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Borneo Jimmy posted:Anybody here familiar with Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm books? (Not the movies) I know they're spy fiction but the style is closer to John MacDonald than John Le Carre. I know I'm quoting a three-year-old post but the Matt Helm books are incredible and I really wish someone had done interviews with him before he died as I could go either way on whether he made Helm a sociopath on purpose or if he just thought that was a reasonable way for a person to behave. I picked one of his books up on aquarium because I love pulp the detective/adventure/spy novels I was absolutely blown away at how well drawn the character is. I ended up buying the rest of them off of eBay and while they are formulaic a poo poo, it is a very satisfying formula. Or really suck me in is just how realistic everything seems. Like obviously I have no firsthand knowledge of the world of espionage but everything is so gritty and just plausible. It's helped that the author wrote for gun magazines so the little technical details about firearms are absolutely perfect without going into idiotic gear porn. I've honestly considered trying to see if I can get my copy of the series digitized as everything is long out of print and my paperbacks are starting to fall apart since I've loaned the series out a couple times. At the very least I'm going to buy a second set of all the novels as a personal archive as it seems like I go through and reread them all every couple of years. As for hard-boiled detective fiction, I grew up listening to old radio shows at my local NPR station used to play a couple of hours of every night and started reading the Hammet/Chandler novels in high school. I still end up re-reading them all the time, a never-ending cycle of rumpled suits, strong coffee and what I presume is very lovely whiskey.
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Jul 1, 2017 21:45
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 09:12 |
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