Donald Hamilton (1916-2006) was the creator of Matt Helm, star of twenty-seven novels that have sold more than twenty million copies worldwide. He was born in Uppsala, Sweden, attended the University of Chicago, and served in the US Naval Reserve. His writing career began in 1946 with short stories for Collier's and the Saturday Evening Post. His first novel was Date with Darkness, published in 1947, and altogether he published thirty-eight novels. The first Matt Helm novel, Death of a Citizen, was originally published in 1960, at the height of the Cold War.
