After taking in the five books about Dean Martin, I thought I’d follow with a Matt Helm book. Donald Hamilton’s ‘The Menacers’ was part of one of Dean Martin’s Helm films. I like the sketchy style used on the Matt Helm covers. Very different from the more full-blown illustrations that were around at the time by folks like Robert McGinnis.

After Helm, I thought maybe I would read five action adventure spy books. I picked up Don Pendleton’s ‘Arizona Ambush’. This book stars the vengeful ‘Executioner’, who was the model for Marvel Comics ‘The Punisher’. It was pretty light and took place in the same general area of sand and heat of the Helm book. ‘The Executioner’ is on a mission to wipe out the mob and each of the series slowly does just that. You can read more about it here. Interesting series. More interesting the direction the publisher took the series after Hamilton moved on. THAT would be an interesting book!

The action adventure stuff is a bit much for me, so I turned to an author I haven’t read before, Ross MacDonald. Ross’ real name was Kenneth Millar. He was going to go under the pseudonym John Ross MacDonald, but another MacDonald was already soaring. The success of author John D. MacDonald had Kenneth drop his first non-name not long after his career started. As you can see by the cover above, this is an early novel of Millars…uh, John…uh, Ross….

What a great cover! No computer here. Look at those expressions. The light trying to make its way through the white cloth. The hand to the throat. There is unfortunately no credit given to the artist, of course.

I was going to go for five fictions as I did the five non-fiction, but caved when I finally found Mark Steyn’s America Alone in the bookstore. More about that when I finish it.