The Hero: James Bond; The Bond Girl: Easy St.John; The Villain: The Poison Dwarf; Supporting Characters: Harry Spraker, Monika Haardt, Praxi Simeon (Sulphur), August Wimper (Orphan); Axel Ritter; Locations covered: Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, Venice, Calais, London; First Published: 1992

The deaths of two members of a spy group called Cabal has sent shockwaves through many of the services. The one that wants to find out the most about is the British Secret Service, MI6. They figure that the only man who can figure out what happened is Captain James Bond.

That is in a nutshell what happens in the opening of Death is Forever, the 1992 James Bond novel from John Gardner, one of the most explosive Bond adventures ever. It is probably one of Gardner`s best.

Anyways, to continue, CIA has also felt the pinch, and has sent over Elizabeth St. John to help 007 where ever she can. The two are assigned to Frankfurt, where the murders occured. In the scene with M, there is a small throw back to The Man With The Golden Gun.

M: “Russians haven`t used the cyanide gun in decades.”

Bond: “Yes, Sir. I distinctly remember one failed attempt.”

Once in Germany, Bond is paired a man named Axel Ritter who is posing as a Cabal agent named Harry Spraker. Bond, Axel and Easy get out of Germany, by train where Weisen has set a team to eliminate the two. Bond foils their plan, kills the two and exposes Axel.

Bond and Easy get to Paris, where they are picked up by a fake team of Cabal agents, pretending to be Praxi and the real Harry. Bond knowing better eludes them for enough time to make a call to Cabal, and get a hold of the two real ones. Bond and Easy are captured, but soon rescued from the fake spies who work for the villian, a former spy himself, Wolfgang Weisen. Weisen is also known by his nickname of The Poison Dwarf.

Bond is introduced to the group, which includes a spy known only as Bruin and the real Harry, nicknamed Tester. But, before he can improve his knowledge about what is going on, 007 runs i nto a small problem. He has to meet Weisen.

He meets Weisen in his home in Paris, but he breaks himself out, with the help of Cabal. When Bond escapes, he knows that Weisen is going to Venice, to finalise the plan that I will spill later. 007 then meets the supposed leak in Cabal, August Wimper, another spy known by the cipher of Orphan. James meets him and is told who is the real leak, Harry Spraker! Bond believes him, and helps him clear his name. But, by doing that, the rest of Cabal is captured by Weisen and the two are forced to break them out.

The two break in, get captured and have to break themselves out. By doing so, though, Bond gets Easy killed, by one of Weisen`s guards. He goes berzerk and kills the two guards as well as Harry, and goes after Weisen. He drugs him, and as they group is getting away, they are ambushed by more of Weisen`s men, who abduct him again, back to the right side, and kill eveyone except Bond and Praxi.

Bond, finally figures out that Weisen has a brilliant plan. He wants to destroy the Eurotunnel between Britain and France, killing political figures that are on the trip. Bond is the only one to stop them, and he is able to stop the train in time, but Weisen is determind to suceed, and he is able to blow up one of the tunnels, and in a fit of greed, Bond is able to electricute the Poison Dwarf.

Well, the novel doesn`t end here, but the very end is too suprising to spoil, but lets just say that the final pages are really close to From Russia With Love.

Amazingly, at least to me, is that John Gardner was really starting to take a hold of the James Bond character and craft it into his own type of character, and began a different take on the character.

Anyways, Death is Forever suprised me in many ways. First off, it has pretty much non-stop action, violence, death, destruction, and sex around every turn. But, who can forget, we are reading John Gardner, so we have the obligatory double crossers, and even a triple crosser. You get ten, fifteen pages of violence, followed up by ten pages of conversation, which will unmask a double, a scene where one of the ladies would like to become Bond`s `entertainment` for the evening, and so on. It is a little redundant, at first.

Luckily, about half way through, all of that stops, and we get down to business, with virtually non-stop action and violence all the way through. The novel is probably the fast moving that I have read from Gardner. It is also one of the best ones that he wrote. Don`t pass this one up, it is one of the best.

The only problem, seems to be those common to Gardner novels, that include too many characters, too many double crosses and triple crosses. Butm these aren`t enough to lower the rating. Grade: A-