Murderers' Row (novel)

Murderers' Row
Paperback original
Author(s)	Donald Hamilton
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Matt Helm
Genre(s)	Spy novel
Publisher	Fawcett Publications
Publication date	1962
Media type	Print (Paperback)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	The Silencers
Followed by	The Ambushers

Murderers' Row is the title of a 1962 spy novel by Donald Hamilton. It was the fifth novel featuring his creation Matt Helm, a Second World War assassin recruited as a counter-agent by a secret American agency. This was the last Matt Helm novel to not use Hamilton's naming convention of The (Verb)-ers (as in The Annihilators, The Ambushers, etc.).

Plot summary

Matt Helm, codenamed "Eric", is given a tough and distasteful assignment: to physically assault a fellow female agent in order to help establish her cover in an undercover operation. In doing so, however, Helm accidentally kills the woman, which results in him having to complete the woman's assignment — the assassination of an enemy agent — while being pursued by his own agency.

Film adaptation

Main article: Murderers' Row (film)

Murderers' Row was adapted for the cinema in 1966 as a film of the same name. It was one of four films starring Dean Martin as Helm, and like the other three films the filmmakers chose to make the movie into an action comedy only very loosely based upon the novel (no incident such as Helm's accidental beating death of a female agent occurs in the movie).

External links

• Book summary webpage