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Matt Helm #15
Matt Helm - The Intimidators
It was a double mission this time. Firstly, to terminate a top-notch enemy agent. Secondly, to locate the missing fiancée of a Texas oil millionaire, lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Somehow these two cases were connected, but it wasn’t clear how until more high-profile types disappeared. They weren’t dead, just part of a deadly little game…
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 1974
20 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
About the author
Donald Hamilton
101 books107 followersDonald Hamilton was a U.S. writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction about the outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally spy fiction but also crime fiction and Westerns such as The Big Country. He is best known for his long-running Matt Helm series (1960-1993), which chronicles the adventures of an undercover counter-agent/assassin working for a secret American government agency.
Hamilton began his writing career in 1946, fiction magazines like Collier's Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post. His first novel Date With Darkness was published in 1947; over the next forty-six years he published a total of thirty-eight novels. Most of his early novels whether suspense, spy, and western published between 1954 and 1960, were typical paperback originals of the era: fast-moving tales in paperbacks with lurid covers. Several classic western movies, The Big Country and The Violent Men, were adapted from two of his western novels.
The Matt Helm series, published by Gold Medal Books, which began with Death of a Citizen in 1960 and ran for 27 books, ending in 1993 with The Damagers, was more substantial.
Helm, a wartime agent in a secret agency that specialized in the assassination of Nazis, is drawn back into a post-war world of espionage and assassination after fifteen years as a civilian. He narrates his adventures in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone with an occasional undertone of deadpan humor. He describes gunfights, knife fights, torture, and (off-stage) sexual conquests with a carefully maintained professional detachment, like a pathologist dictating an autopsy report or a police officer describing an investigation. Over the course of the series, this detachment comes to define Helm's character. He is a professional doing a job; the job is killing people.
Hamilton was a skilled outdoorsman and hunter who wrote non-fiction articles for outdoor magazines and published a book-length collection of them. For several years he lived on his own yacht, then relocated to Sweden where he resided until his death in 2006.
Hamilton began his writing career in 1946, fiction magazines like Collier's Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post. His first novel Date With Darkness was published in 1947; over the next forty-six years he published a total of thirty-eight novels. Most of his early novels whether suspense, spy, and western published between 1954 and 1960, were typical paperback originals of the era: fast-moving tales in paperbacks with lurid covers. Several classic western movies, The Big Country and The Violent Men, were adapted from two of his western novels.
The Matt Helm series, published by Gold Medal Books, which began with Death of a Citizen in 1960 and ran for 27 books, ending in 1993 with The Damagers, was more substantial.
Helm, a wartime agent in a secret agency that specialized in the assassination of Nazis, is drawn back into a post-war world of espionage and assassination after fifteen years as a civilian. He narrates his adventures in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone with an occasional undertone of deadpan humor. He describes gunfights, knife fights, torture, and (off-stage) sexual conquests with a carefully maintained professional detachment, like a pathologist dictating an autopsy report or a police officer describing an investigation. Over the course of the series, this detachment comes to define Helm's character. He is a professional doing a job; the job is killing people.
Hamilton was a skilled outdoorsman and hunter who wrote non-fiction articles for outdoor magazines and published a book-length collection of them. For several years he lived on his own yacht, then relocated to Sweden where he resided until his death in 2006.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 14, 2021
If you haven't read a Matt Helm novel, then you haven't read great spy fiction. Tough, cynical, hardboiled, unsentimental, Helm belongs to a secret agency as a trained killer in the height of the Cold War. Here, he gets involved in a Bahamian/ Carribean adventure involving blondes, ex movie stars, and Texas oil magnates, and ships disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle. He presents theories on how his enemies are setting up against him and trusts no one.
Helm's world is not a soft, peace, love, and understanding one. It's a world where you do what has to be done and if it means letting terrorists kill hostages, then so be it. You don't give in to terrorists. And you don't try to make deals with the bad guys because, if you show any weakness, the intimidators will just try to take advantage of you. There are some politicians today that could learn a few lessons from Helm.
Smoothly written, complex, and just a good hard-nosed story.
Helm's world is not a soft, peace, love, and understanding one. It's a world where you do what has to be done and if it means letting terrorists kill hostages, then so be it. You don't give in to terrorists. And you don't try to make deals with the bad guys because, if you show any weakness, the intimidators will just try to take advantage of you. There are some politicians today that could learn a few lessons from Helm.
Smoothly written, complex, and just a good hard-nosed story.
January 2, 2019
Helm is getting more nautical as did the author. (Cruises with Kathleen is an autobiography of Hamilton's life with his sailboat. Well worth reading, if you can find it.) & we get to meet a character from early on in the series. Mac also makes more appearances. There's plenty of action, as usual. Another excellent addition to the series & a great way to ring in the new year.
