MUSEUM OF MODERN MYTHOLOGY AND POP CULTURE

MATT HELM

1960. Author Donald Hamilton's sardonic counter-assassin Matt Helm appears in a series of novels mixing mystery, noir, espionage and hard boiled. Death of a Citizen is the story of Helm, who, during World War II worked for a government agency specializing in the assassination of Nazis. Later, regular guy Matt Helm, through a labyrinth of incidences, loses his solid-citizen facade; the lethal assassin, code name Eric, emerges again. Noted critic Anthony Boucher wrote: "Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told." Dean Martin portrayed Helm in a series of films during the 1960s, and a TV series (sans Dino) aired in 1975. DreamsWorks Studios reportedly plans to set Helm in a contemporay setting.

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