“Original orders operative, changes cancelled. Go get him.” Matt Helm is Back In Action and, it has to be said, getting people killed by making damn fool assumptions about them. Early Nordic noir, this one, with Helm sent to the land of Donald Hamilton’s birth to take snaps of Swedish tourist spots that definitely have no strategic merit, oh no. The big difference between him and, say, Parker or Travis McGee is “L’organismo”; a structure around him (along with an “M” type figure) that can drop him into interesting, politically charged, situations. Here he’s on the trail of a bogeyman called Caselius and although the narrative revolves around photoshoots, Swedish dinner parties and the swapping of some film stock to confound the enemy this has a good twisty plot. As in the last Helm, there’s some nice sleight of hand going on – Hamilton is big on offering little details which wind up relevant – and let off the leash Helm ends proceedings with shoot-out “True Detective” would be proud of.