October 23, 2014
Helm spends time in the Caribbean doing what he does best. Hamilton takes him all over in a very interesting, evolving series of problems that Helm manages to solve through tough, cold logic. An old character from fairly early in the series reappears which adds some spice.
Hamilton always has something to say about current events & society. In this book, he explores racism, hostage taking & hijacking. It's interesting, especially when you remember the issues back then & look at them today.
It was a great read & I'm looking forward to starting The Terminators today at lunch.
Hamilton always has something to say about current events & society. In this book, he explores racism, hostage taking & hijacking. It's interesting, especially when you remember the issues back then & look at them today.
It was a great read & I'm looking forward to starting The Terminators today at lunch.
May 18, 2020
Halfway through t he Matt Helm saga and I have ran into my favourite story. Mostly because firearms savvy Helm has just ran across a Thompson/Center Contender chambered in .256 Winchester magnum in the hands of a deadly Iron Curtain assassin! This is a great secret agent tale full of everything we love about the genre. As well Matt never fails to provide us with his take on the circumstances at hand! If you have not yet heard about this Agent....... Get your hands on a copy of Death Of A Citizen by Donald Hamilton! You will forget about Bond!
October 18, 2012
I'm not a big fan of the Matt Helm books, but this one wasn't too bad. I was about halfway through the book when I realized that Hamilton had basically written a Travis McGee story and then put his hero in the story instead of John D. McDonald's creation (the story takes place in the Caribbean). Perhaps that's one of the reasons that I liked this Matt Helm installment. Well it's a good read while spending hours in the waiting room of a doctor's office.
March 23, 2021
"Well, to be philosophical, it's the great modern dilemma...It would be so simply marvelous if the human animal weren't aggressive by nature, so a lot of people figure they can stop it from being so just by having everybody pretend it isn't so. The only trouble is, they won't sit down and calculate what's going to happen if the prescription doesn't work on everybody who takes it."
"Yes, Professor," Harriet said obligingly, "and what is going to happen, please?"
"Exactly what has happened," I said. "Bunches of arrogant thugs - like those college creeps who came for me - shoving people around, serenely confident that none of their brainwashed, nonviolent fellow-citizens will be willing to, or able to, lift a hand in effective self-defense. Once you start raising whole generations on the lovely, unrealistic principle that the use of force is always evil and unthinkable, that you should be willing to endure any indignity and pay any price rather than spill a little blood, why, you've set yourself right up for them, haven't you?"
For whom, darling?"
"For the intimidators," I said. "For the people who haven't the slightest qualms about using force or spilling blood. For the ones on whom the pretend-we're-all-nice medicine didn't work. All the bullies and dictators and little-league Caesars..."
"Yes, Professor," Harriet said obligingly, "and what is going to happen, please?"
"Exactly what has happened," I said. "Bunches of arrogant thugs - like those college creeps who came for me - shoving people around, serenely confident that none of their brainwashed, nonviolent fellow-citizens will be willing to, or able to, lift a hand in effective self-defense. Once you start raising whole generations on the lovely, unrealistic principle that the use of force is always evil and unthinkable, that you should be willing to endure any indignity and pay any price rather than spill a little blood, why, you've set yourself right up for them, haven't you?"
For whom, darling?"
"For the intimidators," I said. "For the people who haven't the slightest qualms about using force or spilling blood. For the ones on whom the pretend-we're-all-nice medicine didn't work. All the bullies and dictators and little-league Caesars..."
April 20, 2022
Still not sure who is rating these books as anything above a 2 - yet, as I have said before, here I am, reading the entire collection. Each book, worse than the book before. Nothing redeeming about this one. James Bon, Matt Helm is not. This one was particularly bad, two assassins are sent to kill Matt Helm, while he is supposed to kill a sacrificial lamb Russian Hitman - what? Either of the would-be assassins, both women, could have simply shot Helm in the head, but no, they have to go all Dr. Evil with seducing him, bedding him, and pampering him, then NOT SHOOTING HIM IN THE HEAD! I don't get it, do your job.
March 12, 2016
Good but a little too convoluted by the Matt Helm standards...
September 14, 2021
We find Matt fishing in the Bahamas again, seems he does a lot of that, fishing that is. A call from Mac informs him to go to Nassau, New Providence Island, BWI to determine why Pavel Minsk, “The Mink” is there and then make the “touch”, who Mac said is long overdue. Bill Hazeltine, Matt’s contact, began briefing Helm on the Bermuda Triangle. To cut matters short, a recent disappearance in the Triangle included a woman Hazeltine loved and wanted her found. Matt was to assist in this endeavor. How these two missions were connected was unclear to Matt but he assumed they were. So much for the setup of the story. People continue to disappear or get killed, and one thing leads to another. Hazeltine’s quest gains credibility and/or suspicion. From this point, the story was a bit confusing with different characters, twists and turns, and various motives coming to play. This is not one of my favorite Matt Helm novels. There have only been a couple like this that I’m not impressed with. Well, they can’t all be great.
