CommanderBond.net
  1. Raymond Benson's James Bond Returns In 2008

    By Devin Zydel on 2007-12-19
    Raymond Benson

    Raymond Benson

    Outstanding news today for fans of Raymond Benson’s 007 adventures and literary James Bond collectors alike.

    The Literary 007 website reports that three of Benson’s Bond novels are to be republished in an omnibus edition by Pegasus Books in the US in October 2008.

    This new collection will feature an introdution by Benson and will bring together the author’s ‘Union Trilogy’–High Time To Kill, Doubleshot and Never Dream of Dying. As an added bonus to Bond fans, this omnibus will also include the complete, unedited version of Benson’s first 007 short story, Blast From The Past.

    Blast From The Past was first (and up to this point, only) published in an edited version in the January 1997 edition of Playboy magazine. The full-length short story was originally only made available in French and Italian.

    The Literary 007 also adds that Pegasus Books is currently planning to follow this omnibus (a title is yet to be announced) with yet another Benson collection in 2009.

    Benson’s other Bond-related works include novels Zero Minus Ten, The Facts of Death and The Man with the Red Tattoo, the Midsummer Night’s Doom and Live at Five short stories and the film novelizations for Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.

    Stay tuned to CBn for all the latest literary James Bond news.

  2. Looking Back: 'Die Another Day'

    By Devin Zydel on 2007-12-12

    The CBn ‘Looking Back’ series now moves onto Raymond Benson’s third and final James Bond novelisation, Die Another Day. The book was first released in early November 2002, just a few weeks before the theatrical premiere of Pierce Brosnan’s fourth 007 film of the same name. CBn takes a look back at Die Another Day—included are publication details, the original jacket blurbs and trivia notes about the book.

    The action-packed story begins in the demilitarised zone between North and South Koreas with a spectacular high-speed hovercraft chase.

    From Hong Kong to Cuba to London, Bond continues his quest to unmask a traitor and prevent a war of catastrophic consequence—but not without the help and hindrance of two mysterious femmes fatales.

    Hot on the trail of the principal villains, Bond travels to Iceland where he experiences at first hand the power of an amazing new weapon before a dramatic confrontation with his main adversary back in Korea where it all started.

    UK First Edition Hodder & Stoughton Hardback

    Trivia

    Bond author Raymond Benson

    Bond author Raymond Benson

    A production error of the UK 1st edition Hodder & Stoughton hardback of Die Another Day resulted in several copies, the exact number is unknown, that had pages cut short. As a result, a second corrected edition was quickly produced, making the 1st edition of this novelisation even more difficult to obtain.

    Amazon UK and Amazon US originally featured the cover of this novelisation as based upon the first gun on ice teaser poster of the film. It was ultimately changed to the generic blue poster art featuring Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry.

    While the Walther PPK was featured in the previous Bond novelisation, The World Is Not Enough (despite the switch to the P99 in Tomorrow Never Dies before that), here 007 is once again using the P99.

    Like previous James Bond novelisations by Benson, there was no regular US hardback printing of Die Another Day.

    While Tomorrow Never Dies remains the most difficult of all the Raymond Benson James Bond novels and novelisations to obtain in UK 1st hardback printing, copies of the hardback edition of Die Another Day are somewhat easier and cheaper to come by.

    The UK and US large print edition of the novelisation features the same cover art used for the UK Hodder & Stoughton hardback edition.

    While being promoted to the captain status in later John Gardner James Bond novels, here 007 is a commander once again.

    When danger becomes a temptation, when every move brings you closer to the edge, when you live each day like it’s your last—there’s a surprise around every curve…

    From North Korea to Iceland, Bond circles the world in his quest to unmask a traitor and prevent a war of catastrophic proportions. Crossing paths with beautiful allies and deadly assassins in a high-octane action adventure of intrigue, revenge and betrayal, never has Bond been so vulnerable, nor so dangerous…

    US Boulevard Paperback

    Release Timeline

    • 2002: 1st British Hodder & Stoughton Hardback Edition
    • 2002: 1st British Coronet Paperback Edition
    • 2002: 1st American Boulevard Paperback Edition
    • 2003: 1st American Windsor/Chivers Press/Thorndike Large Print Hardback Edition
    • 2004: 1st American Windsor/Chivers Press/Thorndike Large Print Hardback Edition

    Your Own Opinion On Die Another Day

    Want to share your thoughts and opinion on Raymond Benson’s Die Another Day? Feel free to discuss the novelisation by visiting this thread and give the novelisation your personal rating in this thread on the CommanderBond.net Forums.

  3. Looking Back: 'The Man With The Red Tattoo'

    By Devin Zydel on 2007-09-15

    The CBn ‘Looking Back…’ series now moves onto Raymond Benson’s sixth original James Bond novel, The Man With The Red Tattoo. First released in May of 2002, this ultimately turned out to be the author’s final 007 adventure (not counting the novelization of Die Another Day which came a few months after). CBn takes an indepth look back at The Man With The Red Tattoo–included are publication details, trivia notes about the book and CBn Forum fan reactions…

    Raymond Benson's 'The Man With The Red Tattoo'

    Raymond Benson’s The Man With The Red Tattoo

    In Raymond Benson’s gripping new James Bond novel, Bond returns to Japan to face the terrifying threat of a deadly biological weapon.

    When a British businessman and his family are killed in Japan by a virulent form of West Nile disease, James Bond suspects a mass assassination. Investigating with the help of beautiful Japanese agent Reiko Tamura and his old friend Tiger Tanaka, Bond searches for the killers and the one surviving daughter, Mayumi.

    Bond’s discoveries lead him to believe that two powerful factions controlled by the mysterious terrorist Goro Yoshida are playing God. Between them they have created the perfect weapon, one small and seemingly insignificant enough to strike anywhere, unnoticed.

    With an emergency G8 summit meeting just days away, Bond has his work cut out for him discovering when–and how–the next attack will occur. It’s a race against time as Bond confronts both man and nature in a desperate bid to stop the release of a deadly virus that could destroy the Western world.

    UK First Edition Hodder & Stoughton Hardback

    Trivia

    A museum honouring author Raymond Benson and dedicated to his novel The Man With The Red Tattoo opened in Japan in mid-2005. Click here for an exclusive CBn report on the museum from Raymond Benson.

    Raymond Benson’s working titles for the novel were Red Widow Dawn and The Man With The Cold Tattoo at a much later date. A particularly bizarre suggested title was Bite!

    Raymond Benson revealed in a CBn interview that The Man With The Red Tattoo was his least favourite of his James Bond novels.

    Two states of the UK 1st edition hardback exist: the first state shows the covers for Raymond Benson’s five previous novels and his two previous novelizations on the inside back flap, while the second state only shows the previous five novels.

    There was no large print edition of The Man With The Red Tattoo in either the UK or US.

    While being promoted to the captain status in later John Gardner James Bond novels, here 007 is a commander once again.

    Raymond Benson's 'The Man With The Red Tattoo' (Finnish Edition

    The Man With The Red Tattoo Finnish Edition

    Benson, who has written other Bond books, manages to capture the essence of the suave spy. The Man With the Red Tattoo has everything you would expect, such as high-tech gadgets, beautiful women and gripping action. Benson’s writing style is clean and crisp, and he manages to inject just enough detail and context, while keeping the book to a manageable 292 pages. If you have seen all the Bond movies several times and wish there were more of them about, then this book is the next best thing.

    Newbury Weekly News Group

    There are all the usual thrills and spills you would expect from a Bond adventure as our hero travels through Japan’s criminal underworld with the help of a beautiful female spy. Benson recreates the hustle and bustle of Tokyo superbly with just as much detail given to Japanese customs and traditions.

    Doncaster Free Press

    Release Timeline

    • 2002: 1st British Hodder & Stoughton Hardback Edition
    • 2002: 1st American Putnam Hardback Edition
    • 2003: 1st British Coronet Paperback Edition
    • 2003: 1st American Jove Paperback Edition

    Forum Reviews

    ***WARNING***: Some of the following reviews contain spoilers regarding this novel.

    The Man With The Red Tattoo is another favorite Bond novel but feels a little too much like Zero Minus Ten for me. One oddity about the series is the fact that it loses some of the momentum with the Union books. One might think it might have benefitted from alittle more tie with the recent murder of Draco and the destruction of the organization but Benson went to fairly elaborate lengths to assure us that Union was annihilated.

    The plot of the book is a little James Clavall for my tastes despite the welcome return of Tiger Tanaka (another of Fleming’s “vaguely creepy” friends for James Bond). I was somewhat annoyed that Tiger hadnt benefitted from the same immunity to aging that James had. He should have still been the head of the Japanese secret service and every bit as fit as before. The anti-Western plot of the story’s villain seems a bit dated for modern Japan and even in the context of the book is treated as a bit out there… [Full review here]

    CBn Forum member Willowhugger

    They all have their moments and Benson was excellent at original ideas and deft plotting in his Bond novels.

    Tattoo is quite good and he certainly captures Japan very well. As the Japanese devotion to this work attests.

    CBn Forum member ACE

    I liked the ending, it had a great pace to it and Bond’s remark to Yoshida’s friend at the end is priceless. The perfect burn as the man is being taken away by the police.

    CBn Forum member Genrewriter

    I am a huge fan of The Man With The Red Tattoo.

    CBn Forum member zencat

    It’s a great book. I’ve only read Benson’s last two books, but that one is a perfect 007 yarn, and better than Never Dream of Dying.

    Two random thoughts on Red Tattoo;

    1). It almost has the so-called Fleming sweep. Not quite but very close.
    2). The techno-thriller edge to it is very Tom Clancy influenced. And better done–Clancy would waste too many trees trying to describe something, but Benson gets it right in less words.

