James Bond Series by John Gardner
James Bond #19
Role of Honor jb-19
John Gardner
James Bond abandons his 007 status, resigns from the Service, and heads south for Monte Carlo in his new Bentley Mulsanne Turbo in search of a new life in Role of Honor . The choice is exercised partly by renewal of Bond’s passion for that prince of cars, the Bentley. His departure from the Service requires rather more explanation. Questions in the House all revolved round a possible security leak, with Her Majesty’s Opposition declaring a cover-up. Bond’s grievance is less that he should come under suspicion than that his honor is impeached by the manner in which the truth is exposed. John Gardner’s fiendish plot embroils his hero with a computer wizard absconding from his duties at the Pentagon, a sinister mercenary army training in secret for an audacious terrorist operation, and a white-knuckle flight over Geneva while Summit Peace Talks are in progress there, before Bond’s honor is fully restored.
Review “John Gardner keeps you turning the pages far into the night.” ( Daily Express )
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James Bond #20
Nobody Lives for Ever jb-20
John Gardner
En Route to retrieve his faithful housekeeper, May, from a European health clinic where she is recovering from an illness, Bond is warned by the British Secret Service that Tamil Rahani, the current leader of SPECTRE, now dying from wounds suffered during his last encounter with Bond, has put a price on Bond's head...
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James Bond #21
No Deals, Mr. Bond jb-21
John Gardner
The world's most famous spy is being hunted by the KGB, and he will need all his wits to negotiate the labyrinth of double-crosses that will lead him to a showdown in a remote corner of Hong Kong. Between the Danish island of Bornholm and the Baltic coast of East Germany a nuclear submarine of the Royal Navy surfaces under the cloak of darkness. James Bond and two marines slip quietly from the forward hatch into their powered inflatable raft and set off for a lonely beach where they are to collect two young women. Planted to seduce communist agents to run for cover in the West, they have been rumbled by the other side. Bond little knows that this routine exercise is but the prelude to a nerve-racking game of bluff and double bluff, played with consummate skill by his own chief M against the East German HVA and the elite branch of the KGB, formed from Bond's old adversary SMERSH. The KGB is soon on the scene, but nothing is what it seems, and Bond finds he needs all his wits to negotiate the labyrinth of double-crosses that will lead him to a bewildering showdown in a remote corner of the Kowloon province of Hong Kong. There, with only the trusted belt of secret weapons specially devised by Q branch, he has to fight a terrifying duel in the dark, with all the cards in the hands of his opponents.
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James Bond #25
Man From Barbarossa jb-25
John Gardner
Russian terrorists kidnap a man suspected of Nazi war crimes--and get the wrong man. The rebels threaten to kill their captive unless ten million dollars and the real war criminal are delivered to them within 72 hours. Only the KGB's newest secret weapon could possibly stop their plan--Comrade James Bond.
From Kirkus Reviews Gardner rouses himself for more elaborate plotting than usual in his tenth stint as Ian Fleming's stand-in, but Gardner's James Bond, on loan to the KGB for some antiterrorist housecleaning, has aged a lot less gracefully than Sean Connery. A dissident Russian cabal calling itself The Scales of Justice (SoJ) has kidnapped somebody it claims is Josif Vorontsov, notorious second-in-command at Babi Yar, from his home in New Jersey and threatened to assassinate high-level brass hats until the government takes Vorontsov off their hands and places him on trial for war crimes. When the Kremlin denies that SoJ has the real Vorontsov and refuses to recognize his extradition, SoJ begins taking out high-level brass hats, and the KGB asks British Intelligence to let them have somebody--guess who--able to infiltrate SoJ by substituting for two English-speaking recruits. Gardner lays some promising trails--Bond working for the KGB, Bond partnered by Mossad agent Pete Natkowitz, two interloping French agents (one a natural bedmate), the news that SoJ intends to videotape its own free-lance war-crimes trial, and all the usual seductions, killings, double-crosses, flashbacks, and intimations of The End (this time by hard-liners bombing Washington while the US is busy bombing Baghdad)--but the going keeps getting muddier, as if somebody else had finished the book over a third martini (shaken, not stirred). Bond saves the world, gets the woman and the Order of Lenin, and turns in a less muffled performance than in last year's Brokenclaw, though still below average for Gardner's series. Let's not talk about how far below Fleming's average.
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James Bond #27
Never send flowers jb-27
John Gardner
When an officer of the British Security Service is murdered in Switzerland, James Bond becomes involved in a deadly game of hide and seek. He follows a sinister shadow across the world, from Athens to Milan, Singapore, the USA and ultimately to EuroDisney. By the author of "Death is Forever".
From Publishers Weekly This sketchy detective story requires a knowledge of James Bond movies rather than Ian Fleming novels, which may explain why it reads like a rough draft for a screenplay. In Gardner's 12th 007 book (after Death Is Forever ), the ageless agent from Her Majesty's Secret Service is sent to Switzerland to investigate the murder of MI5 operative Laura March. Teaming up with Swiss agent Flica von Gruss, he discovers that March's brother was a serial killer and that her ex-lover was legendary English actor David Dragonpol, now retired and living in a fairy-tale castle on the Rhine. Dragonpol's sister, Maeve Horton, proves to be the link between March's death and four recent assassinations; a Bleeding Heart rose bred by Horton appeared at the funeral of each of the victims, March included. Bond and von Gruss pursue the case to Dragonpol's castle in Germany, where the usual fiendish plot is uncovered and ultimately resolved in the traditional Bond manner. This light, entertaining read doesn't pretend to be anything more than another episode in what has turned into a never-ending adventure.
From Kirkus Reviews Like Pentagon dinosaurs laboring to adapt to a new world order by finding telltale traces of the old in every dark shadow, Gardner's reincarnation of James Bond examines a string of serial killings and finds a freelance terrorist just as dangerous as his old adversaries from SMERSH and SPECTRE. Bond's called in when MI5 agent Laura March is killed at Interlaken. Going through the things in her hotel room, he and Flicka Von Grsse, his leggy opposite number from Swiss Intelligence, find a disturbing letter from Laura to her late brother, a serial beheader of blonds, and fax a copy back to M. While they're coupling in Bond's room, the letter itself is stolen, and M, citing the ``grave moral scandal'' (so much for updating Bond's morality), ostensibly removes Bond from duty. Back in England for Laura's funeral, Bond notices a bizarre floral tribute--a red-tipped white rose--linking Laura's death to four other recent assassinations, and to the flower's only breeder: Maeve Horton, sister of Laura's onetime fianc‚, distinguished actor David Dragonpol. There follow the requisite scenes of tourist-trap mayhem--at Schloss Drache, Dragonpol's Alpine aerie, atop the roof of the Duomo in Milan, and at EuroDisney, where the murderer has planned one last, ultra-high-profile strike--but Gardner's lack of conviction reduces everything to retro-fluff. Bond really isn't cut out for the work of tracking down serial killers, even the ones whose targets include Yasir Arafat and Kiri Te Kanawa. As Gardner struggles to update the perils his superstar hero faces, Bond himself remains the biggest anachronism of all.
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