Which Bond novel are you currently reading?

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  • Posts: 2,887
    Some recent Fleming news: on a Bond Facebook group I came across the Daily Mail article "Ian Fleming's rules for life are revealed as James Bond creator's private notebook goes up for auction."

    As Heritage Auctions reveals, the rules are from a 39-page notebook Fleming kept during his trip to Japan to research You Only Live Twice. Here are some scans:

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    Fleming's rules:

    01. Don't draw your gun unless you can see both the other man's hands.
    02. Don't waste your time on women who wear a bracelet on their left ankle.
    03. Beware of motorcars with 2 women in the front seat.
    04. Don't play cards against married couples, unless they are drunk.
    05. See the brand name on the bottle.
    06. Avoid people who call you 'Old Boy,' and all politicians.
    07. Never eat scrambled eggs unless you make them yourself.
    08. Talk secrets only in the open air.
    09. Don't buy anything that eats.
    10. Beware of people who smell and tread carefully in the company of moustaches, side-burns, or beards.
    11. Have nothing to do with correspondence in coloured ink—particularly when variegated.
    12. Cut down on your drink when your eyes get red and on your smoking when your breath feels short. Don't worry about cirrhosis of the liver or cancer.
    13. Live until you're dead.

    And speaking of death:

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  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    Excellent! Thank you!
  • edited July 2022 Posts: 2,887
    I notice that rule three ("Beware of motorcars with 2 women in the front seat") harks back to chapter 11 of Thunderball ("two women in the front seat of a car constantly distract each other's attention from the road ahead and four women are more than doubly dangerous"), while rule nine ("Don't buy anything that eats") was introduced way back in chapter nine of Diamonds Are Forever:

    "If I have a son," said Bond, "I'll give him just one piece of advice when he comes of age. I'll say 'Spend your money how you like, but don't buy yourself anything that eats'."
  • goldenswissroyalegoldenswissroyale Switzerland
    Posts: 4,378
    Thanks @Revelator for these Ian Fleming insights. Great stuff.

    I read OHMSS (liked it a lot but didn't enjoy it as much as the last time a few years ago) and YOLT (enjoyed it more than expected and read the second half in two evenings, a real page turner for me, which doesn't happen often). Now, I'm reading TMWTGG before I will read the new one from Horowitz.
    I love the first chapter of TMWTGG. It's perfect and probably my favourite Fleming opening chapter. The second and third chapter are also very good. Unfortunately, the fourth chapter is already a a bit a downer. Bond doesn't talk to M to get his mission? No last flirt with Moneypenny? Why don't we get at least one chapter where we learn how Bond is "healed". There is one page in the 4th chapter, but thus isn't enough for me. And Bond already finds out where to find Scaramanga by luck shortly after arriving in Jamaica...a bit disappointing. But Lane 3 1/2 is interesting.
  • Posts: 988
    I thought Horowitz expanded on the healing of Bond in WAMTK, and made more sense of it than was in TMWTGG. It felt like he was explaining stuff TMWTGG left out, when it came to reversing brain-washing. Be interesting to see if you think the same.
  • goldenswissroyalegoldenswissroyale Switzerland
    Posts: 4,378
    I'm looking forward to read more about it in WAMTK then. I don't want to read a whole book about brainwashing and reversing it but a bit more information sounds good to me.
  • Posts: 988
    I re-read TMWTGG before I read WAMTK, and I was really glad I did. WAMTK works as a stand-alone, but it I do think recent knowledge of TMWTGG benefits the reader.
  • goldenswissroyalegoldenswissroyale Switzerland
    Posts: 4,378
    I re-read TMWTGG before I read WAMTK, and I was really glad I did. WAMTK works as a stand-alone, but it I do think recent knowledge of TMWTGG benefits the reader.

    Good. I have the Fleming book in my hands right now and will do as you command ;) Seriously, thanks for your comments. I'm even more motivated to read on.
  • EmilioLargoEmilioLargo Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 15
    Reading Forever and a day at the moment and enjoying it very much.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited July 2022 Posts: 12,914
    I especially enjoy the ending of Forever and a Day, a very satisfying conclusion I remember more clearly than many of the books.

