From Amazon.co.uk
The Man With The Red Tatoo is the latest of Raymond Benson's continuation of Fleming's James Bond series. Bond is back in Japan investigating mysterious deaths and elbowing his way into trouble. Like all of Benson's series, and indeed the recent Bond films, it tones down the high-octane sexism and snobbery of the original a little, in the name of making Bond contemporary; it is not just in terms of the actors playing him that Bond is no longer quite the man he once was.
Benson is a more thoughtful writer than Fleming, which leads, on the one hand, to some over-extended clumps of exposition in which he explains the right-wing politics of Japanese organized crime or the life-cycle of genetically-engineered mosquitos, but on the other hand to real conviction in his villains' motivations. Fleming created florid villains who were memorable because mythic; Benson's are credible because he makes us understand them--it's doubtful a Fleming villain would ever have quoted Mishima. Similarly, where the deaths of Fleming's heroines were a routine gesture, the fate of one of the "Bond Girls" here is genuinely upsetting. Where Benson most effectively follows Fleming's lead is in action sequences--Bond tied in the path of a bullet train and Bond dancing his way to safety in a burning lava-field. --Roz Kaveney
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
This latest addition to the James Bond canon includes virtually all the requisite components, from an evil villain with a diabolical plot to exotic settings and beautiful women. But what's missing is the biggest piece of all: Bond himself. This time around, Benson's Bond is strangely inert; he lacks the suavity, verve and wit that have made him one of the most engaging heroes in genre fiction. The story line is compelling enough: 007 is in Japan to baby-sit the British prime minister at a summit conference and to investigate mysterious deaths in the McMahon family, whose patriarch ran pharmaceutical giant CureLab. Bond reunites with an aging Tiger Tanaka, who featured in Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, as they pursue Goro Yoshida, the terrorist who links both parts of Bond's mission. Yoshida is a clich‚ monomaniacal and merciless but an interesting one, bent on using biological weapons to punish Western society for polluting traditional Japanese culture. He even has an evil dwarf sidekick, Junji Kon, the knife-wielding embodiment of a kappa, a mythical creature in Japanese folklore. The other Bond tropes are present: love interests (Reiko Tamura, Tanaka's colleague; and Mayumi, the sole survivor of the McMahon family), cinematic action and gadgets (including a Palm Pilot packed with plastic explosive). But it's Bond himself who propels readers along, and here he is a mere facsimile of the real thing.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
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