Win, Lose or Die (Coronet Books)

"Gardner's plots are full of good action; his torture scenes are splendidly painful." - Times Literary SupplementThe London Gazette announcement was brief: “BOND, JAMES, Commander RNVR, relieved of current duties at the Foreign Office. Promoted to the substantive rank of Captain and returned to active service forthwith.” The return of James Bond to the Royal Navy marks the intriguing backdrop to John Gardner’s thrilling next adventure featuring Ian Fleming’s celebrated hero.Bond takes a refresher course and keeps up his flyling hours by doing a conversion course on Sea Harriers. And eventually he learns that his mission is to serve on the Royal Navy’s major aircraft carrier, HMS Invincible, as minder to a phalanx of of top brass British, American and - in this era of glasnost - Russian admirals, who are on board for a NATO exercise. But why? Can a dangerous hijacking by airborne troops using hang-gliders on a Japanese tanker, some time before, be connected to Bond’s current mission?

From Publishers Weekly

Fortunately for Gardner, dyed-in-the wool James Bond fans may be disposed to overlook the lack of credibility and characterization in this latest thriller featuring the superspy. The leaders of Britain, Russia and the U.S. are planning a top-secret summit aboard HMS Invincible . We never learn what they want to talk about, but we do know that BAST (Brotherhood of Anarchy and Secret Terror) is up to some high-level nastiness. Alerted to the threat, British Intelligence sends James Bond to protect the "heads of state." Promoted to captain, Bond is trained on Harrier jump-jets, and narrowly escapes death when a Sidewinder missile intercepts his flight path. Human menaces include "the Cat," a mysterious female terrorist, and "the Viper," head of BAST. A lot of huffing, puffing, padding ("Bond has not shown all his cards") and sloppy writing ("the first kind of ship of her type") occur before a limp confrontation that takes place inside the Rock of Gibraltar, with chief villain Bassam Baradj, inanely "born plain Robert Besavitsky, in the old Hell's Kitchen area of New York." Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.

About the Author

John Gardner wrote, like Ian Fleming, fourteen James Bond novels (1981 to 1996). In all Gardner had fifty-five novels to his credit―many of them bestsellers (his novel Maestro was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year). John Gardner died in 2007. Visit his estate’s website at www.john-gardner.com. --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.

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