    During recent travel I read The Moneypenny Diaries by Kate Westbrook (Samantha Weinberg). Enjoyed it very much. The characters, the time periods, the inner workings of the business, and the hook of the mysterious family history. Funny, I'm a civil servant and reacted to every mention of broken protocols like keeping a personal diary of descriptions that should be classified--but in every instance that was recognized/called out by the character involved, and they did it anyway. Somehow gave it understanding or made it palatable to me, drew me further in.

    A lot of my enjoyment is expecting this is a good lead-in the Anthony Horowitz's A Mind to Kill, alongside The Man With the Golden Gun in my recent memory.

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  • LeonardPineLeonardPine The Bar on the Beach
    Posts: 3,985
    Mathis1 wrote: »
    DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1956)
    Dont recall much about this from past readings, but this was an entertaining read this time around! Yes, the main villains The Spang brothers are not that memorable (can understand why they didnt use them for the film!) but its a diverting thriller, and Fleming seems to be enjoying himself, with solid descriptive passages, and I like the way he doesn't show Wint and Kidds football boot assault on Bond, and leaves it to your imagination. Tiffany is nicely sketched too, and its interesting how the filmmakers used the mud bath scene from the novel, for the movies pts!
    Up next, GOLDFINGER!

    Hello mate! I have a real soft spot for the DAF novel. Some cracking travelogue writing about the USA and it's a fast paced entertaining yarn. Loved the Shady Tree character and of course the sinister Wint & Kidd. Have read it a few times.
  • LeonardPineLeonardPine The Bar on the Beach
    Posts: 3,985
    You don't like the golf match in the novel? It's a highlight of the novels for me. The first half of the book is great, the second half not so much.

    Definitely agree with this. I love the writing in the Crab restaurant scene! The second half the film improved upon no end...😁
  • Posts: 6,727
    Mathis1 wrote: »
    DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1956)
    Dont recall much about this from past readings, but this was an entertaining read this time around! Yes, the main villains The Spang brothers are not that memorable (can understand why they didnt use them for the film!) but its a diverting thriller, and Fleming seems to be enjoying himself, with solid descriptive passages, and I like the way he doesn't show Wint and Kidds football boot assault on Bond, and leaves it to your imagination. Tiffany is nicely sketched too, and its interesting how the filmmakers used the mud bath scene from the novel, for the movies pts!
    Up next, GOLDFINGER!

    Hello mate! I have a real soft spot for the DAF novel. Some cracking travelogue writing about the USA and it's a fast paced entertaining yarn. Loved the Shady Tree character and of course the sinister Wint & Kidd. Have read it a few times.

    Yeh mate, its an easy read, certainly prefer it to the movie at the moment!
  • edited July 2022 Posts: 6,844
    Mathis1 wrote: »
    DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1956)
    Dont recall much about this from past readings, but this was an entertaining read this time around! Yes, the main villains The Spang brothers are not that memorable (can understand why they didnt use them for the film!) but its a diverting thriller, and Fleming seems to be enjoying himself, with solid descriptive passages, and I like the way he doesn't show Wint and Kidds football boot assault on Bond, and leaves it to your imagination. Tiffany is nicely sketched too, and its interesting how the filmmakers used the mud bath scene from the novel, for the movies pts!
    Up next, GOLDFINGER!

    Hello mate! I have a real soft spot for the DAF novel. Some cracking travelogue writing about the USA and it's a fast paced entertaining yarn. Loved the Shady Tree character and of course the sinister Wint & Kidd. Have read it a few times.

    I've always loved Diamonds Are Forever, and you both hit upon many of the reasons why. It's briskly paced and endlessly entertaining. The travelogue elements are all there. The interplay between Bond and Leiter. The interplay between Bond and Tiffany. The car chase. Spectreville. The shootout with Wint and Kidd on the cruise ship. Fleming even gets a bit philosophical and metaphysical at times. The US setting and large cast of colorful characters reminds me rather of Chandler's The Big Sleep. I find it one of the most pulpy and most purely entertaining of Fleming's Bonds.
    You don't like the golf match in the novel? It's a highlight of the novels for me. The first half of the book is great, the second half not so much.

