When Matt Helm is dispatched to Los Angeles to investigate the shooting of an agent, it wasn’t just an assignment—it was personal. To get the answers he wants means run-ins with two-bit hoods, a trio of beautiful women, a bunch of drug traffickers, and his old friend Mr Soo, whose government has ideas about polluting America to death…

Matt Helm, one-time special agent for the American government during the Second World War, has left behind his violent past to raise a family in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When a former colleague turns rogue and kidnaps his daughter, Helm is forced to return to his former life as a deadly and relentless assassin. Originally released in the era of the James Bond novels, these novels have been out of print and unavailable for almost 20 years. They were considered grittier and more realistic than Bond, garnering them critical praise and an ardent audience.

When a female agent in Mexico is killed before Helm can complete his mission to extract her, he finds himself teamed up with the woman's sister as he fights to save the lives of a number of scientists and Congressmen.

This work gives a detailed survey of the rise and expansion of Christianity in ancient Lycaonia and adjacent areas, from Paul the apostle until the late 4th-century bishop of Iconium, Amphilochius. It is essentially based on hundreds of funerary inscriptions from Lycaonia, but takes into account all available literary evidence. It maps the expansion of Christianity in the region and describes the practice of name-giving among Christians, their household and family structures, occupations, and use of verse inscriptions. It gives special attention to forms of charity, the reception of biblical tradition, the authority and leadership of the clergy, popular theology and forms of ascetic Christianity in Lycaonia.

Reproduction of the original: Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama by E. Cobham Brewer