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 best known 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."