    CBn Forum member Wilbs

    I love The Man With The Red Tattoo! It is one of the best Bond novels and certainly one of Benson’s best, in my opinion.

    CBn Forum member Agent Righty007

    I have to say The Man With The Red Tattoo was a bit dissapointing… I don’t know exactly why, but I just couldn’t get ‘into’ the story, as I did with for instance Doubleshot, which was excellent

    CBn Forum member Joyce Carrington

    Just finished my first Benson Bond novel, The Man With The Red Tattoo, I loved it! I had previously read Benson’s two Splinter Cell books and enjoyed them; I had planned to read through all the Gardner books first, but I’d gotten up to No Deals, Mr. Bond and was finding it deadly dull. So I picked up The Man With The Red Tattoo for a change of pace, it was the only Benson one they had at the used bookstore, I figured since it wasn’t one of his trilogy books it was safe to read (though there are clear references to previous books).
    Anyway, I loved it! Benson perfectly captures that Fleming travelogue feel, we get a real sense of what its like to be in all those Japanese locales. I also enjoyed the larger-than-life and slightly surreal qualities of the story, such as the ‘kappa’ dwarf assassin(!) as well as the big mosquito scheme. I appreciated the little nods to Fleming stories, such as the random Quantum of Solace reference, Bond dreading returning to Japan after the events of You Only Live Twice, and the return of Tiger Tanaka.

    CBn Forum member dinovelvet

  4. Looking Back: 'Never Dream Of Dying'

    By Devin Zydel on 2007-08-12

    The CBn ‘Looking Back…’ series now moves onto Raymond Benson’s fifth original James Bond novel, Never Dream Of Dying. First released in May of 2001, this was Benson’s final novel of the Union Trilogy. CBn takes an indepth look back at Never Dream Of Dying. Included are publication details, trivia notes about the book and CBn Forum fan reactions…

    In Raymond Benson’s chilling new James Bond novel, Bond comes face to face at last with the most cunning criminal mastermind he has ever fought–the blind genius behind the brutal organization called the Union.

    It begins at a movie studio in Nice where a police raid goes horribly wrong, killing innocent men, women and even children. It continues in an English prison, where a dead man discloses an intriguing secret about the brutal criminal organisation called the Union. The trail leads James Bond to Paris, where he meets the tantalising movie star Tylyn Mignonne and embarks on a voyage of sensual discovery.

    But Tylyn is in mortal danger. Her husband, a volatile French film producer, has not forgiven his glamorous wife for ending their troubled marriage–and he is connected to the Union’s thugs.

    Meanwhile Bond’s friend, French agent Mathis, has disappeared while tracking down the Union’s mysterious leader, Le Gérant. Bond’s journey takes him to a thrilling underwater brush with death, a chase through the Corsican wilderness, a surprise encounter with an old friend–and a final confrontation with a twisted criminal genius.

    UK First Edition Hodder & Stoughton Hardback

    Trivia

    Never Dream Of Dying is the final book of the Union trilogy–the other two being High Time To Kill and Doubleshot.

    Unlike some previous James Bond novels by Raymond Benson, Never Dream Of Dying was the author’s original choice for the title.

    The US G.K. Hall Large Print hardback edition of Never Dream Of Dying shares the same cover as the US Putnam hardback.

    The name ‘Tylyn’ is taken from a Playboy playmate that was a friend of Raymond Benson.

    While being promoted to the Captain status in later John Gardner James Bond novels, here 007 is a Commander once again.

    Raymond Benson's 'Never Dream Of Dying'

    Raymond Benson’s Never Dream Of Dying

    The author’s fifth original James Bond novel (he’s also adapted two of the recent big-screen adventures) is classic Bond. Here we have a larger-than-life villain (the mysterious leader of the Union, an international terrorist organization), a diabolical plot (yes, it involves world domination), lots of action, and plenty of snappy Bond dialogue…

    The Booklist

    What sets this book apart from its two predecessors in the Union series, however, is not just a better constructed and more gripping plot, but also the humanisation of Bond… he has rediscovered the mood and psyche of the self-assured and, at times, humorous assassin… Bond is human, after all, and Benson has him looking deep within himself.

    The Journal

    Release Timeline

    • 2001: 1st British Hodder & Stoughton Hardback Edition
    • 2001: 1st American Putnam Hardback Edition
    • 2001: 1st British Coronet Paperback Edition
    • 2001: 1st American G.K. Hall Large Print Hardback Edition
    • 2002: 1st British Windsor/Chivers Press Large Print Hardback Edition
    • 2002: 1st American Jove Paperback Edition

    Forum Reviews

    ***WARNING***: Some of the following reviews contain major spoilers regarding this novel.

    I loved Never Dream Of Dying, and if they were to only make one of the continuation novels into a film, this would probably be the one that I would choose to adapt.

    CBn Forum member tdalton

    Whilst I cannot say Never Dream Of Dying is my favourite Benson (Doubleshot is my favourite, followed closely by Zero Minus Ten), I still loved it! Of course, the Union and their leader return, so naturally I was excited to read their next adventure (as I read the trilogy as soon as each novel was released and therefore obviously in order). My only disappointment with the novel is the fact that Le Gérant may be dead. However, Benson saved himself beautifully, by allowing his return.

    I was also surprised with his treatment of Draco, though I wasn’t necessarily annoyed with it. Raymond, himself explained to me, in one of the interviews I did with him, that Draco is a villain, pure and simple (he’s head of the Union Corse!). So it’s quite reasonable that he should turn on Bond, especially after Bond got his daughter involved with Blofeld in the first place!

    The locations in the novel are also beautifully mapped out and described by Benson. Such as France and Corsica…

    The novel also has some extremely tense moments, such as the early scenes in France, as well as Bond’s animal dream. This passage is particularly impressive and well thought out.

    Overall, it’s still a strong novel. Great villain, interesting Bond girl, the return of Mathis, a torture sequence, a confrontation with Le Gérant and the return of Draco. Benson does it again for me.

    CBn Forum member James Boldman

    Benson took on a bit more than he could chew by incorporating Draco. The Draco “twist” actually takes over the majority of the book really and leaves Le Gérant in the dust. Honestly, he didn’t need to incorporate the second wife and child being killed into this. Revenge over Tracy was enough even with the significant time difference.

    CBn Forum member Willowhugger

    Never Dream Of Dying is my #1 favorite Benson book.

    CBn Forum member zencat

    Not my favorite of Benson’s, mostly due to the Draco issue, but I do believe it has the best torture and escape sequence of any of the Benson novels. Made me flinch. Hell, makes me flinch just thinking about it right now.

    CBn Forum member clinkeroo

    It’s quite a good read, but not as well-crafted or enjoyable as The Man with the Red Tattoo (Benson’s best, in my opinion) or Zero Minus Ten. Much better than the dire High Time To Kill, though. A fun timekiller.

    CBn Forum member Loomis

    This was the first Benson book I read last year, before moving backwards down the line (I had been a hold-out thinking no one could really match Fleming’s Bond) and I absolutely loved this book. It was a great set up and I just couldn’t put it down. By far, the best of Benson’s novels.

    CBn Forum member Agent 0011

    I liked Never Dream Of Dying very much. It is very interesting and it is hard to stop reading, but it doesn’t really seem Bond. I don’t like that the movie things are involved and the climax at Cannes… if it had not been for that it would have been a masterpiece. Well, the book is better than High Time To Kill, but not better than Doubleshot.

    The ending on Corsica when attacking the Union is great! But I would have enjoyed it more if Bond and Le Gérant had a bigger fight with each other…

    CBn Forum member Kronsteen

  5. Looking Back: 'Doubleshot'

    By Devin Zydel on 2007-07-29

    The CBn ‘Looking Back…’ series now moves onto Raymond Benson’s fourth original James Bond novel, Doubleshot. First released in April of 2000, this followed Benson’s November 1999 short story, Live At Five. CBn takes an indepth look back at Doubleshot. Included are publication details, trivia notes about the book and CBn Forum fan reactions…

    The intricately organised criminal conspiracy called the Union has vowed its revenge on the man who thwarted its last coup. Now, the Union’s mysterious leader sets out to destroy James Bond’s reputation and sanity by luring the agent into a dangerous alliance of deceit and treason with a Spanish militant intent on reclaiming Gibraltar.

    Officially on medical leave as a result of a head injury sustained on his last adventure, 007 ignores M’s orders and pursues clues that he believes might lead him to the Union’s inner circle. His search takes him from the seedy underbelly of London’s Soho to the souks of Tangier; from a terrorist training camp in Morocco to a bullring in Spain; and from the clutches of a murderous Spanish beauty to a volatile summit conference on the Rock of Gibraltar.

    Each step brings 007 closer to the truth about the Union’s elaborate, audacious plot to destroy both SIS and its best agent: James Bond.

    UK First Edition Hodder & Stoughton Hardback

    Trivia

    Doubleshot is the second book of the Union trilogy–the other two being High Time To Kill and Never Dream Of Dying.

    Raymond Benson’s working title for the book was ‘Doppelganger’ and an unused title was ‘Reflections in a Broken Glass.’ The title Doubleshot was suggested by Benson’s American editor.

    A Large Print hardback edition of Doubleshot was only published in the US.

    While being promoted to the Captain status in later John Gardner James Bond novels, here 007 is a Commander once again.

    Raymond Benson's 'Doubleshot'

    Raymond Benson’s Doubleshot

    Benson’s faithful manipulation of Fleming’s boilerplate formula will have Bond fans cheering as 007 and the sexy twins race to save the day…

    Publisher’s Weekly

    The difficult part for a writer of 007 tales is coming up with new villains, new plots, and new settings. What makes Benson a good writer is that he is willing to stretch the character to make things interesting. In his hands, Bond is more than a robot and deeper than the cardboard cutout that populates the films.

