About:
No Deals, Mr. Bond by John Gardner follows agent 007 as he attempts to save agents whom he’d extracted after an operation years earlier. This is the sixth James Bond novel written by Mr. Gardner.
- 317 pages
- Publisher : G. P. Putnam’s Sons
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 0399132546
My rating for No Deals, Mr. Bond – 4
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More books by John Gardner*
John Gardner’s Bond series (16 book series) *
Thoughts:
One of the things I noticed when reading the John Gardner’s Bond series is how much M hates James Bond. While it’s not out of character for Ian Fleming’s M, in this incarnation the head of MI6 is actively trying to get him killed.
The women in this book are both prostitutes and secret agents, and to make matters worse are not interesting or well written. When Bond talks to them he comes off pompous, he’s not undercover, that’s who he is in this book.
But no one read the Bond books for a dose of reality. Despite these I enjoyed reading No Deals, Mr. Bond by James Gardner. The action is well written, the fight scenes work, and the story is full of double crossing and peculiar violence.
This is a satisfying adventure, and I think it actually reads better in 2025 than it did when originally published in 1987. The casual racism is still there, and someone’s ideal of what “manliness” is, but it reads much more tongue in cheek than it was probably meant to be.
In fact, there are so many occurrences of silliness in this book that it’s hard for me to imaging Mr. Gardner didn’t do it on purpose. It’s a cohesive adventure, despite much of the inanity and absurd code names.
Synopsis:
On a cold night, James Bond and a team from the Special Forces Boat Group extracted four young women who were used as honeytraps for high-ranking KGB agents. Operation Cream Cake went well but one of the Boats was killed.
Years later, two of the young women are brutally murdered, with their tongues cut out sending a clear message to MI6. Bond is sent by MI6 to find the other women, who have changed their names, but must navigate danger after danger to get them to safety.
Buy No Deals, Mr. Bond from Amazon.com*
More books by John Gardner*
John Gardner’s Bond series (16 book series) *
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I bought this book
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account, the money is usually spent on books
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