Book and Magazine Collector

Lazenby880

Literary Bond fans get yourselves down to your newsagent to try to get a copy of the May 2008 Book and Magazine Collector. It has Ian Fleming on the cover and celebrates the Fleming centenary—including an article on Fleming's collection of books. It also has an article on the 'American Rivals to James Bond', concentrating on Sam Durrell and Matt Helm among others.

They are excellent reads.

Barbel

Lazenby880 wrote:

It also has an article on the 'American Rivals to James Bond', concentrating on Sam Durrell and Matt Helm among others.

Forgive my ignorance, but who's Sam Durrell?

Lazenby880

Barbel wrote:

Lazenby880 wrote:

It also has an article on the 'American Rivals to James Bond', concentrating on Sam Durrell and Matt Helm among others.

Forgive my ignorance, but who's Sam Durrell?

Sam Durrell, a spy character created by Edward S Aarons around the time of Bond (1955 was the first Durrell, I think). The novels area all Assignment: something, such as Assignment Ankara. I have read a few of them and they are quite good, although having re-read one recently they are not as engaging as I first thought when I was casting around for Bond-like novels. They are fun, taut and move well, although much of the novels is, of course, just a bit implausible. This is not a problem, necessarily; the Bond novels can hardly be noted for their realism. But due to Fleming's style one can suspend one's disbelief quite easily; Aarons' style is not quite good enough to allow one to do so.

They are pulpy spy thrillers–one, which I have not read, is titled Assignment Nuclear Nude–although I gather they are much better than some of the other American pulp spy thrillers, such as the Nick Carter series. As enjoyable as I found the Durrells, they do not break out of the pulp boundaries in the way that the Matt Helms I have read do. It is unfortunate that Helm is often lumped in with the 'American Bond knock-offs' group. Death of a Citizen, Donald Hamilton's first Matt Helm novel, is an absolute delight: gritty and challenging and distinctly un-Bondlike, with a real depth of character. A classic of the genre.