The Man with the Red Tattoo - Softcover

Benson, Raymond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0515135631 ISBN 13: 9780515135633

Publisher: Jove, 2003

Synopsis

In Tokyo, a fatal strain of West Nile virus has infected-and killed-the head of the world's largest genetic research company and his family. Whoever is behind the murders is far more dangerous than the average assassin-dangerous enough to send in James Bond. Teamed with a beautiful Japanese agent, 007 must predict the next attack-and stop a weapon powerful enough to destroy the Western world.

About this title

About the Author:

Raymond Benson is the author of The Facts of Death, Zero Minus Ten, High Time to Kill and the novelizations of Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough. He is a director of The Ian Fleming Foundation. Benson lives and works in the Chicago area.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jove
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0515135631
• ISBN 13: 9780515135633
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 320