The Violent Ones

by E. Howard Hunt

Paul Cameron walks out of prison after a stint for assault...and heads straight to Paris to find a lost shipment of gold that was smuggled in by the U.S. during WWII to fund the resistance. From the instant he lands in France, he's plunged into a maelstrom of intrigue, violence, and murder. ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Howard Hunt, who also wrote as "Robert Dietrich," is best known for his role in the Watergate scandal rather than for his great crime novels.

Genres: Crime

Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

E. Howard Hunt was an American intelligence officer and writer. Hunt served for many years as a CIA officer. Hunt, with G. Gordon Liddy and others, was one of the Nixon White House "plumbers" — a secret team of operatives charged with fixing "leaks." Hunt, along with Liddy, engineered the first Watergate burglary, and other undercover operations for Nixon. In the ensuing Watergate Scandal, Hunt was convicted of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping, eventually serving 33 months in prison.

He published over eighty books wrote under the pseudonyms Robert Dietrich, Gordon Davis and David St. John

From Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Dave]

This selection features an espionage novel by pulp author turned watergate burglar, a Howard Hunt, a man of many talents, a true renaissance man. This novel features a return to France decades after the Second World War and a search for missing gold bequeathed to partisans in he heat of war and then forgotten. Cafe singers, bodies dropping on doorsteps, and secret cabals fill the tale. Readable, although a bit stiff.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love these old '50s adventure stories where every woman is a whore and every man is a hero. If only life were black and white like that, wouldn't it all be simpler? Great escape book!

[Austin Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

To think this was written in the late 1940s is incredible. It would be fascinating to see this done retro-noir on film. I’d love it, personally. But beware, this is a potent “wokeness” antidote.

[Chris Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Generic post WW2 foreign spy/mystery story.
I might be biased on this one cause I find who he was to be deplorable.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, Howard Hunt, is perhaps best remembered as E. Howard Hunt who was one of the burglars who broke into Democratic Party Headquarters in the Watergate Apartments in Washington, D.C., in 1972. Hunt worked with the OSS during World War II - the precursor to the CIA. The Violent Ones is set in postwar France, in the late 1940's. The novel's main character, an American named Paul Cameron, returns to France and becomes involved in a search for a large quantity of gold that the allies had parachuted into France during the war to help finance the activities of the French Resistance against the occupying Germans, but had been diverted and hidden. Cameron has to deal with both friends and foes, and telling them apart isn't easy - good cloak and dagger stuff. The book seems to have a good feel for the Paris of that era.