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Donald Hamilton
Donald Bengtsson Hamilton (March 24, 1916 – November 20, 2006) was an American writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction about the outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally spy fiction, but also crime fiction and westerns, such as ''The Big Country''. He is known best for his long-running Matt Helm series (1960-1993), which chronicles the adventures of an undercover counter-agent/assassin working for a secret American government agency. The noted critic Anthony Boucher wrote: "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." Life Hamilton was born on March 24, 1916, in Uppsala, Sweden, to Dr. Bengt Leopold Knutsson Hamilton and Elise Franzisca Hamilton (née Neovius). On September 27, 1924, he boarded the S/S ''Stockholm'' with his mother and three sisters at the Port of Gothen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uppsala
Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the capital Stockholm, it is also the seat of Uppsala Municipality. Since 1164, Uppsala has been the ecclesiology, ecclesiastical centre of Sweden, being the seat of the Archbishop of Uppsala, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden. Uppsala is home to Scandinavia's largest cathedral – Uppsala Cathedral, which was the frequent site of the coronation of the Swedish monarch until the late 19th century. Uppsala Castle, built by King Gustav I of Sweden, Gustav Vasa, served as one of the royal residences of the Swedish monarchs, and was expanded several times over its history, making Uppsala the secondary capital of Sweden during its Swedish Empire, greatest extent. Today, it serves as the residence of the Governor of Uppsala County ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 – February 27, 1977) was an American author of detective stories, who also published using the pseudonyms Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. He lived in England for a number of years, and is often grouped among "British-style" mystery writers. Most (though not all) of his novels had English settings, especially country villages and estates, and English characters. His two best-known fictional detectives ( Dr. Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale) were both English. Carr is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of so-called "Golden Age" mysteries; complex, plot-driven stories in which the puzzle is paramount. He was influenced in this regard by the works of Gaston Leroux and by the Father Brown stories of G. K. Chesterton. He was a master of the so-called locked room mystery, in which a detective solves apparently impossible crimes. The Dr. Fell mystery '' The Hollow Man'' (1935), usually considered Carr's ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Age Of Detective Fiction
The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s. While the Golden Age proper is usually taken to refer to works from that period, this type of fiction has been written since at least 1911 and is still being written. In his history of the detective story, ''Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel'', the author Julian Symons heads two chapters devoted to the Golden Age as "the Twenties" and "the Thirties". Symons notes that Philip Van Doren Stern's article, "The Case of the Corpse in the Blind Alley" (1941), "could serve ... as an obituary for the Golden Age." Authors Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh have been collectively called the Queens of Crime. Description of the genre Certain conventions and clichés were established that limited any surprises on the part of the reader to the details of the plot and, primarily, to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dominators (novel)
''The Dominators'' is the title of an unpublished novel by Donald Hamilton. The book, which was completed in the early 2000s, was intended to be the 28th novel in Hamilton's Matt Helm spy series, continuing the adventures of the character introduced in the 1960 novel ''Death of a Citizen'' and later popularized (in a comedic vein) by actor Dean Martin in a series of late-1960s motion pictures. According to the Web site ''The Matt Helm Dossier'', the first draft manuscript was completed by Hamilton in 2001. The same site reported that in 2002 the 86-year-old author was in the process of revising the manuscript. As of early 2015, however, there has been no announcement regarding this book's release; Hamilton died in November 2006. The last Matt Helm volume published to date was '' The Damagers'' in 1993. Documents and drafts related to ''The Dominators'' are reportedly part of an archive of Hamilton papers currently held by the University of California, Los Angeles Library The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pathologist
Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatment, the term is often used in a narrower fashion to refer to processes and tests that fall within the contemporary medical field of "general pathology", an area that includes a number of distinct but inter-related medical specialties that diagnose disease, mostly through analysis of tissue and human cell samples. Idiomatically, "a pathology" may also refer to the predicted or actual progression of particular diseases (as in the statement "the many different forms of cancer have diverse pathologies", in which case a more proper choice of word would be " pathophysiologies"). The suffix ''pathy'' is sometimes used to indicate a state of disease in cases of both physical ailment (as in cardiomyopathy) and psychological conditions (such as ps ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-war
