Donald Hamilton’s The Silencers

The Silencers was published in 1962. It was the fourth of Donald Hamilton’s twenty-seven Matt Helm spy novels.

If you’re only familiar with Matt Helm from the 1960s spy spoof movies starring Dean Martin (which are absolutely delightful in their own way) you’re going to be in for quite a shock when you read Hamilton’s novels. These are very serious and very dark (and very cynical) spy novels. Matt Helm does not always enjoy being a secret agent but he does his job with ruthless efficiency. If a particular job includes killing someone he does that with ruthless efficiency as well. And if a fellow American agent has to be sacrificed in order to get the job done that’s unfortunate but Helm is not going to lose any sleep over it. Sometimes innocent bystanders get hurt as well. That’s unfortunate but there’s no point getting all upset about it.

Matt Helm was married, until his wife got mixed up in a case and decided that being married to a professional spy and assassin just wasn’t her thing. The breakup of his marriage is something that Matt does regret but he also sees it as one of those things that goes along with being a spy. Spies don’t get to have friends, or wives.

Helm’s latest assignment is to extract a female American agent from Mexico. He doesn’t know why and Mac, his boss, doesn’t think he needs to know. All Helm needs to know is that the agent has to be brought back to the States. Alive if possible. If that’s not possible, she has to be brought back anyway.

The agent is going under the name Mary Jane and she’s working as a stripper in Juarez.

It soon becomes obvious that the bringing her back alive part is going to be tricky. Her sister is going to make things even trickier.

All Matt really knows is that there’s an underground nuclear test scheduled and maybe his mission has something to do with that. There are lots of other top-secret government projects in this part of the country as well. There’s some microfilm as well, which Mary Jane passed on to her sister along with a cryptic message about a wigwam.

And there are lots of people tangled up in this business, whatever the business might be. Scientists, reporters, cowboys, strippers and businessmen. With all sorts of motivations and agendas. And lots of spies. There are people planning double-crosses and maybe Matt is planing one as well. Then there’s Gail. Mac has pointed out that she can’t be trusted, which is why she is likely to be so useful.

Matt figures out that there’s a lot at stake, but he’s not sure exactly how high the stakes are.

Matt Helm doesn’t have much use for gadgets but there is some high-tech stuff involving the bad guys.

Matt Helm is basically he’s a nice guy but he has a dirty nasty unpleasant job to do and he does it in a dirty nasty unpleasant way because there’s no other way to do it. Lying, cheating and killing are what he gets paid to do. He doesn’t like doing those things but he doesn’t have a choice. He has ways of dealing with the demands of his job.

Matt Helm is more cold-blooded than James Bond and at the same time he’s more aware of the moral dubiousness of his profession. He can of course handle himself in a fight. When it does come to a fight he doesn’t believe in sportsmanship. If you have a bad guy down on the ground and it could be inconvenient if he gets up again the easiest solution to the dilemma is to put the boot into him. That way you can concentrate on other things that require your attention. If you happen to kill him that’s even more convenient.

As for going to bed with the women he encounters on a case, well sometimes that’s part of the job, a duty that has to be accepted. He doesn’t however jump into bed with every female he encounters. It depends on whether it will be useful or not. Matt is not much given to wisecracks. The humour in the book (and there is a small amount) tends to be rather sardonic.

One interesting thing about the Matt Helm novels is that the early ones at least have to be read in sequence. At the very least you must read Death of a Citizen, the first book, before reading any of the others. It doesn’t just give Helm’s backstory. It is essential to an understanding of his tangled motivations and his complex personality. The novels are much more fascinating when you know why Matt Helm is the way he is. The second book, The Wrecking Crew, adds even more complexity to his character.

The Matt Helm series is one of the great modern spy fiction series and The Silencers combines intelligence, moral complexity and a great deal of entertainment. Highly recommended.

While it's totally different in tone you might be interested in my review of the (very very loose) movie adaptation, The Silencers (1966).