August 11, 2024
Helm is in the Bahamas marlin fishing, the guest of a rich oil baron named Hazeltine whose fiancée is missing. He is given an assignment to take out a Russian agent in the area. He rescues the target of Pavel Minsk and kills Minsk accidentally in the process. He then learns of another missing person in the Bahamas. Mac informs him of several others.
Then he becomes the target of an assassin hired by a woman from his past.
Hazeltine is back in his life insisting on help finding his missing flame.
This was confusing at times. It is not at all clear why his old enemy does not take another shot at him and instead settles into an uncomfortable working relationship as he tries to ferret out the mystery of five missing people in the Bermuda Triangle.
Early on, he gets into trouble with a local black agent when he insults him in his usual Helm-his insulting way.
While the missing person plot line comes up early, it does seem these were two different books.
Then he becomes the target of an assassin hired by a woman from his past.
Hazeltine is back in his life insisting on help finding his missing flame.
This was confusing at times. It is not at all clear why his old enemy does not take another shot at him and instead settles into an uncomfortable working relationship as he tries to ferret out the mystery of five missing people in the Bermuda Triangle.
Early on, he gets into trouble with a local black agent when he insults him in his usual Helm-his insulting way.
While the missing person plot line comes up early, it does seem these were two different books.
September 12, 2019
Government agent Matt Helm has to investigate why some people with deep pockets are mysteriously disappearing on their pleasure crafts and a private plane in the area known as The Bermuda Triangle. The answers and clues take him from Nassau to Florida and finally very near an island near Cuba. There is a lot of friendly double crossing, beautiful woman both good and evil, a lot more of Helm's boss, Mac, is present in the story, and a lot of nautical terminology regarding sails, boat parts, and speeds. A bit too much of the 'salty' seagoing vessel talk, honestly.
April 18, 2023
Can't believe I'm up to fifteen of these already, all but one this year. The last time I finished so many novels by a single author in such a short space of time must have been when I first got into Michael Moorcock and read all those very short Eternal Champion books.
Anyway, this one is from 1974, and times are changing: although Matt is still very racist, he now gets in trouble for it. Apart from that, it's an enjoyable adventure, about people going missing in the Bermuda Triangle. A particular highlight is Matt telling a story of his college days.
Anyway, this one is from 1974, and times are changing: although Matt is still very racist, he now gets in trouble for it. Apart from that, it's an enjoyable adventure, about people going missing in the Bermuda Triangle. A particular highlight is Matt telling a story of his college days.
November 18, 2020
Matt Helm books are always a twisted kind of fun. This one apparently involves a disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle - which is followed by two more. All are very wealthy people, so it's clearly no coincidence. Helm is sent in to investigate, and - as always - death follows, and the plot gets murkier. It's an entertaining read, though somehow a little lacking in Hamilton's usual punch.
February 1, 2022
More of a regulation spy adventure here with femme fatales and Cuban politics seasoned with bullets, blood and betrayal. Kidnapping and the Bermuda Triangle mix with the arrival of a Russian assassin whom Eric (Helm) and his nameless agency have been hunting for a long time then...DUH,DUH,DUH...an old Nemesis rears her head!
Pretty good teaser huh?
Still going good, enjoy. Recommended.
Pretty good teaser huh?
Still going good, enjoy. Recommended.
February 4, 2019
A curious one
Fun in the sun - the Florida keys, the Bahamas, and even a little bit of Cuba. Throw in the Bermuda Triangle, wholesale kidnapping, and an old combatant, and you end up with a heck of a yarn.
Fun in the sun - the Florida keys, the Bahamas, and even a little bit of Cuba. Throw in the Bermuda Triangle, wholesale kidnapping, and an old combatant, and you end up with a heck of a yarn.
November 29, 2021
The Intimidators
Good read an full of action. The Matt Helm books are hard to put down. They always keep you looking for the next book. Any body that likes old style adventure will like the books.
Good read an full of action. The Matt Helm books are hard to put down. They always keep you looking for the next book. Any body that likes old style adventure will like the books.
Read
December 20, 2023A good story in the series. In the beginning there are murders of those who would murder our hero. Lots of other deaths, as usual. A little sex, and some interesting communication with other characters.
