Matt Helm 1
by Donald Hamilton
1960 Gold Medal Books
First, forget about the Dean Martin movies. While the films try to out-camp James Bond, the books are closer to Mickey Spillane than Ian Fleming.
Matt Helm is a retired secret agent who is trying to live a normal life after leaving the service at the end of World War II. Most of the first installment is a series of slow-paced cliches - Nobody ever really quits, being framed for murder, searching femme fatales for weapons, "I want you to find her and stop her. Permanently.", etc.
I'd like to give Hamilton the benefit of the doubt since the book is pretty well written, but I'm sure all of this was already old hat by 1960. Most of the first person narrative is Helm thinking about what he's going to do, doing it, then thinking about what he did. There's a good gritty, realistic tone, but not enough happens until the end, and the ending's not quite enough to really recommend it.
