I've read the four previous books and I like them all a lot.
They're
tightly written, have pretty exciting stories and Helm gets
the job done.
As someone else remarked, it's really something how much
action they could
pack into a 150-page Gold Medal book. I also like to see
Donald Hamilton
throw in things about Scandinavia, or photography, or
sailing, where he
either knows what he's talking about or knows how to bluff
it.
Now, just what is it that makes these hardboiled? Eddie
Duggan and
someone else pointed out two things that make the hardboiled
what it is:
institutionalised social corruption and a private eye/cop
investigating a
crime. These don't form a complete definition, but they do
help.
The Helm books feature neither: they concern a professional
hit man going
after foreign agents and killing them. Helm is tough, there's
no denying
that, and he cracks wise and is good with banter. He's also
popular with
the ladies and manages to always meeet attractive ones. These
alone don't
make a story hardboiled. There are lots of action series out
there that
are bad copies of the Helm series, and there's nothing
remotely 'boiled
about them. What does _Murderer's Row_ have in common with
_The Drowning
Pool_, or _A Rage in Harlem_ or even _I Was Dora
Suarez_?
Perhaps if someone can explain this to me, it would turn up
more
checkpoints for the test of hardboiledness. I can see the
Helm books have
the right atmosphere about them, but so does a lot of stuff.
Maybe I'm
just being too picky.
Bill
-- William Denton <URL:http://www.vex.net/~buff/> Toronto, Ontario, Canada Caveat lector.
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