    Definitely agree with this. I love the writing in the Crab restaurant scene! The second half the film improved upon no end...😁

    The first third/half of Goldfinger is up there with Fleming's best. The golf match is indeed excellently written.
  • CharmianBondCharmianBond Pett Bottom, Kent
    Posts: 533
    I'm back with another very long review of YA book barely anyone has read, but I enjoy writing them if nothing else 😁

    After the brief Trigger Mortis detour, I thought it’d be interesting to go back to the Young Bond for Steve Cole’s four-novel series to round out the back half of the year. Despite growing up with the Higson series I had aged out of it by 2014. I can’t recall when I found out that there was a second Young Bond series so this time I’m going without any knowledge and crucially without any sentimental attachment to them.

    Anecdotally I’ve never seen any of the Cole books in the wild which doesn’t augur well, except at the mecca of books, the Foyles Bookshop at Charing Cross Road, which is where I picked up my paperback copy of Shoot to Kill.

    I was both fascinated and trepidatious about Cole’s Young Bond series because on the one hand, I was really interested to see how he continued what Higson started and how he wrote James during his time at Fettes. I enjoyed his first Doctor Who novel, The Feast of the Drowned, but apart from that I’ve not been too enthused with his work, I get the impression he’s a very workmanlike author which is not necessarily a bad thing but he not only has to live up to Fleming but also Higson in my book.

    On the whole, I think Cole does achieve the impossible, Shoot to Kill is a competently written continuation of Higson’s series with marvellous action in an inspired setting, Hollywood in the Golden Age of Film is such a great fit for James Bond. Doubly so for this prequel series which carries on the rumination on James’ future. In a meta sense, the silver screen is where James Bond eventually ends up.

    Cole to his further credit confounded my expectations from the very first page, I had assumed that we’d get straight to Fettes but James has to spend a few weeks at Dartington Hall, an experimental new school in Totnes before he makes his way north of the border.

    It’s an effective rug pull for the seasoned Bond readers and allows Cole to play in the gaps in James Bond’s timeline while also carving out something new and revealing something about the transitory nature of James’ life.

    But knowing from the start that we’ll likely never see these characters again does hamper the ability to fully embrace them. They do grow on you, there is an endearing quality about them and I like that there is more of an ensemble feel to this adventure. Hugo Grande is easily the most likeable of the newly-introduced characters (and a better representation of a person with dwarfism than No Time to Die). However, I don’t think they are quite as distinctive as they could be.

    It would’ve been hard for anyone to top the previous Young Bond girl Roan Power but Bouddica “Boody” Pryce does feel like a downgrade. Some attempt is made to flesh her out, with her engineering streak that gives Bond an iconic weapon but she fills the typically prickly girl that Bond has to deal with that fails to mark her out as something more.

    Where Shoot to Kill falls down in the plotting. James along with his classmates happening to fall upon a snuff film is intriguing but unlike SilverFin where there is a gradual ramping up of stakes as the story goes on Shoot to Kill has a decently solid, if a little slow opening but then it completely sags in the middle only for it to do a full 180 and go full throttle in the final third. It’s only in that final third where the villain of the piece I felt truly became worthy of Fleming.

    What Cole lacks is what Raymond Benson coined as ‘the Fleming sweep’ the little hooks at the end of a chapter that urge you to read the next and on and on. Something that Higson was similarly able to master.

    It also relies a little too much on coincidence, there’s an awful lot of James happening to overhear things at just the right time. However, the one occasion where it does work is the one time he gets caught eavesdropping by a newspaper reporter of Asian heritage which is a nice subversion of Dr No.

    To first get to America James has to board a Zeppelin. I love how the book takes advantage of a phenomenon that wouldn’t be possible if the story was set even only a couple of years later in the decade.

    The Young Bond series has never been glamorous in the way that Fleming’s novels often are so it’s welcome that this series finally indulges in the splendour of the USA. And this is in a sense the first time James canonically has his first taste of luxury and the book captures the childlike naivety of the wonder of America that I certainly had at that age, that it was like Britain but bigger and more ostentatious.

    And the glamour is effectively juxtaposed with the sleaze, something that I think Shoot to Kill does better than Diamonds Are Forever, which the former is clearly inspired by, the penultimate showdown having definite ‘Spectreville’ vibes.