    Marin Independent Journal

    Release Timeline

    • 2000: 1st British Hodder & Stoughton Hardback Edition
    • 2000: 1st American Putnam Hardback Edition
    • 2000: 1st British Coronet Paperback Edition
    • 2000: 1st American Thorndike Large Print Hardback Edition
    • 2001: 1st American Jove Paperback Edition

    Forum Reviews

    Doubleshot is a pretty good romp, and is certainly Benson’s most ambitious story; I liked the mystery/film noir aspect which worked pretty well with the Bond formula. Obvious nods to Fleming – From Russia With Love, You Only Live Twice a chapter title from Gardner – ‘Death in the afternoon’, the opening chapter of Brokenclaw, which is the book I just happened to read prior to this one!

    The idea of a ‘Good Bond’ and a ‘Bad Bond’ running around is kind of cheesy and comic-bookish but Benson managed to pull it off pretty well. I definitely got a Brosnan movie vibe from the whole thing.

    CBn Forum member dinovelvet

    At first I wasn’t too wild about Doubleshot and Bond being in less than tip-top shape. But as I went along, I enjoyed it more. And, like I did John Gardner’s Scorpius, I found I liked the book better and better the more I thought about it after I had finished it. Doubleshot has a lot of good stuff to it and is a solid 007 adventure.

    CBn Forum member Double-Oh Agent

    I recently re-read Doubleshot and really loved it. More so than when it first came out. It’s a pure literary Bond adventure. People sometimes knock Benson and the other continuation novelists for making their books too “film-like.” First, this is unfair because, back then, IFP told them to include film-like references and action (Q and cars). But Doubleshot has nothing like this. It’s is a pure Bond NOVEL and Benson nails it.

    CBn Forum member zencat

    Out of the two Bensons I read (Doubleshot and Never Dream Of Dying) I liked Doubleshot better, but that isn’t saying much. Bond’s Evil Twin was an amusing enough idea for a plot, but I didn’t feel enough was done with him. Still, I’ve read worse books (as I finished Win, Lose, Or Die a week or so prior to tackling Doubleshot).

    CBn Forum member Flash1087

    I finished Doubleshot tonight and I thought it was a fun, engaging, unique thriller. I actually read it in one day, which I have never done before!

    CBn Forum member manfromjapan

    I would love to see Doubleshot made into a film (moreso than say, Zero Minus Ten or High Time To Kill) because even though it’s a far departure from the standard Bond formula, there are enough twists and turns (framing Bond using a body-double is ingenius in my opinion) to more than compensate for the lack of standard 007 cinematic scenes. Even though Doubleshot isn’t the best Benson book, it is certainly the most intriguing and original, and if a film version was made, it would top Live And Let Die and Licence To Kill as the most original Bond film.

    CBn Forum member bryonalston

    I think Doubleshot is Bond at his most human in the Benson books. Once again, it is finely plotted and develops a sense of place. I think the villain is very well drawn and the novel is resonant with Fleming-esque touches.

    I particularly like the playing with structure. Bond novels can do this and should do it more often.

    For everyone who is a Fleming fan, please try to read all the continuation novels. Make up your own mind. Just imagine if someone told you to only watch the Connery films. Think what you’d miss.

    CBn Forum member ACE

    Doubleshot left an impact on me from the moment I read it. It’s Benson’s The Spy Who Loved Me in that it’s a departure from what we’re used to in regards to a James Bond novel. At least as far as Benson was concerned.

    The most appealing thing about the book for me was that James Bond wasn’t mentally fit in this mission. After all he had been through in High Time To Kill he’s an injured man that suffers through this assignment.

    Overall, I think this is a very fine read. I sort of get the impression that of all the Bond novels he wrote, this is Benson’s secret favorite — or at least one he is very, very proud of. And rightly so.

    CBn Forum member mccartney007

    I’m not a big fan of Doubleshot. Personally there is something about the mental issues Bond is afflicted with following High Time To Kill. Its just not a very interesting plot device, nor is having the exact double causing trouble and making it look like 007 is to blame. Don’t get me wrong, there are some interesting parts and imaginative villains, and I think that Benson did a great job showcasing Spain in the book. Overall, this is my least favorite Benson book.

    CBn Forum member HawkEye007

    A nice book showing Bonds’ more human face, I do like it together with The Facts Of Death and The Man With The Red Tattoo.

    CBn Forum member chimera01

  6. Looking Back: 'High Time To Kill'

    By Devin Zydel on 2007-07-13

    The CBn ‘Looking Back…’ series now moves onto Raymond Benson’s third original James Bond novel, High Time To Kill. First released in May of 1999, this followed Benson’s January 1999 short story, Midsummer Night’s Doom. CBn takes an indepth look back at High Time To Kill. Included are publication details, trivia notes about the book and CBn Forum fan reactions…

    Raymond Benson’s new James Bond story is his most thrilling adventure yet, as he pursues a ruthless criminal conspiracy to a breathtaking showdown eight thousand metres above the world on a peak in the Himalayas.

    The Union is a criminal organisation with tentacles throughout the world–specializing in military espionage, theft, intimidation and murder. After one of its agents assassinates Bond’s friend and host at a glittering dinner in the Bahamas, the Union becomes 007’s priority target.

    When information vital to Britain’s national security is stolen, both M and Bond suspect that the Union is behind it. The trail leads Bond from one of England’s most exclusive golf clubs to the cosmopolitan city of Brussels and finally to an expedition up the icy heights of the legendary mountain Kangchenjunga, the third tallest peak in the world. Led by the abrasive mountaineer Group Captain Roland Marquis, aided by the expedition’s sexy and beautiful doctor Hope Kendall and opposed by an unknown traitor working out of SIS itself, Bond must pit his strength and guile against two deadly adversaries–the forces of nature at high altitude and the most resourceful criminal minds he has ever encountered.

    UK First Edition Hodder & Stoughton Hardback

    Trivia

    1999 was a busy year for Raymond Benson: his second James Bond short story, Midsummer Night’s Doom, was released in January, his third James Bond continuation novel, High Time To Kill, was released, and he wrote his second 007 novelization, The World Is Not Enough followed by his third Bond short story, Live At Five.

    High Time To Kill is the first book of the Union trilogy–the other two being Doubleshot and Never Dream Of Dying.

    ‘A Better Way To Die’ was Raymond Benson’s working title for the novel, but marketing led to a last minute change.

    This was the first Raymond Benson novel to be published in a Large Print edition (in both the UK and the US). The UK edition can be found with a dustjacket that features different cover artwork compared to the US edition.

    While being promoted to the Captain status in later John Gardner James Bond novels, here 007 is a Commander once again.

    Raymond Benson's 'High Time To Kill'

    Raymond Benson’s High Time To Kill

    This is by far Benson’s best Bond novel. Not only does he present a realistic plot, but he gives 007 interesting people to interact with… As in the original books, Benson makes use of the “Fleming Sweep,” which whisks the reader from one short chapter to another… This is a thoroughly modern espionage novel that also gives insights into James Bond’s past… Benson’s writing fits precisely into the Bond tradition of escapist fiction… As Ian Fleming was fond of saying about his own books, High Time To Kill is the perfect book to read on an airplane or waiting for a train. It is light fare that goes down quickly and is not meant for serious thought-just plain summer fun. Nobody does it better.

    Oregon Daily Emerald

    Raymond Benson is no Ian Fleming, but he captures the spirit and pluck of Fleming’s 007 in this high-flying spy thriller… a perfect read for a free afternoon.

    Chicago Tribune

    Release Timeline

    • 1999: 1st British Hodder & Stoughton Hardback Edition
    • 1999: 1st American Putnam Hardback Edition
    • 1999: 1st British Coronet Paperback Edition
    • 2000: 1st American Jove Paperback Edition
    • 2000: 1st British Windsor/Chivers Press/Thorndike Large Print Hardback Edition
    • 2000: 1st American Windsor/Chivers Press/Thorndike Large Print Hardback Edition

    Forum Reviews

    I love High Time To Kill. Not only is it neck and neck with Never Dream of Dying as my favorite Benson book, but it’s one of my favorite Bond books period.

    CBn Forum member zencat

    I finished High Time To Kill this morning after a marathon read–I couldn’t put the book down! An absolutely great book. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Vividly written in a Flemingesque style. Good characters. Plenty of stuff going on. It started strongly but when the climb started it shifted into an even higher gear! Liked the humour too. Great ending a la Casino Royale. I would agree with zencat–it is not just a great Benson Bond but a great Bond novel period. I mean it is better than the likes of The Spy Who Loved Me or The Man with the Golden Gun novels in my opinion. Benson really knows the character inside out too. What a great film it would make. It is definitely on par with if not better than The Man With The Red Tattoo.

    CBn Forum member manfromjapan

    As for High Time To Kill, I find it one of the worst of the Bond novels. There are plenty that are much, much better, including a couple by Benson (Zero Minus Ten and The Man with the Red Tattoo, for instance). I wouldn’t advise anyone just starting out on the literary Bond to make a beeline for High Time To Kill, but that’s just me, and to each his own.

    CBn Forum member Loomis

    Yep, it’s a good one all right. As far as the Benson novels go it’s second behind The Man with the Red Tattoo.

    CBn Forum member Genrewriter

    Just finished this one, and I only had one problem with it… I’ve got to stop reading the back of the book, before I read the book itself, because this one held no suspense for me. I thought the idea was great; important military secret on a microdot, stolen, crashes on top of a really big mountain, James Bond and some bad guys have to climb the mountain to get it. Problem is, I knew that from reading the back of the book.

    SPOILER – HIGHLIGHT TO READ: Bond gets the microdot, the bad guy dies. OK, we all knew that was gonna happen also..

