Authors: Donald Hamilton
The Detonators (40 page)
I said, “Hell, the number of wings we break in the line of duty, maybe it’s only fair that we fix one or two.”
“Yeah. Well, you’d better get this tub out of here so the bomb-disposal boys can get to work. Matt…”
“Yes?”
He was frowning thoughtfully. “Don’t you wonder a little…”
“You mean, maybe we should have let it be fired? Maybe it would have shaken some sense into people?”
He nodded. After a moment, he said, “But of course it isn’t practical. If everybody who wanted to save the world got to fire off a nuclear device, we might as well have a war in the first place. Well, I’ll see you around.”
Then he was gone. I waited, but nobody came down the companionway ladder; so I put some ice and whiskey into a clean glass and set it, along with my own drink, on the bridge deck. I climbed out into the cockpit. Amy was sitting at the far end of it with an elbow on the tiller. She was still in her creased jeans and saggy jersey. Well, that could be fixed; the clothes she’d bought for her honeymoon as Mrs. Penelope Matthews were still on board. At the moment, it could hardly be called a formal party; I was in my well-worn Levi’s jeans and the sport shirt with the torn dollar and the bloodstains down the back. I noticed that she had managed to brush her hair very smooth, and that in spite of her rough-dried clothes she looked very good. Somehow, with all the action and excitement, I’d forgotten what a pretty girl she was.
She watched me gravely as I sat down beside her. I passed her the drink I’d made for her. When she reached for it, I noticed that her wrist was bandaged; that both wrists were bandaged.
“I told you not to fight it,” I said.
“You forget, I’m the little girl who loves hurting herself. Or being hurt. But I know why you did it, now. You were going after him, after Albert, and you knew how I felt about him, how I couldn’t help feeling about him in spite of myself. You didn’t want me to have any part in killing him and blame myself, so you tied me up and left me behind.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I just didn’t want to be bothered with a clumsy dame trailing along.”
She said quietly, “Matt, I don’t want to be like that. Like he wanted to make me. Can you help me?”
I shook my head. “If help is what you want, go to a psychiatrist. All we offer here is bad food and seasickness and sunburn. And a little Scotch, and maybe…”
“Maybe what?” she asked when I hesitated.
“A little affection. And now, if you’re willing to settle for that, we’d better fire her up and get the hell out of here so the boys can do their work…”
“Matt?”
“Yes?”
“‘Affection,’” she said softly. “Could we… could we maybe change that word to ‘love’?”
I looked at her for a moment. “Well, we could try,” I said.
We did.
Donald Hamilton was the creator of secret agent Matt Helm, star of 27 novels that have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
Born in Sweden, he emigrated to the United States and studied at the University of Chicago. During the Second World War he served in the United States Naval Reserve, and in 1941 he married Kathleen Stick, with whom he had four children.
The first Matt Helm book,
Death of a Citizen
, was published in 1960 to great acclaim, and four of the subsequent novels were made into motion pictures. Hamilton was also the author of several outstanding standalone thrillers and westerns, including two novels adapted for the big screen as
The Big Country
and
The Violent Men
.
Donald Hamilton died in 2006.
The Matt Helm Series
BY DONALD HAMILTON
The long-awaited return of the United States’ toughest special agent.
Death of a Citizen
The Wrecking Crew
The Removers
The Silencers
Murderers’ Row
The Ambushers
The Shadowers
The Ravagers
The Devastators
The Betrayers
The Menacers
The Interlopers
The Poisoners
The Intriguers
The Intimidators
The Terminators
The Retaliators
The Terrorizers
The Revengers
The Annihilators
The Infiltrators
The Vanishers
(August 2016)
The Demolishers
(October 2016)
PRAISE FOR DONALD HAMILTON
“Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told.”
Anthony Boucher,
The New York Times
“This series by Donald Hamilton is the top-ranking American secret agent fare, with its intelligent protagonist and an author who consistently writes in high style. Good writing, slick plotting and stimulating characters, all tartly flavored with wit.”
Book Week
“Matt Helm is as credible a man of violence as has ever figured in the fiction of intrigue.”
The New York Sunday Times
“Fast, tightly written, brutal, and very good…”
Milwaukee Journal
Helen MacInnes
A series of slick espionage thrillers from the
New York Times
bestselling “Queen of Spy Writers.”
Pray for a Brave Heart
Above Suspicion
Assignment in Brittany
North From Rome
Decision at Delphi
The Venetian Affair
The Salzburg Connection
Message from Málaga
While Still We Live
The Double Image
Neither Five Nor Three
Horizon
Snare of the Hunter
Agent in Place
PRAISE FOR HELEN MACINNES
“The queen of spy writers.”
Sunday Express
“Definitely in the top class.”
Daily Mail
“The hallmarks of a MacInnes novel of suspense are as individual and as clearly stamped as a Hitchcock thriller.”
The New York Times
“She can hang her cloak and dagger right up there with Eric Ambler and Graham Greene.”
Newsweek
“More class than most adventure writers accumulate in a lifetime.”
Chicago Daily News
“A sophisticated thriller. The story builds up to an exciting climax.”
Times Literary Supplement
“An atmosphere that is ready to explode with tension… a wonderfully readable book.”
The New Yorker
The Harry Houdini Mysteries
BY DANIEL STASHOWER
The Dime Museum Murders
The Floating Lady Murder
The Houdini Specter
In turn-of-the-century New York, the Great Houdini’s confidence in his own abilities is matched only by the indifference of the paying public. Now the young performer has the opportunity to make a name for himself by attempting the most amazing feats of his fledgling career—solving what seem to be impenetrable crimes. With the reluctant help of his brother Dash, Houdini must unravel murders, debunk frauds and escape from danger that is no illusion…
PRAISE FOR DANIEL STASHOWER
“A romp that cleverly combines history and legend, taking a few liberties with each. Mr. Stashower has done his homework… This is charming… it might have amused Conan Doyle.”
The New York Times
“In his first mystery, Stashower paired Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes to marvelous effect.”
Chicago Tribune
“Stashower’s clever adaptation of the Conan Doyle conventions—Holmes’s uncanny powers of observation and of disguise, the scenes and customs of Victorian life—makes it fun to read. Descriptions and explanations of some of Houdini’s astonishing magic routines add an extra dimension to this pleasant adventure.”
Publishers Weekly
Lady, Go Die!
BY MICKEY SPILLANE & MAX ALLAN COLLINS
THE LOST MIKE HAMMER NOVEL
Hammer and Velda go on vacation to a small beach town on Long Island after wrapping up the Williams case (
I, the Jury
). Walking romantically along the boardwalk, they witness a brutal beating at the hands of some vicious local cops—Hammer wades in to defend the victim.
When a woman turns up naked—and dead—astride the statue of a horse in the small-town city park, how she wound up this unlikely Lady Godiva is just one of the mysteries Hammer feels compelled to solve…