade-off, though: Macdonald is a better writer even though he is a lot grosser in his misogyny, while Hamilton thankfully leaves a lot of his opinions of women at the door but is also a lot more pedestrian in his prose.
The plot is a big meh -- I liked the opening and the ending, but the entire mid-section was a confusing slog based kind of entirely around how childishly gleeful Helm is at the prospect of being able to leave his mundane family life behind to go back to being a less-stylish James Bond. I did like the rough and hardboiled tone; all the people who say the Matt Helm series is one of the more cynical of the 60s espionage craze are probably right, and I might read another in the series at some point if I'm assured that the protagonist won't go on another tangent about how well he can hunt bears.
The plot is a big meh -- I liked the opening and the ending, but the entire mid-section was a confusing slog based kind of entirely around how childishly gleeful Helm is at the prospect of being able to leave his mundane family life behind to go back to being a less-stylish James Bond. I did like the rough and hardboiled tone; all the people who say the Matt Helm series is one of the more cynical of the 60s espionage craze are probably right, and I might read another in the series at some point if I'm assured that the protagonist won't go on another tangent about how well he can hunt bears.