    Honestly, it was pretty good, I liked Marquis’ character and most of the villains. The story was well told, though I didn’t think we needed the double-cross by Paul Baack at the end. Again, we’re not talking about a story where the good guy can die at the end, so that kind of thing, with two pages remaining, doesn’t thrill me. But I’m just nitpicking.

    CBn Forum member Jriv71

    High Time To Kill is my favorite of Raymond Benson’s novels. I couldn’t put it down. Everything clicked in it. He builds the suspense well. It’s a great plot and a great read. Dare I say that High Time To Kill is Benson’s “all time high?”

    CBn Forum member Double-Oh Agent

    High Time To Kill is my favourite Raymond Benson.

    Apart from the simple, effective plot, Raymond’s writing, particularly in the mountain climbing sequences, is his best. As usual with Benson, it is well plotted and worked out. High time to read Benson.

    CBn Forum member ACE

  7. Looking Back: 'The Facts Of Death'

    By Devin Zydel on 2007-06-30

    The CBn ‘Looking Back…’ series now moves onto Raymond Benson’s second original James Bond novel, The Facts Of Death. First released in May of 1998, this followed Benson’s 1997 novelization of Tomorrow Never Dies. CBn takes an indepth look back at The Facts Of Death. Included are publication details, trivia notes about the book and CBn Forum fan reactions…

    James Bond takes on a fanatic secret organization whose objective is mass murder in the thrilling new novel from the brilliant Raymond Benson.

    Someone is poisoning British soldiers in Cyprus; the same killer has murdered a British intelligence agent in Athens. James Bond himself barely escapes with his life…

    But the secrets behind these and other deaths first start to come to light in Texas, where Bond goes in search of the assassin of M’s friend and lover. Fearful of an international scandal that could engulf both his service and his country, he learns instead of the existence of the Decada.

    Held together by an archaic philosophy and their own bizarre rituals, the Decada’s fanatics have stockpiled a terrifying range of poisons and are willing to use them to further their insane ambitions for power and revenge.

    Aided by beautiful, brave Greek intelligence agent Niki Mirakos, Bond puts himself into the firing line for a last-ditch attempt to stop the Decada before they unleash a horrifying weapon on their helpless prey.

    Packed with non-stop action and brilliant storytelling, The Facts Of Death is an unputdownable follow-up to Raymond Benson’s scintillating debut as the chronicler of James Bond

    UK First Edition Hodder & Stoughton Hardback

    Trivia

    Unlike several of Benson’s 007 novels that followed, there was no large print edition of The Facts Of Death.

    Raymond Benson’s original title choice was ‘The World Is Not Enough’–but it was rejected for not being ‘Bondian’ enough. It was only a year later that it became the title of Pierce Brosnan’s third James Bond film. The title is used for the final chapter here.

    While being promoted to the Captain status in later John Gardner James Bond novels, here 007 is a Commander once again.

    The Facts Of Death UK Hodder & Stoughton Hardback

    The Facts Of Death UK Hodder & Stoughton Hardback

    The fate of the world, and James Bond, are in capable hands in this second 007 adventure from Benson (Zero Minus Ten, 1997). Writing as both a disciple and defender of Western civilization’s most enduring action hero, Benson, a director of the Ian Fleming Foundation and author of the fan bible, the James Bond Bedside Companion, attempts to meld Fleming’s brooding, coolly cruel British knight with the dapper, quip-slinging techno-warrior of the Bond movies, with a few respectful bows to the superhuman stuntman Bond became when British thriller-factory John Gardner had an exclusive franchise on the series…

    Kirkus Reviews

    The author has portrayed Bond as the somewhat amoral character of the original novels and the book is typical of its kind, easily read and full of enough cliffhanging situations, gadgetry, beautiful women, sex, villains and violent death to satisfy any James Bond fan.

    Telegraph & Argus

    Release Timeline

    • 1998: 1st British Hodder & Stoughton Hardback Edition
    • 1998: 1st American Putnam Hardback Edition
    • 1998: 1st British Coronet Paperback Edition
    • 1999: 1st American Jove Paperback Edition

    Forum Reviews

    It’s a terrific book. One of Raymond’s most cinematic, which is not surprising considering he’s said he set out to write an “Eon style Bond film” with this book.

    CBn Forum member zencat

    The Facts of Death is my least favourite Benson: very connect-the-dots plot, awkward prose, very much structured (dumbed down) to cater to the movie Bond audience, and Benson uses cheap literary tricks to conceal the identity of the killer. It was quite a letdown after Zero Minus Ten.

    CBn Forum member clinkeroo

    I really enjoyed this novel like I have enjoyed all of Benson’s novels. I thought Benson introduced the new M as well as he could’ve. And the storyline for The Facts Of Death is very clever. Benson introduces a bit more of Barbara Mawdsley character so that the readers can picture her a bit more. I also thought some of the gadgets were good in this novel.

    CBn Forum member James Boldman

    I know a lot of people pan The Facts of Death, but it’s always been on of my guilty pleasures. I think the locations alone did it for me as Greece has always fascinated me.

    CBn Forum member mccartney007

    I’ve just finished reading The Facts of Death, and in my opinion, it is one of the best Benson Bond’s, if not the best Bond novel in recent years.

    CBn Forum member bryonalston

    I like it just fine but it’s not the best by any strwetch, the Union trilogy and The Man with the Red Tattoo surpass it by leaps and bounds. .

    CBn Forum member Genrewriter

    I’ve gone back and started to re-read the Benson Bonds, and they are really quite good. In some parts, you can tell an American is now writing this, but it’s still, again, quite good. I loved seeing Bond down in Texas in a Tex-Mex restaurant. It just cracked me up. Bond drinking margaritas? It’s here, folks. Anyone who can have Bond in both this setting and in Greece in the same book, mind you, is one hell of a writer. I also loved the scenes in the sperm bank. Bond’s medical history was mindblowing.

    CBn Forum member IrishCrown

  8. Looking Back: 'Zero Minus Ten'

    By Devin Zydel on 2007-06-13

    The CBn ‘Looking Back…’ series now moves onto Raymond Benson and his continuation novels. It was ten years ago in April 1997 that Raymond Benson’s first James Bond 007 novel, Zero Minus Ten, was published. Taking the role of Bond continuation author after John Gardner, this was Benson’s first full-length Bond novel and is often considered today to be one of his best. CBn takes an indepth look back at Zero Minus Ten. Included are trivia notes about the book and CBn forum fan reactions…

    In ten days, Hong Kong will pass into the hands of the Chinese–and 007 is on his way there to undertake his most dangerous and thrilling mission yet.

    In the Australian desert, a nuclear bomb explodes. There are no survivors and no clues about who has made it or detonated it.

    In England, two police officers are shot dead when they apprehend a cargo vessel in Portsmouth dock. Vast quantities of heroin are later found on board.

    And in Hong Kong, an explosion rips through one of the colony’s famous floating restaurants, killing the entire Board of Directors of EurAsia Enterprises Ltd, a multi-billion dollar shipping corporation.

    The People’s Republic of China is about to resume control after a century and a half of British rule–and the colony is a powder keg waiting to explode. The tension reaches breaking point when a solicitor from one of Britain’s most prestigious law firms is killed in a car bomb at Government House.

    These apparently random events are connected–and Bond must find out how and why. From the heady casinos of Macau to the seedy strip clubs of Kowloon, 007’s investigations bring him into conflict with ruthless Triad gangs, a power-hungry Chinese general–and a beautiful night club hostess called Sunni Pei.

    All enquiries seem to lead to EurAsia Enterprises Ltd–and its assassinated owner. James Bond is about to come up against one of the most formidable adversaries of his career.

    UK First Edition Hardback

    Trivia

    Zero Minus Ten had a print run of 5000 thousand copies when it was first released–all of which were sold out quickly, causing a second print to be ordered.

    The US paperback edition originally had a blue cover which did not fit into the style with the US paperback covers that were to follow for the Benson books. The cover was changed before release, but it is still available to view on amazon.com.

    Unlike several of Benson’s 007 novels that followed, there was no large print edition of Zero Minus Ten.

    A UK paperback copy of Zero Minus Ten that is ‘not for retail sale’ came in a Tomorrow Never Dies VHS set which was released in the UK.

    While being promoted to the Captain status in later John Gardner James Bond novels, here 007 is a Commander once again.

    Raymond Benson’s original working title for the novel was No Tears For Hong Kong.

    I may upset a few Fleming devotees by suggesting that Benson, while obviously lacking Fleming’s sheer innovative vision, is by far a finer descriptive writer. The smells and sound of Hong Kong seem to seep out of these pages and the effect is both intoxicating and, to some degree, educational. Benson isn’t afraid, on occasion, to shower the reader in the heady results of his research. Bond’s tackle with Triad forces, over a seemingly in-depth Chinese game called Mahjong, is vividly detailed. So much, in fact, that Bond’s grasp of the game seems unlikely, to say the least. This detailing returns later in the book as Bond observes a Triad ritual, and one can’t help feeling that the author, too, must have sneaked into the inner sanctums of this mysterious, ancient and all-powerful oriental force… Benson shows a good deal of skill in reconstructing this character… Zero Minus Ten does succeed, and against enormous odds. Not enough perhaps, to appease the anger of the Fleming trainspotters, for they didn’t even accept [Kingsley] Amis. Personally, however, I’d feel no sense of irony in proudly filing this next to my prized first edition of From Russia With Love. Yes, it really is that good. Bond is back, in hugely entertaining style…

    Manchester Evening News

    Release Timeline

    • 1997: 1st British Hodder & Stoughton Hardback Edition
    • 1997: 1st American Putnam Hardback Edition
    • 1998: 1st British Coronet Paperback Edition
    • 1998: 1st American Jove Paperback Edition

    Forum Reviews

    Benson’s first Bond novel and is quite good. I particularly enjoyed the lengthy description of the Mahjong game, Bond’s ordeal in the Australian outback, and that fact that his villain is kind of a drunk. Great details all around.