    It’s a similar story with the goriness which if anything is something more prominent in Higson’s stories than Fleming’s. Rather than shying away from it the goriness is still here with the villain getting a fittingly gruesome death but on more than one occasion the gore is simply described prosaically as “gory”, Cole’s writing again lacks the sharpness that Fleming and Higson employed.

    It took me a little while to acclimatise to how Cole writes James as opposed to Higson, it’s only when James gets a charmingly cheeky, toying with his friend did I realise that Cole is writing him with Roger Moore in mind. Which makes a lot of sense, Higson very much a child of Connery and Cole being a couple of decades younger must’ve grown up with Moore.

    There are some more cute references, James walking past a concert hall playing a ‘distinctive and jazzy’ number ‘with a mid-tempo beat, brasses and strings and needling steel guitars’ and an 'ominous swagger’ nods to the iconic Bond theme while still being quite subtle. Then there’s the obligatory Hoagy Carmichael reference that actually factors into the plot later on which I think works less well. Then come the final page we get something of a sequel hook concerning Andrew Bond and if this is going where this is going then I’m not looking forward, to put it mildly.

    Overall, Shoot to Kill is a mostly competent debut for Cole’s series, filled with good action set-pieces but one that lacks the finesse of its predecessors and left me feeling a little lukewarm.
  • edited August 2022 Posts: 2,594
    I’m reading Jim Hatfield’s Bond book, ‘The Killing Zone’. Enjoying it. After this I will re-read Casino Royale and Live and Let Die and stop there as I re-read all of the Fleming books aside for these first two over the past few months.
  • Posts: 2,594
    Thanks @Revelator for these Ian Fleming insights. Great stuff.

    I read OHMSS (liked it a lot but didn't enjoy it as much as the last time a few years ago) and YOLT (enjoyed it more than expected and read the second half in two evenings, a real page turner for me, which doesn't happen often). Now, I'm reading TMWTGG before I will read the new one from Horowitz.
    I love the first chapter of TMWTGG. It's perfect and probably my favourite Fleming opening chapter. The second and third chapter are also very good. Unfortunately, the fourth chapter is already a a bit a downer. Bond doesn't talk to M to get his mission? No last flirt with Moneypenny? Why don't we get at least one chapter where we learn how Bond is "healed". There is one page in the 4th chapter, but thus isn't enough for me. And Bond already finds out where to find Scaramanga by luck shortly after arriving in Jamaica...a bit disappointing. But Lane 3 1/2 is interesting.

    When I re-read YOLT last month I think I enjoyed it more than my previous readings. Perhaps it was because I spent over eight years residing in China so I thought of my own experiences when reading this book again. Heading to Ho Chi Minh City to live in a couple of days. Can’t recall any Bond book being set in Vietnam, unfortunately.

    Probably many don’t like the idea of a proper origin story but I do:

    https://www.insidehook.com/article/books/james-bond-origin-story-lost-adventures-mark-edlitz
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,914
    Had a fine experience in Vietnam and a neighboring country as a tourist @Bounine, especially enjoyed the food.

    Hope you enjoy your time there.

  • stagstag In the thick of it!
    Posts: 1,053
    I have a hardback copy of Trigger Mortis which I bought on the day it came out. It still sits there unread.
    I read the first two of the Gardner efforts but was unimpressed.

    IMO nothing can compare to the work if Fleming. Going back to 'last book read' it was TMWTGG. That's far from my favourite novel as, I believe IF was running out of steam (and perhaps patience?) with Bond.
  • edited August 2022 Posts: 2,594
    Had a fine experience in Vietnam and a neighboring country as a tourist @Bounine, especially enjoyed the food.

    Hope you enjoy your time there.

    Thanks Richard. I’m presently in transit at Hong Kong airport for 8 hours and 40 minutes. LOL.

    I’m a bit worried about the humidity in Vietnam. Not one for the heat. Although I did get used to it to a point in China during the summer. :)

    I’m liking ‘The Killing Zone’ but not unlike Horowitz’s latest, there are too many references to Bond’s past lovers and unlike ‘With A Mind To Kill’ there is also some influence from the films which I really don’t like when reading Bond. Also, Bond drives a Porsche (no excuse for this although some justification was given) and wears a GOLD Rolex which are two more things I’m unhappy with.
  • stagstag In the thick of it!
    Posts: 1,053
    @Revelator do you know how much the notebook sold for?
  • edited August 2022 Posts: 2,887
    stag wrote: »
    @Revelator do you know how much the notebook sold for?

