From Publishers Weekly
Readers fond of Bond should not miss Gardner's latest 007 adventure, his 11th since he took over the series after the 1964 death of Ian Fleming, Bond's creator. Updated to the '90s, Bond now practices safe sex and seems to have given up both smoking and his obsession with powerful customized sports cars. In this action-packed bloodbath, the required, consummate villain is Wolfgang Weisen, aka "the Poison Dwarf," an East German spy master who as "a child at Joseph Stalin's court" watched Tarzan and Chaplin movies with "Uncle Joe." Weisen has been directing the systematic assassination of members of Cabal, the West's premier spy network in Germany, and M assigns Bond and the CIA's Eazy stet St. John to stop him. Bond is at first put off by Eazy's feminism but is quick to accept her invitation to share her berth on the Ost-West Express. Weisen, tracked to Venice, turns out to be a Pickwickian character: rotund, bald and baby-faced but determined to force Europe to its knees and restore Stalinism. Suspense builds as Bond races to Calais on the day the cross-channel tunnel is to open. Eazy is unable to make the trip, having suffered the fate of all women who get too close to Bond's heart. Amusing, clever stuff.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Of course, it isn't really forever; it's just business as usual for James bond, still gamely tackling would-be world dominators--this time, Wolfgang Weisen, the Poison Dwarf of East German intelligence--in his 11th outing under Gardner's flag. Whatever Weisen's plan is--and just what he has in mind is a surprise Gardner saves until the very end--it involves penetrating CABAL (a NATO network of spies working in East Germany, all but outmoded by unification), issuing a bogus order to disband, and then picking off the agents one by one. When Bond and American Eazy St. John are packed off to Berlin to replace their latest fallen comrades, you can bet that they'll be trailed by homicidal enemy agents, fed a million lies by their supposed contacts, and be left guessing as to which of the surviving Cabalists can still be trusted--and you can bet too that Bond will bring snooty Eazy to heel by showing up her gutless tradecraft and sweeping her off her feet. The trail of double-crosses that leads from Berlin to Paris to Venice strains belief, but it's all lightly likable. Once Bond and Co. reach Venice, though, the story slips into a distinctly stodgy groove (``His smile was so evil that the hairs on the back of Bon's neck stiffened''), with Bond, Eazy, and trustworthy Gus Wimper going up against the Poison Dwarf, his kinky bedmate Monika Haardt (you have to take the kinkiness on faith--she doesn't do anything but try to kill our hero), and the staff of executioners, torturers, etc. Bond, who seems to be having more trouble adjusting to the new world order than his younger brethren, doesn't exactly shine, but Gardner's fans won't be disappointed either. Ian Fleming's fans need not apply. --
Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