    CBn Forum member Zencat

    This may be my favorite Benson novel. I highly recommend it. The fight scene on the airplane is a standout among many very good scenes.

    CBn Forum member B007GLE

    I’d pick it up. Read’s like a mix between a film and Fleming’s literary Bond. Worthwhile a look. If your going to read Benson it’s probably the best place to start as he lays out for the reader things that have been going on with OO7 in the past and get’s Fleming’s mentality of Bond out on to the page.

    CBn Forum member 1q2w3e4r

    This first James Bond novel by Raymond Benson seems to often be called one of the author’s best, but I personally have never found it to be at the top of my list when I rank his novels. Granted, none of Benson’s novels or novelizations are what I’d call bad. This one seems to evoke a feeling of a 007 film in some parts. I’d recommend this to literary fans.

    CBn Forum member Qwerty

    This book got me hooked on the Literary 007. It is a must read if you like Benson, or in my opinion, Bond at all.

    CBn Forum member dajman_007

    This was the first Bond novel I read, and the first thing I did when I finished was go and seek out the rest – I really enjoyed it and want to read it again some time soon.

    The three albino killers were good, I don’t know where it came from but its the sort of thing that Fleming might have come up with.

    In many ways, I think this is the best of Benson’s Bond novels. Maybe its because its the first, or maybe its just because I have an interest in Chinese/Hong Kong stuff in general. It’s also quite like the films, so its easy to imagine Brosnan in the role. Anyway, I liked it.

    CBn Forum member Double-0 Six

    Personally I think Zero Minus Ten was Benson’s best. I loved the Mahjong game. I don’t even understand the game but that was one of my favorite parts.

    CBn Forum member philbowski

    I’m re-reading Zero Minus Ten at the moment, and I really do find it a thumping good yarn. Benson’s grasp on the character of James Bond is superb, while his research on Hong Kong and China is terrific (a few mistakes here and there, but you can’t have everything – may just be typos), and he brings location to glorious life in a way accomplished by surprisingly few Bond novels. Guy Thackeray and Sunni Pei are much more interesting characters than they strike one on initial reading, and the plot is a real grabber. Could have used a better editing job and perhaps another draft, but, heck, this is still a cracking thriller. Not sure that Benson ever really bettered it (although I’m also very fond of The Man With the Red Tattoo).

    CBn Forum member Loomis

  9. The Impossible Job: DoubleShot

    By Jim on 2006-04-24

    I | II

    The Villains

    The Union seems to be teetering on the lip of the pit of doom into which the film SPECTRE fell—that from being an executive facilitator of other people’s terrorism (the start of Thunderball the novel, what one could make of High Time to Kill), it sought to become some sort of independent world power (everything else). Perhaps it hasn’t yet got that far—for it does seek to support Espada’s utterly crackpot scheme—but there are some selfish motives creeping in. I have to admit I don’t quite follow those ideals; the organisation seems to believe that regardless of the success or failure of the Espada operation, their standing will improve. Hmm… well, we’ll never know because, of course, James Bond’s plums are so very sweet.

    The Union’s plot to send Bond absolutely carpark is more interesting than the ostensible Espada scheme, but even so I have a couple of stylistic reservations about it. The first manifestation of things not being utterly oojah-cum-spiff in Bond’s life is the appearance of a double of Tracy Bond just after he’s had a Chinese meal. The effects of monosodium glutamate aside, I have a couple of problems with this; although it does just follow on from a passage where, given Bond’s poor state of physical and mental health we’ve had the statutory reference to You Only Live Twice, most of the reason behind Bond’s poor mood (a bump on the head aside) has been in re: Helena Marksbury. You remember, that twit. Reads oddly—grumpy about Helena Marksbury, grumpy about Helena Marksbury, grumpy about Helena Marksbury, he’s been ill before—surely you remember? Let me remind you—grumpy about Helena Marksbury, oh there’s Tracy.

    Why not a double of flippin’ Helena Marksbury? Wouldn’t that have made more sense—particularly given the way the plot develops with the Soho shoot-out? Given that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is specifically placed at the Christmas / New Year period of 1961 to 1962 and events and references and brand-names point to DoubleShot being set over thirty-five years later, credibly did we really have to be subjected to this in-reference? It disturbs the flow of Bond’s misery. Adds to mine.

    The other thing that bothers me about this Tracy reappearance is, admittedly, a retrospective one: given what we are told about the real mastermind behind The Union in Never Dream of Dying, isn’t The Union’s use of a double of Draco’s daughter a little… unlikely? Unless, perish the thought, Never Dream of Dying wasn’t especially well thought through.

    Le Gerant’s still blind, by the way, which means he got away without having to read High Time to Kill, so it has its advantages, although he must have received a pretty good description of the opening scene of Thunderball because he’s managed to do out The Union’s HQ in much the same way and holds a meeting at which the financial report is discussed and everyone gets a bit angry. He really is jolly clever, isn’t he? We learn a bit more about him due to Bond’s expositionist pal Latif “Obvious Dead Meat” Reggab who—swallow hard—went to university with him (although I accept that this must, in a work of fiction, be as likely as it is unlikely—although “oh, come on!” is a natural reaction) and he snarls a bit and doesn’t really do much else.

    The problem with The Union stating that it has no confidence in the Espada scheme tends to undermine that scheme in the eyes of the reader; it also tends to undermine such effort Mr Benson puts into clearly explaining what Espada really hopes to achieve beyond the instant result of taking Gibraltar, if only for a few hours. Just as well he appears to have expended absolutely no effort on that at all, then.

    Yet again, four in a row, we have a major villain whose ultimate goals are rampagingly unclear. And yet again, to get around bothering to explain this (although undermining the scheme from the off is novel), Espada is—of course—absolutely frickin’ barking. However, whereas Whassface in the first one was a drunk and Thingy in the second one thought he was a god and Kenneth Branagh had altitude sickness, unless he’s spent just too much time in the sun it’s not clear from whence this mania derives. Perhaps driven mad by popular adulation (there is this idea, and it’s a really unusual and creative one—not a baddie because people hate him but because people have loved him—but it’s not drawn out sufficiently to make it anything other than guesswork on my part). And, of course, he has the charisma of a Hitler or Mussolini (well, of course), and describing him as such is terribly lazy shorthand for bothering to establish how that manifests itself. Still, there you go—a sort-of-bullfighting-Hitler. From Spain.

    Personally, I think Hitler would have looked smashing in that gold brocade stuff bullfighters wear… beginning to need that sock quite urgently now, please.
    So, mad as a dog in a hot car, Espada is. The lunacy takes admittedly interesting forms—his murder of Carlos is an entertaining incident, the idea of unlimited concubines on tap suggests a (marginally more appealing) Hugh Hefner figure—but as a result of all the undermining of his scheme / never really bothering with it, although ostensibly quite a colourful character, Espada becomes a bit-part player in his own story; the writer is much more interested in The Union vs. James Bond and, although I may be alone in this, I get a genuine vibe in the book where Mr Benson is giving us some Espada that he’d much rather get back to Bond being chased around an arrestingly described North Africa and performing—or not—shocking acts of terrorism. Even the obligatory Bond-and-villain-snarl-at-each-other-over-local-produce-and-dodgy-sounding-wine scene isn’t up to much, as if it isn’t terribly important that the two actually meet. And y’know something? It isn’t.

    The doppelganger. If you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, this isn’t quite as jaw-to-floor stupid as it may appear. It does, however, rather write Mr Benson into a corner by requiring him to pull a structural cheat towards the end of the book which, if you’re with him on trying new stuff out (and I am) you’ll let pass with only minor wincing and if you’re not, you’ll probably issue some sort of fatwa. Without wishing to spoil it utterly, if you made it through The Man from Barbarossa and the big plot twist towards the end of that mess, you’ll survive this. Promise. Put it this way—the writer’s intention seems to be that if you were to stop reading at various points in the book and go back to the prologue, depending on where you had left off you would either think it could be Bond in that prologue, or it couldn’t possibly be. Hmm, sort of works… some benefit of the doubt needed, perhaps, but it’s another sound concept.

    Can’t see how the doppelganger—and his place in the plot—would translate to film but I rather suspect that it’s a deliberately anti-filmability move. It also leads to the magnificence of the whole underwhelming Gibraltar scheme being foiled because Bond has a memorable cock (although, interestingly, Margareta Piel doesn’t reminisce about its size: is it memorable because it has the dimensions of a terrapin’s head? Or because it’s green? Or he has three? I think we should have been told).
    Far more interesting about this doppelganger is that, under that dark, cruel mouth and all that other stuff that Bond has, lurks a Welsh football hooligan (presumably as a contrast between the real Bond—such panache—and the fake one. Although there is a school of thought that Bond is largely a hooligan anyway; can’t make my mind up whether this is a joke or not). I once went to this “Wales”—I still don’t know why; it appeared to be shut—and given my experiences there, it’s entirely credible that Mr Benson decided to make this book’s resident psychopathic bruiser Welsh. I seem to remember having to pay £5 to get in so it’s probably some sort of zoo.

    A suggestion, I think made on the fora of this website, was that this could be another in-joke, the Welsh James Bond fighting the incumbent to be James Bond, comment upon the transition of the film role between Mr Dalton and Mr Brosnan. Whilst that’s a fun notion (and it may be credible—I’m not sure what other reason Mr Benson has for making the doppelganger Welsh as opposed to any other Caucasian, other than his having the same intensely pleasurably time in Wales as I did), it’s probably not tenable because, obviously, the real Bond and the fake Bond are meant to be completely identical—apart from their penises (I’m really not joking about this; the “climax” (yeah, yeah) does depend on the majesty of James Bond’s custard chucker).