    No, unfortunately. Nor do I know the buyer. I'm hoping it's Ian Fleming Publications or a library of some kind, but I fear the notebook has vanished into a private collection.

    By the way, in case any Fleming fans still haven't come across it, I have started an ongoing thread to reproduce every known interview with Ian Fleming.
  • MaxCasinoMaxCasino United States
    edited August 2022 Posts: 4,050
    The James Bond Omnibus volume 4. By Jim Lawrence. Just finished Trouble Spot and Isle of Condors. These Daily Express comics are often underrated gems of James Bond stories.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    MaxCasino wrote: »
    The James Bond Omnibus volume 4. By Jim Lawrence. Just finished Trouble Spot and Isle of Condors. These Daily Express comics are often underrated gems of James Bond stories.

    Yes, I would rather they adapted some of these to the screen than the continuation novels.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161

    I was collecting the larger white softbacks but only went one past the Colonel Sun collection. So you think they’re worth considering with the?
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I was collecting the larger white softbacks but only went one past the Colonel Sun collection. So you think they’re worth considering with the?

    The Fleming adaptations are clearly the best, but there is much to enjoy in their own work as well. I may be a bit biased, since RIVER OF DEATH was my first experience with Bond as a kid.
  • CharmianBondCharmianBond Pett Bottom, Kent
    Posts: 533
    I had a busy July and now it’s almost September, my Bond reading challenge has continued unabated but my write-ups have been lagging so I'm clearing the backlog starting with Thunderball which I read back at the start of July.

    I find it easy to wax lyrical about the Young Bond series, I mean I do unironically love it, but also because it is so unremarked upon that it’s easy to write 1000+ words about it whereas it does feel like everything that been said about the Fleming novels has already been said.

    I also think there is a lot of consistency with Fleming novels, that’s not to say they’re uninteresting but Bond is very consciously a static character that means even going through these books chronologically they feel one of a piece. That’s not to say that Bond doesn’t grow or develop over these novels, here he is very much paying the price for his mis-adventures but Bond’s flaws and his character are very apparent at this point. And we’re at that point where you can tell Fleming is growing weary of writing these.

    What does change is the plot and I love the fantastical nature of this story that is so in tune with the Cold War paranoias of the time. Stealing nuclear bombs as ransom is such a slight bonkers idea but Fleming’s writing is so exacting that it makes it totally believable.

    It a wonderful introduction to SPECTRE and Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The boardroom scene is deliciously sadistic.

    Having Bond coming back from Shrublands as a health nut to May’s chagrin only to snap out of it with a healthy dose of her bacon and eggs once the mission is afoot is without doubt one of my favourite moments in this series and certainly one of the funniest.

    I don’t know whether it’s because I had high expectations or because I knew Largo was explicitly ‘Number 2’ but I didn’t find him a particularly impressive villain. I appreciated that Largo is a dark mirror to Bond but I never really felt the weight of that, especially when it seems like Bond always seems to have the upper hand. He does have some intimidating moments but interrogating Domino is the only one that stands out.

    Speaking of, Domino is like Largo perfectly adequate but there wasn’t much to differentiate her from the other women like a Solitaire or a Tatiana. Other than the fact that she and not Bond is the one to provide the finishing blow to Largo which deserved to be commended.

    I found the plot of the novel far easier to follow than the film, this was a very enjoyable read, it happened to work out that I started reading this one during July. And to its credit this is a great summer read but quite middle of the pack by Bond novel standards.
  • ThunderballThunderball playing Chemin de Fer in a casino, downing Vespers
    Posts: 776
    Recently I started reading For Your Eyes Only, my Pan copy you see here. I'm some pages into From A View To A Kill. Pretty great so far.

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  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    I think you'll find it's great all the way through.
  • CharmianBondCharmianBond Pett Bottom, Kent
    Posts: 533
    Heads You Die by Steve Cole

    I had hoped to clear the backlog of these reviews but I got blown off course, I’m back for another go now at least.

    At some point, I got it into my head that the Caribbean-set Bond novels were uniformly terrible. I predicated this opinion simply on the fact that my favourite stories are the ones set in Europe. Moonraker, From Russia with Love and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service currently being in the top three while Thunderball languishes near the bottom and Doctor No is solidly mid-table. Even with the Young Bond novel’s more consistent quality I’d still put Double or Die above Hurricane Gold.

    All this is to say that I was going into Heads You Die, Steve Cole’s second attempt at a Young Bond story and the first set not just in the Caribbean but Cuba with trepidation.

    While Shoot to Kill was an admirable attempt, as a debut, I thought it fell flat in the middle. What I’ve always loved about the Young Bond novels and the Horowitz’s novels have this too to a larger degree than Fleming’s is the breakneck pace, from the first page they are to quote everyone’s favourite director ‘a fired bullet’, they never let up for James. This is the problem Shoot to Kill has is that James is never too far away from the hotel and his repeated trips there kill the momentum of the story stone dead.

    Heads You Die is the debut I wish Shoot to Kill was. It’s a story that feels fraught and dangerous and most importantly has a sense of purpose.

    We start with the famous quote attributed to Edmund Burke, ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Correct me if I’m wrong but is that the first epigraph in a Bond novel written by a non-fictional person?

    We start right where Shoot to Kill left off, with James stopping off to recuperate in Cuba before making his way to Scotland. Correct me if I'm wrong, again, but was it the first time Bond had been to Cuba since Die Another Day? Regardless it’s such an underutilised location but one that feels so suited to the world of Bond. The turbulent 1930s are if anything toned down for the novel. Returning with James is his friend Hugo Grande which was a welcome surprise, he was easily one of the best things about Shoot to Kill and he continues to be a delight here.

    There’s a moment in the middle, a brief moment of respite for the characters where this novel clicked. Hugo is having a conversation with Jagua, the Bond girl of the novel, who is also the daughter of the main villain. They are both characters that defy their parents' expectations in different ways but Hugo’s act of empathy is really powerful and Jagua being a strong person that rebels and ultimately escape the man who abused her is an important message for kids to read.

    As for James himself, this is firmly ‘Young Roger Moore’ with the amount James raises his eyebrows, in one chapter he raises his eyebrow four lines after he already raised it. His antics in the casino wouldn't feel out of place one of Moore's films and it such a marked difference from his first casino visit in Double or Die. That being said James is regaining his cruel streak and the gore is done much better, although Cole does seem to have a fixation on eyes. It isn’t the first use of the word “bitch” in the series but it is used twice in this novel and much more caustically than previously, it just stuck out to me as this is a YA series.

    While in Cuba James is staying with a family friend and we get our second Andrew Bond reference. I was worried that after the cryptic reference in Shoot to Kill that he would turn out to have been a spy himself but on rereading it is pretty innocuous, so hopefully I’m spared that going forward. Talking of references, there’s always a fine line continuation authors have to balance with what parts of Fleming to use and how to use them. Once again there’s a certain clunkiness, that Birds of the West Indies one is the most egregious because of the hoops it has to contort itself through just to be there.

    I mentioned flippantly that Hurricane Gold shares some similarities with No Time to Die but Heads You Die the comparisons are more numerous. They’re both set in Cuba, and both their villain’s plans involve poisoning a large population through an anonymous carrier, Bond’s ally drowns in an exploding tugboat. I’m not suggesting for a moment that Fukunaga, et al. were cribbing from this but it’s funny all these stories play off each other.

    The plot is still messy in places, James’s family friend also working for the main villain and James has a chance encounter with the villain’s daughter is a little too contrived for my liking. And it’s disappointing to say that Cole still hasn’t mastered the art of vivid description that Fleming excelled at. The locations that Cole creates are great but for me, I found them really hard to visualise, it even got painful at one point when the villain’s lab is simply described as being ‘shaped like an “X”.’

    I’d still say it’s not up to Higson’s best and it may have taken until the sophomore outing but I really did have an enjoyable time reading this novel. Young Bond is back properly and going from strength to strength.
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