Donald Hamilton’s 1965 novel Assassins Have Starry Eyes was originally published in 1956 as Assignment: Murder. This could have been better. The lead character here, Dr. James Gregory, is a tough-guy physicist who sits so much he “wears his pants shiny,” yet has no problem physically outmatching adversaries in various deadly situations. We’ll buy it, since the author asks it, but there’s another issue with Dr. Gregory—he’s a dick, all the more so as the narrative wears on.
Some sharp edges are to be expected, since people are trying to kill him—possibly due to his involvement in a government project tasked with creating an atomic super weapon—but he’s snide and superior even in his interior dialogues and reminiscences. He especially hates peace protestors because they simply don’t understand the need for world-threatening super weapons. Bah! Morons!
Books with difficult men are often fun, but it’s clear Hamilton thinks he’s writing Dr. Gregory not as an anti-hero, but as a no-nonsense everyman. The guy was impossible for us to like. We finished Assassins Have Starry Eyes mainly to see if he got his brains blown out. As for Hamilton, his writing is fine, so maybe he’ll do better with a different character (like Matt Helm, who he’s remembered for creating). We’ll try one down the line.