August 27, 2018
The usual helms storyline
These books are good for a summer read. They are always entertaining and have an interesting plot. A quick read.
These books are good for a summer read. They are always entertaining and have an interesting plot. A quick read.
August 9, 2019
Truly unsure what made him a prolific writer. I thought I was getting into a James Bond series, and ended up reading about a whiny main character with bland pacing.
September 8, 2021
Over long and talky.
October 5, 2022
Always great
I enjoy these stories Helm's quirky philosophy. Too bad the movies were so far from the actual character. Have all the paper backs as well as the Kindle versions.
I enjoy these stories Helm's quirky philosophy. Too bad the movies were so far from the actual character. Have all the paper backs as well as the Kindle versions.
February 17, 2016
Or, in non-Matt Helm parlance, the Bullies__because that__s really what he__s talking about. (In fact, it makes me wonder if Donald Hamilton was fond of this style of titles or whether it was something imposed by the publisher, as a kind of branding? After all, there was Death of a Citizen, The Wrecking Crew__probably my favorite title__and Murderers__ Row before it settled down into The Somethings formula.)
This time it__s Matt Helm versus The Bermuda Triangle. It took fourteen books to take Helm to the Bahamas__traditionally James Bond territory (mostly because that__s where Ian Fleming composed his espionage fantasies).
There are only a couple of switched-allegiance characters this time around; for the most part, the characters here are on the side they say they__re on . . . which is not to say they may not have hidden agendas or troubled psychologies that don__t necessarily let them do exactly what they__re supposed to do.
Another fun ride . . . though if Helm is going to spend this much time on boats and ships (he started out as a land-locked character early in the series), he should really do his homework. I suppose this is Hamilton__s way of educating his readers; it allows Helm to grouse about the terminology and not have to transcribe all the minutiae the more seaworthy characters subject him to.
Fifteen books in and the series hasn__t becoming boring. Much of the tropes remain the same from book to book, but it__s like a Rubic__s cube: There are still enough combinations to continue to make an intriguing pattern.
This time it__s Matt Helm versus The Bermuda Triangle. It took fourteen books to take Helm to the Bahamas__traditionally James Bond territory (mostly because that__s where Ian Fleming composed his espionage fantasies).
There are only a couple of switched-allegiance characters this time around; for the most part, the characters here are on the side they say they__re on . . . which is not to say they may not have hidden agendas or troubled psychologies that don__t necessarily let them do exactly what they__re supposed to do.
Another fun ride . . . though if Helm is going to spend this much time on boats and ships (he started out as a land-locked character early in the series), he should really do his homework. I suppose this is Hamilton__s way of educating his readers; it allows Helm to grouse about the terminology and not have to transcribe all the minutiae the more seaworthy characters subject him to.
Fifteen books in and the series hasn__t becoming boring. Much of the tropes remain the same from book to book, but it__s like a Rubic__s cube: There are still enough combinations to continue to make an intriguing pattern.
July 15, 2014
Only moderately entertaining. Hamilton's earlier and shorter novels in the series generally work much better as entertainment.
Helm is accused of racial bigotry in this novel, which lends some interest to the series.
I was looking forward to another instance or two of Matt using himself as bait and rendering himself helpless to his enemies, but I can't honestly count any of his actions in this novel as being within that category. Matt Helm is as suicidal as ever:
Number of times Matt Helm uses himself as bait in the Matt Helm series, and allows himself to be captured by the opposition (or presents himself directly to the opposition allowing the opposition to do whatever they please with him):
0 = DEATH OF A CITIZEN
1 = THE WRECKING CREW
2 = THE REMOVERS
1 = THE SILENCERS
1 = MURDERERS' ROW
3 = THE AMBUSHERS
2 = THE SHADOWERS
2 = THE RAVAGERS
1 = THE DEVASTATORS
1 = THE BETRAYERS
1 = THE MENACERS
3 = THE INTERLOPERS
1 = THE POISONERS
3 = THE INTRIGUERS
0 = THE INTIMIDATORS
15 novels in the Matt Helm series so far, 22 times Matt has used himself as bait.
@hg47
April 19, 2015
One of Hamilton's best. I enjoy it when he works in people from Helm's past
I've been a Helm fan since the skinny paperbacks. This is one of the best. Im also buying the audible syncs as they come out.
I've been a Helm fan since the skinny paperbacks. This is one of the best. Im also buying the audible syncs as they come out.
May 25, 2016
I seem to say this just about everytime I read a Matt Helm adventure " this was the best yet". But this one really was. It has everything a great spy novel should have guns, girls and lots of intrigue. I for sure will be reading the rest of Don Hamilton's great series of books.
December 29, 2016
Not the book I searched for.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews