Nick Carter's Killmaster

Killmaster is a series of novels written by several authors who write under the pseudonym Nick Carter. Between 1964 and 1990, the series of novels were published like baseball cards with at least 261 titles in print by 1991. The first novel in the series was Run, Spy, Run that was first published in February 1964 and featured the lead protagonist Nick Carter. The Nick Carter character was not a new character as he was an update of a pulp fiction character that first appeared in a comic in 1886. With the first novel in the series flying off the shelves, the authors of the series turned prolific publishing hundreds of novels in the ever more popular series. Even as no actual author is credited with the writing of the series, the novels are believed

He has dark thick hair, a firm cleft chin, laugh lines around the eyes, a firm straight mouth and a hard face. On The inside of his right lower arm is the perfect AXE agent ID – a small tattoo of an axe. He also has several battle scars including a shrapnel scar on the shoulder and a knife scar on the thigh. Nick is an avid yoga practitioner doing his meditations for at least 15 minutes a day. He also has a prodigious talent for learning the languages and is fluent in over ten languages and basic skills in half a dozen others. Carter’s knowledge of the languages comes in handy particularly in the early titles when he adopts several disguises when executing his missions around the world. Nick Carter prefers to use a triad of weapons during his missions, all of which have their unique histories and names. A stripped down German Luger known he calls Wilhelmina is his main weapon that he got from a World War II combat mission. The Benvenuto Cellini made 4-century-old knife he calls Hugo is the second member of the triad that he wears on his wrist. The last weapon in his repertoire is an egg shaped device that is a poison bomb named Pierre, which he would activate with a simple twist. Nick works for the agency AXE a more secretive and smaller agency than the CIA that is a trouble shooting and assassination arm of the US secret

Set in 1963 it introduces Nick Carter who gets an anonymous letter while relaxing after coming back from a successful mission. On board the plane, he meets a minor diplomat who upon getting off the plane is blow to bits by a plane that had been hidden in his artificial hand. He is just one of a series of diplomats killed in similar explosions to be replaced by communist sympathizers. Meanwhile Carter is paired up with Julia Byron and the two are assigned to protect Lyle Harcourt the American ambassador to the UN. Investigating a foiled assassination attempt on the ambassador they find that the American ambassador has been unusually interested in the case heightening their suspicions. But before they can bust the man they are knocked out and sent to meet Mr. Judas who intends to torture and murder them. Will they get out of this alive and will they thwart Mr. Judas’s