A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date (such as the period between World War I and World War II). By contrast, a post-war period marks the cessation of armed conflict entirely. Post-World War II in the United States Chronology of the post–World War II era The term "post-war" can have different meanings in different countries and refer to a period determined by local considerations based on the effect of the war there. Considering the post-war era as equivalent to the Cold War era, post-war sometimes includes the 1980s, putting the end at 26 December 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The 1990s and the 21st century are sometimes described as part of the post-war era, but the more specific designatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Damagers
''The Damagers'', published in 1993, is a spy novel by Donald Hamilton, and the twenty-seventh volume of the adventures of government assassin Matt Helm. Hamilton had launched the series in 1960 with ''Death of a Citizen'' and this novel is a sequel to the second Helm book, '' The Wrecking Crew'', also from 1960. ''The Damagers'' is, to date, the final Matt Helm novel to be published. Hamilton did complete a twenty-eighth novel, '' The Dominators'' in 2002 (he died in 2006), but as of 2015 this book remains unpublished. Plot summary Matt Helm brings his literary career to a close (for now) with a double assignment: destroy a crime gang run by the son of the villain from '' The Wrecking Crew'', and prevent the atomic destruction of Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. It had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Virginia, third-most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death Of A Citizen
''Death of a Citizen'' is a 1960 spy fiction, spy novel by Donald Hamilton, and was the first in a long-running series of books featuring the adventures of assassin Matt Helm. The title refers to the metaphorical death of peaceful citizen and family man Matt Helm and the rebirth of the deadly and relentless assassin of World War II. The book sees Matthew Helm, a one-time assassin and special agent for the American government during the war, being reactivated (code name: Eric) when a former colleague turns rogue and eventually kidnaps Helm's daughter. Afterwards, he agrees to return to duty as an assassin and counter-agent working for a secret agency run by "Mac," his superior officer from 13 years earlier (although published in 1960, the story itself takes place in 1958). ''Death of a Citizen'' is notable for its grimness of tone and events as compared to the usual thriller of the late 1950s and early 1960s. After a few initial missteps as his "citizen" persona is shucked off, H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold Medal Books
Gold Medal Books, launched by Fawcett Publications in 1950, was an American book publisher known for introducing paperback originals, a publishing innovation at the time. Fawcett was also an independent newsstand distributor, and in 1949 the company negotiated a contract with New American Library to distribute their Mentor and Signet titles. This contract prohibited Fawcett from publishing their own paperback reprints. Roscoe Kent Fawcett wanted to establish a line of Fawcett paperbacks, and he felt original paperbacks would not be a violation of the contract. In order to test a loophole in the contract, Fawcett published two anthologies — ''The Best of True (magazine), True Magazine'' and ''What Today's Woman Should Know About Marriage and Sex'' — reprinting material from Fawcett magazines not previously published in books. When these books successfully sailed through the contract loophole, Fawcett announced Gold Medal Books, their line of paperback originals. Sales soared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Violent Men
''The Violent Men'' is a 1955 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Rudolph Maté and starring Glenn Ford, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Dianne Foster, Brian Keith, and May Wynn. Based on the 1955 novel '' Smoky Valley'' by Donald Hamilton, its storyline involves a ranch owner who comes into conflict with the land grabbing tactics of the big local rancher, whose tense marriage threatens his family's stranglehold over the region. Plot John Parrish, a former Union Army cavalry officer, has been living out west to facilitate his recovery from an old war wound on his lung. Known for foolishly not carrying a gun and avoiding trouble, now that he has a clean bill of health, he plans to sell his land to Anchor Ranch and move back east with his fiancée of three years, Caroline Vail. However, he is disturbed when he witnesses the town sheriff being gunned down by Wade Matlock, one of the cowardly henchmen working for the Anchor Ranch. Later, Anchor's crippled owner, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Big Country
''The Big Country'' is a 1958 American epic Western film directed by William Wyler, and starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, and Charles Bickford. The supporting cast features Burl Ives and Chuck Connors. Filmed in Technicolor and Technirama, the picture was based on the serialized magazine novel ''Ambush at Blanco Canyon'' by Donald Hamilton and was co-produced by Wyler and Peck. The opening title sequence was created by Saul Bass. Ives won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his performance, as well as the Golden Globe Award. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for the musical score, composed by Jerome Moross. The film is one of the few in which Heston plays a major supporting role rather than the lead. Plot Former sea captain James McKay travels to the American West to join his fiancée Patricia at the enormous ranch owned by her father, Henry "the Major" Terrill. After a meeting with Patricia's friend, scho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
