In The Retaliators, Matt Helm had twenty thousand stashed into his bank account and had to find the killer of another agent before he got picked-off too. Here, Matt Helm is back as a "counter- assassination agent" hired by the US government to get rid of threats to the system. Life isn't what you think, and for Matt, this latest instalment of the Matt Helm novels has him wake up to a woman called Kitty who tells him he is in fact Paul Madden, a successful free-lance photographer who will marry her whether he likes it or not!
The problem is, he doesn't remember any of his life up to now and nothing of what Kitty tells him can remind him of who he is or where he lived. Kitty might not be able to help Matt with his amnesia, but Dr. Lilienthal wants to know how he got bullet wounds from at least two years back when he's supposed to be a photographer.
I liked this sort of Bond style novel as it brings back memories of when movies and novels were fun and not so politically correct as they are now with Matt Helm being as chauvinistic as ever, but also having a soft spot for the ladies. Here, Matt isn't himself, he's got another identity and has a fiancée he didn't realise until he woke up. According to the story's beginning, he's woke up in hospital after a plane crash and being called Paul Madden, only the weirdness starts when he gets calls for a Matt Helm. It takes all of his resolve not to go insane, but to try to find out what has really happened to him and who he really is.
What is interesting about this novel is how Matt recovers from his amnesia and shock at being someone else and also being manipulated by someone else. As it stems from the late 70s with an updated looking cover, it seems to have a lot to offer the spy fan with Matt gathering data on the ones who would have killed him and finding the ones he had worked with before, with the occasional woman thrown in for fun.
The Terrorizers is one of my favourites due to the amnesia angle as it put him in a more vulnerable role as a spy, rather than always being in control.
I liked this sort of Bond style novel as it brings back memories of when movies and novels were fun and not so politically correct as they are now with Matt Helm being as chauvinistic as ever, but also having a soft spot for the ladies. Here, Matt isn't himself, he's got another identity and has a fiancée he didn't realise until he woke up. According to the story's beginning, he's woke up in hospital after a plane crash and being called Paul Madden, only the weirdness starts when he gets calls for a Matt Helm. It takes all of his resolve not to go insane, but to try to find out what has really happened to him and who he really is.
What is interesting about this novel is how Matt recovers from his amnesia and shock at being someone else and also being manipulated by someone else. As it stems from the late 70s with an updated looking cover, it seems to have a lot to offer the spy fan with Matt gathering data on the ones who would have killed him and finding the ones he had worked with before, with the occasional woman thrown in for fun.
The Terrorizers is one of my favourites due to the amnesia angle as it put him in a more vulnerable role as a spy, rather than always being in control.
