MATT HELM: The War Years Paperback – February 26, 2013

Faithful to the original, although marred by a few errors that Hamilton would never have made, especially in view of his (and Mac's) traditionalist view of English grammar, syntax, and usage. It seems that the author, proofreader(s?), and editor(s?) don't always know the difference between "it's" and "its" (pages 125 and 150), or "disbursed" and "dispersed" (page 188). I don't give five stars for anything short of absolute perfection, but this novel comes very close. One thing I try to remember to write in every review: If I had it to do over again knowing what I know now, would I still buy it? Most definitely.

WOW!That word sums up my reaction upon finishing "MATT HELM: The War Years." Any fan of Matt Helm will love this book!I started reading the Matt Helm series in the sixties, possibly starting with the first book, "Death of a Citizen." (I don't remember, but it was one of the early ones, if not the first). I read the other 26 books in the series as they came out over the next 33 years, never tiring of them, keeping and rereading all of them. I mourned when they stopped, and when I learned of Donald Hamilton's death. Unfortunately my copies were all ruined in a flood of my storage area and I despaired of ever acquiring the entire set again. Thankfully Titan Books is reprinting the series, and I'm hoping the sales are enough they will republish all 27!Searching for more of the Titan books, I came across this book. At first I was angry and annoyed. I am not a fan of other authors taking over a series from another author. Especially in a prequel. It's been done successfully a few times, but most of the time they're bad. Very bad.I am very happy that I read the reviews of others and chanced buying this "prequel" to my beloved series. I think Mr. Wease has done a superb job of taking the gems of Helm's WW2 experiences in the Hamilton books and using them to put together a coherent and interesting story of his training and development as an assassin. It's been awhile since I've read most of the original books, but I recognized a lot of direct quotes from those books expertly incorporated into the tale that Mr. Wease weaves. It's done so well that I often couldn't tell when the direct quote ended and Mr. Wease's imagination started! Only once was I annoyed and that was when he took a current scene from one of the books and made it into a completely different scene in WW2. Many of the same words, but changing the setting, people and circumstances. It was well done, I just thought it was distracting and unnecessary.I applaud Gordon Hamilton for allowing Mr. Wease to publish this! I thank him for all of his father's fans!And thanks to Keith Wease! The research required to write this had to have been extensive and time consuming! Mr. Wease has captured Mr. Hamilton's style and I think Donald Hamilton would be pleased with this book. That's the highest praise I can give.

If you're a fan of Hamilton's Matt Helm series, then you'll likely enjoy this. In his foreword, Wease says that he's a fan & a writer, so he spent some time making notes of this period by simply reading the series. He tells us that he copied quite a bit of the text & reused it in this novel. I easily recognized entire paragraphs & passages.For the first half of the book, this was all to the good, but then repetition started & I'm not a fan of that. I think he reused one bit three times. I also wasn't fond of Tina's story. The beginning of it was word-for-word from the book & then he went back in time only to take us back to what he'd already told us & never really showed her or the situation beyond what Hamilton had done.I'm on a roll, so I might as well get another major fault of this book out of the way now. Helm's pocket knife is used to torture him, much the way Vadaya did with the soldering iron. I think that scene was pretty much cribbed. Nothing wrong with that, but Helm NEVER says anything about the abuse done to his knife. Helm likes knives, especially this one, & knows about tempering - seriously major boo-boo.So why did I give this book such high marks? Because Wease did a great job keeping Hamilton's tone & said up front that it was a pastiche. It's on the cover, but it's more than that. He's a real fan who did a credible job adding to the series & even let Gordon Hamilton edit it. It was fun meeting so many of the missions & people we only had glimpses of before. I like his take on it, even if I am being nitpicky. Overall, I loved it & will add it to my collection, probably to re-read it some time. I'll recommend it to other Hamilton fans.

I almost never read series continued by another author because it is so difficult to capture the voice of the original. I’m glad I made an exception for this. The author does a terrific job of telling the story of how a 25 year old Army Captain Matt Helm is recruited by Mac and becomes the legendary Eric. If you are a fan of the series, you will enjoy meeting so many familiar characters for the “first time” and going on the missions that were only briefly mentioned in the series. The author's careful research and creative integrity to Donald Hamilton's world make this a delightful read.

I’ve been reading and re-reading Matt Helm books for 20 odd years and my very highest compliment to this author is that I really thought that it was Donald Hamilton who had written this “pre-quel” as the character of Eric was so consistent with the original booksIt was so realistic and I loved the way he interspersed the dialogue with secret stuff that we now know, but wouldn’t have been generally known at the time (eg where the D Day landings would actually take place)My only sight criticism (forgive my pedantry) is the mention of intelligence gleaned from Enigma machines – the Bletchley operation was *SO* secret at that time that I’m sure not even Mac would have known about it, or even if he had known that would not have been imparted to the field operativesNevertheless still a fantastic book and I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoyed the originals

Interesting little pastiche but as much as I liked the fact that he had used actual quotes from books about Matt's early live I could spot them too easily and often remembered them word for word

I injoyed Matt Helm The War Years, I Started reading the Helm series back in the Seventies, so when I saw The War Years I thought it would be nice to fine out how it all started. Keith Wease did a fine job of resurrecting the legend that is Matt Helm. I think if you injoy the books you should give the The War Years a try.

I think this book effectively fills an important gap in the Matt Helm series. It really gave me the sense that it was written by Donald Hamilton himself. Very good.

An interesting pre-quil to the series.