    Now, their respective purple-headed womb-brooms aside, of which I have only a passing knowledge (he claimed he was Pierce Brosnan anyway, the bitch. Doesn’t write, doesn’t call, just sends injunctions and multiple unsold DVDs of Laws of Attraction), Mr Dalton looks like a distempered Thundercat masticating a hot potato and whatever it is that Mr Brosnan is meant to look like, it isn’t one of those. Still, sticking with the theory for hell of filling up some space, perhaps it’s a sight more credible, some would doubtless say, than trying to convince us that Mr Brosnan and Mr Craig could be the same person. Quite what, the same delusionists will splutter, Mr Craig is meant to look like at all is another issue entirely. Personally I think he’s utterly butterly but I’m aware there’s a school of thought that would liken him to a boss-eyed day-glo yellow Viktor Yushchenko staring into the back of a melting spoon. Or Skeletor. Or roadkill.

    I digress.

    Most arresting of all these villains is Margareta Piel, the Praying Mantis; problems he may have—real problems—with creating convincing, or even remotely interesting, “good” women but Mr Benson can’t half give us a bitch now and then. Everything she does is of interest although because she is such an unutterably competent villainess—both in concept and in deed—one wonders why she’s kicking about with a loser like Espada (so does she, although this only works to further weaken him in the eyes of the reader). And it’s true, she is a “vicious homicidal maniac”; neck-slicing and base-jumping and Bond-knobbing, just as with Whatsit in The Facts of Death (you remember, the one who at the start was the male Number Killer and has her face burned off), on a narrative level she’s the most successful thing here and albeit largely the same character as Whatsit, just as much fun and downright Bondian entertainment. Despite the fact that she is the best character this will be a short paragraph, because I find little to fault her. I’m really not entering into these things with the right spirit, am I? Um… she has a Precision Dynamics Super Raven 4 canopy. Um… good character.

    The Girls

    Margareta aside (and she’s only interesting because she’s a baddie) the women are the book’s most significant letdown, and predictably so. Mr Benson’s women are… feeble, really (or, put another way, really feeble). Sunni Pei the kung-fu turbo-whore with an American College Education, then Can’t Remember Her Name but She Likes Helicopters and is Greek and Very Boring and (worst of all) Dr Hopeless Plotdevice are, to a woman, cataclysmically anaemic so although it’s another spin on the book’s themes of identity and duality, and something new for James Bond stories as a whole to have a prospective ménage a trois (the research must have been a killer, and I accept that it must be a hard task coming up with new stuff), having the Bond girl as a pair of identical twins doesn’t double the characterisation; it halves what little there was going to be in the first place.

    As a result, the twins Taunt, Hedy and Heidi, come across as even sketchier than the norm; one is more grumpy than the other, Bond knobs them both in the end (not physically in the “end”, although… no… that’s a very bad thought and not even Mr Benson has dared go that far; not yet, anyway) and that’s pretty much it. Oh yeah, they’re secret agents (well, of course they are) who turn up incredibly fortuitously. Yawn. They seem to be light relief for the hell of it, in what is a largely humourless book (not a bad thing; some of the jokes to date have been awe-inspiringly crummy). Basically, they get in the way. Just when the momentum of the story was building up, the inclusion of these halfwits does its best to derail it. The meal Bond shares with the twins is the one genuine structural misjudgement; an unnecessary pause. Take them out of the story and one loses very little. Actually, what one loses is the slightly dodgy concept of a female CIA agent hiding in a burqa.

    Oh, for the days of one of Fleming’s hopeless big thicky cretins who needed saving—Solitaire, Honeychile, Tracy, Mary Goodnight… I did promise to stop the Fleming comparisons, didn’t I?

    Right.

    Well—the Taunt twins are as good and as bad as any of the others so far and therefore Mr Benson has maintained his standards. At least he’s consistent, but these characters are the least happy aspect of the book and, whilst this is a book that has some fun concepts that largely succeed, this one comes across as a gimmicky and, at the point the curtain falls, of questionable taste and wisdom. A fine ambition to shake the system up a bit—and if DoubleShot is evidence of anything, it’s evidence of the author’s awareness of both his and a Bond story’s limitations—but it doesn’t come off. And, reading the book now, albeit that its publication preceded Goldmember by a couple of years or so, there’s something unnervingly Fuk Mi and Fuk Yu about them—“twins, Basil, twins…”

    Dr Kimberley Feare doesn’t cut it either; she is more effective as a (critical) plot point than as a character—the image of Bond slippering and slappering around in lakes of her blood, unsure of his culpability, is a Benson highlight. Even though she proves to have a most welcoming bedside manner and lets Percy into the playpen, it’s just another oddly unerotic sex scene. She’s much more value to the book dead. I feel nothing for her; feel quite a bit for Bond—if that was the intention then she’s a success.

    M’s still a cretin, though; at one point she proclaims of Bond “We think he’s missing…” Odd thing to think—either he is or he isn’t.

    Book or Film?

    Unfilmable. Not because it’s not worth it, but because it would a ) be tremendously difficult and confuse the hell out of an audience and b ) the strengths of the book are incapable of being replicated on film; it would be a film about someone trying to take over Gibraltar for the afternoon and that would seem a little low-rent for a Bond film, although it does tap the Eon vibe of using real international flashpoints and twisting them just so; whilst I’m digressing into that, why in Die Another Day was Kim Jong-Il never actually mentioned? Weird.

    So—unfilmable. And I suspect deliberately so; perhaps to counter (entirely fair, mind you) that much of his stuff to this point apes the Eon style, the international troublespot mining aside, this doesn’t. And I remain to be unconvinced of its cleverness, that rather than seeking to argue about the weaknesses of his writing, Mr Benson has embraced it and shoved it right back in all our oh-so-clever faces—the whole thing depends on it being rubbish—that it is so bad it’s good. Disagree all you want, but tread softly for you tread on my dreams. One day the truth may dawn and I may have to acknowledge that it’s so bad it’s bad (in a word: bad), but that day isn’t coming any time soon. You might think all this is the rambling of a loony and the book has no such depth and all this “cleverly terrible” incidents are just “stupidly terrible”. You might have something; I might be in denial at conceiving that anything so ostensibly banal could be created, a refusal to acknowledge that anything could be this awful (and bear in mind that I’ve seen Pay It Forward); but let me have some crumb of happiness, won’t you?

    Even if that house of sand and fog has to crumble and disperse, there’s still some of the best stuff he’s done in this book; Margareta Piel, Bond utterly losing it, a pretty-much-pulled-off “real time” shootout for the conclusion, convincing and illuminating research into bullfighting culture (a very Bond thing, surely) and a largely sustained momentum. Role of Honour? Nadgers to Role of Honour—hellishly slow and anticlimactic. Diamonds are Forever? What actually happens? Also hellishly slow and anticlimactic (I sense a theme). As a balls to the wall commercial espionage thriller story, with a twist, DoubleShot is the best fourth Bond book of any of them. (NB do read that correctly—it’s “best fourth Bond book” rather than “fourth best Bond book”—I haven’t gone completely mad—although it’s definitely in the medals when it comes to the continuations). It won’t let you down as much as the other two and there’s great potential in it for it to be considered actively subversive of the genre. I expected little. I gained a lot. This not only escapes the shadow of “Ian Fleming”; it escapes the shadow of “Raymond Benson”.

    Or put it this way; I seriously believe that had this been the only one he had produced, his stock as a continuation novelist would be far higher than it is. Immeasurably. Deservedly.

    Is it good or just relatively good? As a stand-alone piece of writing, it is—of course—for the casual reader pretty much impenetrable in both motive for The Union, the nature of Bond at the start of the book and the thickly ladled references. It’s also written in a manner which makes one sweat, and not in a pleasurable way. If you buy the theory, it’s a wonderful, knowing joke. If you don’t buy the theory, it’s more of the same and you’ll have made up your mind whether you like the Bensons or not. Even so, I would stress that you don’t let your prejudices derived from the others blind you to the merits of this one. Give it a go. Seriously. Shame that this is only really going to be picked up by the completists—it deserves a wider audience.

    Thought about for more than an atosecond, this is complicated and a rewarding read above and beyond the basic story, which is arguably neither here nor there. So, assuming (however recklessly, however uninterested) that the Star Trek theory is tenable, then if this RB JB IV is sound, that must make number five pretty terrible, yes?

    Jamie Cullum.

    Spock—chap with the ears, right?

    RETURN TO PAGE 1

    Related Articles

  10. The Impossible Job: DoubleShot

    By Jim on 2006-04-24

    The following article is the opinion of one individual and may not represent the views of the owner or other team members of CommanderBond.net.

    Also see:
    DoubleShot Reviewed
    by Daniel Dykes

    I | II

    Star Trek.

    I suppose that I must have subjected myself to it once or twice, probably during a moment of weakness when the darts wasn’t on. Given that I’m married, have no hatred of fresh air and have never masturbated into a sock, Jacques StewartI have always assumed that it’s not meant to appeal to me. From what I’ve dared watch of it, it seems to involve either T.J. Hooker (very wig/weave) or Yorkshire’s finest Frenchman (very no wig/weave) being put on trial by people with lumpy gravy stapled to their foreheads (habitually non-Caucasian character actors—what’s all that about then?) and forced to answer for humanity’s sins, usually because the uniformly humanoid gravyheaded people have just intercepted a broadcast of a Nuremburg Rally or International Speedway live from Wolverhampton or that episode of “Columbo” with George Hamilton in it that always seems to be on. Which sets one thinking about how they’re going to react when they’re subjected to The World is not Enough; they’ll probably come down and massacre us. Justifiably so, too.

