Titan Books - The Return of Matt Helm: Titan Books announced today that beginning in 2013, they will reissue the original Matt Helm spy thrillers written by Donald Hamilton, starring the famed counter-agent whose career included 27 novels spanning more than three decades, four films, and a network television series.
The first Matt Helm novel, Death of a Citizen, was released in 1960, just two years after publication of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale—which hadn’t yet caught on in the United States. Otto Penzler noted, “Whereas Bond was a sophisticate who knew wine, expensive cars, and tuxedos, Helm lived much of the time in the American Southwest, drove a pickup truck, and wore flannel shirts.” The novel introduced a man in his mid-thirties, 6’4” and intelligent, who had been a military assassin eliminating Nazis during World War II.
7 comments:
That is good news, although I have a complete set. If they find a new audience, sales may be good enough that we will get that unpublished Helm novel.
Excellent! I am slowly working my way through the ones I've missed. I believe I have all of them now. You can't go wrong with Matt Helm.
Jeff
Not to blow me own trumpet or anything, but I "broke" this story earlier today...
Hadn't seen that. That's a great cover on the first book that you've featured.
Thanks, Bill. That's the cover to the second printing of the UK Coronet edition of Death of a Citizen. I blogged about that – and some wider Matt Helm publishing matters – in November. I'd heard Titan's news back then (I used to work for them), and hinted as much, but it's great the story's out there now.
"Death of a Citizen...was released in 1960, just two years after publication of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale"--it may be that CASINO ROYALE was first released *in the US* in 1958 (although I doubt it), but it was first published in 1953...
I think the first U. S. edition was 1954. Probably even the paperback was earlier than '58, though the title was changed for that.
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