John Gardner

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. About the Author John Gardner began his career as a novelist in 1964, with 'The Liquidator', featuring the character Boysie Oakes. In 1981, Gardner was asked to revive Ian Fleming's James Bond series of novels. Gardner wrote fourteen James Bond novels, and the novelizations of two Bond films, License to Kill and Golden Eye.