    But, in truth, everything that I could tell you about this Star Trek you could drunkenly carve with a rattly jackhammer into a pinhead (the item, not the person, although your confusion is understandable because I did start with the words “Star Trek”). There’s some corporate-sponsor pleasing pontificating about being lovely to everyone—because they’re all potential consumers—some things that go “wooshhhh” and “fizzzz” and “slapacockledoodah”, probably, and I’m pretty sure (unless it’s yet another brie-dream) there’s something about Klingon dictionaries and that something disturbs me: if it was worth doing, the Klingons would have done it, surely? And if the reason for not so doing is because they do not exist, then this comes full circle to why bother? Y’know, I read the other day that the potato has more chromosomes than a human. And whilst it must be true of all of us, there are some people whose selfish oxygen-gobbling can only serve to remind us of the fact. Why they don’t do themselves in defeats me (and if anyone considers this a call to suicide upon which the impressionable may act, consider this: it’s one thing to commit suicide because of illness or inescapable personal trauma or reading Deception Point and realising that a world that allows it to happen must be really horrid and it’s better to leave. Committing suicide because something one read on the internet or saw on TV made it look like a good idea—that’s natural selection).

    Yet, this stated, given that the white chocolate-wonderful interweb has exposed me to many, many delights—dwarf porn, goat porn, dwarf goat porn, probably other things apart from porn, dwarves and goats but substantially less than half as much fun—amongst the information eruption screenburnt into my skull has been the vital knowledge that the Star Trek films follow a pattern in terms of quality.

    Relative quality.

    Odd numbered films (for those educated by the British state, that’s 1, 3, 5, 7 and… um… 9 (note to self: check))—bad. Not “bad” in the sense that Hitler, Pol Pot and Sesame Street were “bad”; considerably more evil than that—Scrappy Doo bad. Yoko Ono’s films bad.

    Jamie Cullum bad.

    Even numbered films—better. Better in the way that finding a maggot in one’s peach is better than finding half a maggot; why am I suddenly reminded of Jamie Cullum? Doubtless someone out there will squander some of the only life they will ever have on telling me that this doesn’t strictly hold true, and doubtless I really won’t care when it’s pointed out to me that—actually—Star Trek part III: Cack-A-Rama-Spocky-Wah-Wah contains—actually—scenes that are—actually—worthy of Shakespeare (Craig Shakespeare, erstwhile West Brom midfielder). This may well be so, but then a hell of a lot of Shakespeare isn’t—actually—worthy of Shakespeare either (especially the ill-advised move to Grimsby Town). Putting aside the rumour that most of his stuff was actually written by Christopher Marlowe (or was it Gerhard Berger?—one of the two, anyway), have you seen Timon of Athens? Don’t—it’s crap. Cymbeline? I’ve vomited—and celebrated vomiting—more substantial things than Cymbeline. Two Noble Kinsmen? Jamie. Cullum.

    Anyway, the reason I really don’t care whether this so-called Star so-called Trek so-called theory holds true is because I’ve still not seen any of these so-called films; they are the sort of thing the existence of which one is vaguely aware and has to accept will happen but will ideally rarely witness first-hand, like 3.15 a.m. or one’s parents wiping themselves clean post-copulation, or Northamptonshire. Intelligence gathered suggests these films are something to do with spaceships and David Warner is in one or more or all of them; more news once received. But the reason I raise it is that the same utterly-trivial-once-the-bomb-drops odd-numbers bad, evens marginally better notion could apply to the Raymond Benson James Bond books, to whit:

    Number 1: worthy, bit dull, overpadded, finding its way, sort of gets there;
    Number 2: zips along merrily, much more confident;
    Number 3: terrible. Catastrophic. No, worse; probably illegal;
    Number 4: …er…um… pretty OK…

    …actually

    Yep, sorry to break it to you gang, especially those weighed down with the expectation that I’m just going for the throat mercilessly with these ephemera, but DoubleShot is, in essence, really decent stuff. Surprisingly so.

    On its own merits.

    Well, obviously. What a traumatically stupid, redundant statement that is. It’s not as if it’s going to be the same sort of thing that Fleming wrote and (sharp intake of breath) it’s not as if it needs to be if one ignores any pretence that it’s meant to be similar. On that basis, all that it needs to be is competent and entertaining, something (even at that undemanding level) still defeating its immediate predecessor in an upsettingly baffling way, so as far as those criteria go, it succeeds. In comparison to the spectacularly tragic High Time To Kill, DoubleShot is light from dark, a (relative) leap in quality. By way of contextual comparison (and no, I don’t quite believe I used that expression either), it is what we saw with The Living Daylights being produced by the same folks who considered it a job well done to hurl A View to a Kill at an innocent and fluffpuppy world only a handful of months beforehand.

    It almost does enough to wipe the memory clean of its immediate predecessor; Hercules and the Augean stables spring to mind. In other words, one can walk away from this one undefiled; the sun will not have dimmed, mighty rivers will still flow, unwiped genitalia will remain unwiped by it and life will plod along in its usual shambling way. Please don’t misunderstand me: it is by no means a great work of fiction—a more accurate description would be “unutterably colossal piffle that will probably only be read by eleven people”—but given that it cannot seriously (surely?) have been intended to be anything other than complete and utter tosh, that it succeeds in being diverting (as opposed to wretched) renders it… a success. Or put it this way—unlike its immediate predecessor I have no desire to ram this one straight back up him.

    And if it’s time to stop raising futile comparisons with Fleming’s stuff, then so be it. Time to compare Mr Benson to himself. DoubleShot is his best one so far. Leave to one side how magnificent an achievement that actually is given its patchy competition and believe me. But can I make the comparison more than in a backhanded manner; and more than out of kindness? Can I go further, can I really go further and suggest that as a “fourth book” and as a piece of straightforward entertainment it’s the superior of the directionless and podgy Role of Honour and the exquisitely written if Norfolk-flat Diamonds are Forever?

    Yes.

    Yes I can.

    “Make it so.”

    I feel so ashamed. Anyone got a sock?

    DoubleShot

    A bit about the Style and a bit about the Plot; this part has a dual identity. A magnificently appropriate approach and not just me being lazy.

    Let me—go on, let me—tell you a story. A criminal organisation, maniacally vengeful and peeved to the point of frowning really quite hard indeed, seeks to destroy the credibility of the British government by humiliating its best agent, framing this agent for a crime of lustpassion, and being generally mischievous and, oh I forget, something about a typewriter oder? This story is (the film of) From Russia with Love.

    Let me tell you another story. A criminal organisation, maniacally vengeful and peeved to the point of frowning really quite hard indeed, seeks to rescue its own wounded reputation and destroy the credibility of the British government by (ostensibly) supporting a mad nationalist bullfighting absurdly over-priapic gangster “type” in a siege in Gibraltar. As a little bonus, it also seeks the destruction of the mind of Britain’s best agent, not in the best state of health to begin with, by framing this agent for the graphic blood-soaked slaughter of a young woman, a kill-frenzy on a passenger ferry and, eventually, multiple murders of several politicians. This gets to the point that the agent’s own people order him to be eliminated. This story is DoubleShot (who said there were no original plots?). Interested?

    Let me tell you another story, before you come up with an excuse to edge away and make polite conversation elsewhere. A criminal organisation, maniacally vengeful and blahblahblah bibbledy bobbledy boo pookily mookily, is thwarted in its scheme because James Bond’s willy is a very good willy. This story is also DoubleShot. Squirming?

    A dual identity tale of dual identities—the Union trying to establish and recover its reputation, a psychopathic doppelganger wandering about and causing “trouble”, identical twin agents, the main villains having distinctly different public and private personae (the latter not being that unusual in a Bond story but it fits the mood)—DoubleShot appears, oddly, to be the least “discussed” (cough) of the Union trilogy, almost a forgotten Bond. Certainly it’s not as flashy in its concept as High Time To Kill, which is not a problem as this is a considerably more even book, rather than a succession of feculent incidents waiting for a damn big mountain to turn up. Nor is it as rampagingly over-the-top (and flat-out inexcusable) as Never Dream of Dying (again, greatly to DoubleShot’s credit). As a “middle” story it may, I suppose, suffer the undeserved perception that it’s simply a bridge; undeserved because even if a bridge it be, it’s a damned solid one. Given what’s either side of it, it’s one stuck in the middle of a particularly scrubby desert—the London Bridge that twerp bought and shipped to whatever hellhole it was in Arizona springs to mind.

    It’s far from perfect and doubtless as you read through this pus, you’ll probably think I don’t like it that much. Well, I’ve liked other books more, which is not a terribly challenging feat, but then I’ve liked more less (the computer has just underlined “more less” in green; who or what do “they” get to program these things? Nor does it recognise the word “saveloy”, the wretch). But the potency of cheap shots may overwhelm me so I’ll bung the core of my review here: me like. Me like a lot.

    It’s difficult to express why unless one stands back from it for a moment and thinks a little. It’s the stronger for what it does not contain than for what it does; this tends to show a greater confidence on Mr Benson’s part in divesting himself of the expectations of his norm; without apparently having to include as many of the trappings (an appropriate word—fact) of “Bond”, the book’s more enjoyable for it.

