The Steel Mirror (1948)

A dozen or so years before he invented Matt Helm, Hamilton published this, his second novel. It is told in the third person, but because it closely reflects the thoughts and actions of its protagonist, John Emmett, you might mistake it for the first person narrative style he uses in the Helm books. On the other hand, Emmett isn't Matt Helm, despite also having photography as a passion. He is a chemist who is heading to California to take a new job now that the war is over. His car breaks down and he wangles his way into a ride with an attractive woman, Ann Nicholson, who turns out to have no luggage.... She does have a lot of baggage however, and this byzantine plot twists and turns through a series of strange events and characters, whose motivations are hard to divine. It all revolves around Miss Nicholson's experiences as a Nazi POW (this is 1948, remember) and whether or not she betrayed members of the French underground. Hamilton tries to wrap it all up neatly at the end, but it doesn't take too much thinking on the reader's part before the threads start to unravel. Nevertheless, there are some good passages here, and if you are a fan of the Matt Helm books, you'll enjoy the hints of things to come. And you won't be surprised that this road trip story eventually winds it way from Chicago to Hamilton's and Helm's beloved New Mexico. ( )