    The usual problems are evident; it’s not so much of an improvement that it could be by a different author. You must know these by now…

    …the stultifyingly leaden dialogue, a particularly chortlesome example being “She is well known in Spain as an equestrian instructor and performer, but she has quite a dark side. She’s a vicious homicidal maniac.” Mmm, handy. That is quite a dark side, isn’t it?…

    …the—provocatively?—underwritten descriptives? Somewhat present in having to trawl through guff like “M was a bit shaken by this news” (a “bit”? Which age group is this stuff aimed at?) although he does somewhat appear to have a new favourite—“virtually”—which crops up somewhat too frequently for somewhat comfortable reading. Somewhat…

    …careless proofreading (some curious Americanisms, the UK first edition has several typos in it and there’s a very odd bit when referring to Orson Welles which should be followed by a comma but is instead sporting an apostrophe). I appreciate that these remaining in are not the fault of the writer but they add to the air of wanton slapdashery about the enterprise…

    …but…

    …and yet…

    …but…

    …but this much we knew anyway and, given that one hardly read the book at gunpoint—I didn’t have to plough through it, nor do I have to subject it to this petty abuse—it would be repetition to keep harping on about them, and capable of being misinterpreted as personal rather than critical. By now, these key features are oddly reassuring; this I cannot explain but there would be much missing from the Benson-reading experience if one was deprived of the frustration / smackage du gob endemic in the exercise. Things haven’t actively worsened, so that’s something and probably the most one can hope for, realistically. So, enough. If you want a full dissection, see the previous review. Enough to say it’s the traditional problem—can create a decent enough story but writing one is more of an issue. No real progress; query whether it’s all just a big tease by Mr Benson and his editor(s?) to keep on doing it like this, but we’ll put that to one side.

    The distinctiveness—contributory to the book working—is in the missing elements; no Boothroyd scene (those to date have been apocalyptically poor, so this is an improvement); no tricked-up car and therefore no Flying Scout (undoubted improvement number two) and little, if any, Eon. Arguably, given the pivotal plot device of the double, the timesplitting structure and that it all boils down to our hero’s knobelisk, it’s practically unfilmable. It would be very difficult to pull it off convincingly—and that’s not a willy joke, however fine a one it may be. The danger in this divesting itself of the traps and trappings of the film formula is one is less inclined to watch it hurtle past the eyes in its unchallenging way as a film, than to approach it as… well, a book. Of some description.

    On the surface, for the usual stylistic reasons, it’s as good or terrible as the commercial norm. But, but… there’s more to this one than meets the proverbial.

    Humour me.

    Let me walk you gently through this. Part of my initial problem on reading the book whenever it was way back when was a nagging doubt—which is true of so many of the films—about why The Union doesn’t just kill Bond and replace him with the double. It has plenty of opportunity as the book progresses, and it would also mean that its plan is not thwarted for it is precisely because it hasn’t killed him before he infiltrates the villain’s lair that the whole scheme collapses. At first blush, this looks like careless plotting (although no better or worse than countless other opportunities in other films and books)…

    …at second blush, however, the cleverness behind the scheme becomes apparent. Bond is kept alive precisely because The Union is having its kicks destroying him. They could just swat him off the face of the Earth and choose not to, for fun. A long, drawn-out death, weakening him at every stage, and destroying his reputation (query the wisdom of a secret agent having a reputation to destroy, though). In this “humiliate Bond and SIS but keep Bond alive until the critical point” plot, as noted there’s patent overtones of From Russia with Love but Mr Benson dares—and in me view, for whatever that’s worth, succeeds—in taking the plot a stage further. It’s not simply a case of killing Bond in as humiliating and discrediting a way as possible, but to destroy his mind first—and then killing him in as humiliating and discrediting a way as possible. That’s a sadistic little twist to the expectation of what could be a run-of-the-mill “Kill Bond now!” plot, and it pretty much pays off. We’ve had Bond injured before, many a time. We’ve had Bond psychologically fragile before but that was largely his own self-destructive persona taking control. However, Bond deliberately being sent over the edge by the enemy into self-doubt is new. The book is one long torture scene. Interpret that as you will; I mean it positively.

    There are some problems to overcome. The expression of this self-doubt is a bit curious in that frequent fecund ejaculations (fnarr) such as My God, what the hell happened here? Was he losing his mind? shift from first to third person in an eyeblink and look most odd—who is doing the thinking here, Bond or the author? This curious way of expressing the inner trauma aside, having Bond relentlessly under-par works for the most part and helps a key idea: everyone including Bond (this is critical) thinks he may have done these things. Not that there are many from instant recollection, but on previous occasions when Bond has been framed, he (and therefore, the reader in no doubt as to the purity of the hero) has been certain of his innocence; whilst it may take a stronger writer to have pulled this off utterly convincingly, the idea that the reader (for a bit, anyway) may doubt as much as Bond does whether he did murder various bods is one worth raising; the reaction to the death of Dr Feare is a highlight of the book, and probably the most narratively arresting in all of the Bensons, and arguably in all of the Continuation Bonds.

    It’s only if one recalls when reading that passage how, in the flashforward prologue, the writer refers to “…the man identified…as James Bond…” that the idea crumbles—but how many people will do that?

    I only wonder whether the writer missed a trick by, whatever the face-shifty running around firing guns finale achieves, it still came out as a horrid little sting in the tail that Bond did murder Dr Feare but SIS will cover it up; perhaps that’s a little too bleak in what is only intended as a throwaway (read this one before throwing it away, though).

    This internalised plot (the external plot about Gibraltar is a wan half-baked frippery disguising what this book tries to do) does make Bond more interesting as a character; until now, Benson’s Bond has been a passenger in the events, or in the back of a remote-controlled car, reacting rather than acting, and possessing approximately half the charisma of an abandoned shoe. Here, he doubts. Here, he’s called John Cork (no point complaining, it’s been published now). Here, he is abandoned by his own people and (albeit half-heartedly) chased by them. Here he is on the run and… yep, it’s Licence to Kill. Without the excremental Q. Which makes it worth experiencing. Finally, we have from Mr Benson a story about James Bond rather than just another James Bond story.

    You might not trust me—you might not like me and I doubt if I need you to—but all I ask of you is this—DoubleShot has more finesse than its presentation immediately suggests.

    But there’s more. And that more is where the book moves from being just solid Bondy fun into being potentially great.

    I assure you that I have not lost my mind.

    Let’s start with the obvious: the dialogue hasn’t improved much—the conversation Bond eavesdrops upon in the Soho is hilariously stilted in its lack of naturalness and, also, really pretty ridiculous given that the participants say exactly what Bond wants them to say at that precise moment. I have to accept that this has to a) move the plot forward and b) is a staple of any sort of detective/spy fiction but one is left a little disappointed when one of the conversers doesn’t pipe up with “I really hope no-one’s listening to this.” Likewise, the propensity of the same minor villains—a pair of pornographers (is he obsessed?)—to wander about with secret plans (the sort that appear to have “Secret Plans” stamped all over them) in their pockets is staggeringly unlikely.

    Unless one considers this on two levels.

    Firstly, as a pure plot point, this pair of incompetent stooges is being set up by The Union to have Bond kill them—so in a neat little twist, Bond does indeed end up working for The Union. Cast aside any thought about whether credible characters would really be so stupid as not to realise that they are—in an unusually violent way—being constructively dismissed, and watch the fun develop—especially when “Bond savagely sliced the man’s neck, then stabbed him in the heart.” Nice. Anyway, any instant irritation at the plausibility of such characters is diminished by considering their purpose in the story on this initial level. As a flipside to Bond laying thunderously unsubtle clues and getting the villain to do his dirty work in Licence to Kill, this is the villain using Bond in much the same way. Funny.

    And yet there’s something even smarter. This is where you’re either with me or against me. And if you’re against me, expect me to invade your country soon.

    It’s this: is Mr Benson having a joke with us? Is he exhibiting self-awareness that his dialogue and coincidences are not… um… amongst the strongest, so here they are deliberately stagey because they are meant to be deliberately staged? These aren’t actually the usual plot holes through which one could drive distempered cattle, but key plot devices Is Mr Benson being cleverly—and amazingly humbly—self-aware in his shortcomings as a writer—it is precisely these shortcomings that give Bond his clues and keep the plot moving. In short, is he recognising that if he were a better writer of incident and dialogue then there would be no plot here at all? If there were no such staggeringly unlikely conversations and happenings, this tale would not progress? Has he created a story that relies more on his frailties as an author—and the reader’s acknowledgement of his frailties as an author—than any capability? That’s at a more sophisticated level of deconstruction than any archly over-Eon references in any of the predecessors; actually, it verges on brilliance.

    What he has achieved here—intentional or not—is to breach the barrier between reader and storyteller and welcome the superficially underwhelmed audience, about to shred the book, with “I know that this is crap; you know that this is crap; so I’m going to embrace the crapness and give you a story that has to rely on my output being crap because if this were any better, then it wouldn’t actually work.” Could a better writer have actually produced this? Is there challenge in the idea—no-one else could do it as badly so no-one else could have done this plot so much justice? The dialogue being deliberately rubbish and fortuitously overheard, minor villains acting in wildly unlikely ways (but consistent with his previous output) because they need to—splendid idea, wonderfully aware of his own strengths and weaknesses and so subtly executed that it’s hidden under what appears to be the standard moribund badinage and coincidence. The existence of the book entire has to rely on him being an unspecial writer. If this is intended—and if it was not, it’s truly the happiest of accidents—Mr Benson has delivered an immensely complicated idea here, and without shouting about it. This is why I like the book. This, this is fantastic.

    If one accepts this proposition—that he is writing with an acceptance of himself and not just the usual lifewasting awareness of “Bond stuff”—then this book deserves to be read; not for the usual tiresome girls and guns and all that sort of silly rubbish, because it doesn’t really add or detract on that score, but for the extraordinarily interesting double-bluff, the wonderful trick in letting the reader think that he is witnessing one thing (yet another gruesomely poor book about as appealing a prospect as one minute in Las Vegas) when, in fact, quite the opposite is happening.

    Just like the plot.

    Clever.

    Compared to this, the notoriously tricky (well, relatively) The Man from Barbarossa has all the complexity of Pingu. This is the most sophisticated—and unexpectedly so—Bond book in a generation. Love it.

    I’m not kidding.

    Unless this is utterly fanciful and it is really as abject as it first appears. But don’t tell me that, for nah nah nah not listening. It’s almost worthy of Shakesp…

    Oh God.

    Self-hatred will now set in. Forever.

    continue to page 2 of The Impossible Job: DoubleShot