Never Send Flowers (James Bond) - Softcover

Gardner, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140913573X ISBN 13: 9781409135739

Publisher: Orion, 2012

Synopsis

Official, original James Bond from a writer described by Len Deighton as a 'master storyteller'.

In different corners of the world four high-profile figures are assassinated in less than a week. Nobody links the deaths but one thing is certain: each of them has been stalked, sought out and killed with care and preparation. Then a sinister connection is established: a single, blood-tipped rose is sent to each funeral and an unremarkable female agent is murdered in Switzerland.

When MI5 come to MI6 to ask for help M brings in his best. At first, a weekend abroad seems tempting to James Bond: especially when he's paired with Flicka von Grusse, a gorgeous Swiss intelligence officer. But this is a perilous assignment that starts with the mysterious actor David Dragonpol and leads them to Athens, Milan and on to EuroDisney ... and an explosive climax.

About this title

About the Author

AfterColonel Sun(1968) byKingsley Amis, John Gardner was the next writer to be asked to write further adventures of James Bond. He wrote, like Fleming, fourteen Bond books, plus novelisations of the filmsGoldenEyeandLicence to Kill, from 1981 to 1996.
Before becoming an author of fiction in the early 1960s John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer, a journalist and, for a short time, a priest in the Church of England. 'Probably the biggest mistake I ever made,' he says. 'I confused the desire to please my father with a vocation which I soon found I did not have.'
In all, Gardner had fifty-five novels to his credit - many of them bestsellers. John Gardner died in 2007.

For more information about John Gardner and his non-Bond works, visit his website.

From Kirkus Reviews

Like Pentagon dinosaurs laboring to adapt to a new world order by finding telltale traces of the old in every dark shadow, Gardner's reincarnation of James Bond examines a string of serial killings and finds a freelance terrorist just as dangerous as his old adversaries from SMERSH and SPECTRE. Bond's called in when MI5 agent Laura March is killed at Interlaken. Going through the things in her hotel room, he and Flicka Von Gr sse, his leggy opposite number from Swiss Intelligence, find a disturbing letter from Laura to her late brother, a serial beheader of blonds, and fax a copy back to M. While they're coupling in Bond's room, the letter itself is stolen, and M, citing the ``grave moral scandal'' (so much for updating Bond's morality), ostensibly removes Bond from duty. Back in England for Laura's funeral, Bond notices a bizarre floral tribute--a red-tipped white rose--linking Laura's death to four other recent assassinations, and to the flower's only breeder: Maeve Horton, sister of Laura's onetime fianc , distinguished actor David Dragonpol. There follow the requisite scenes of tourist-trap mayhem--at Schloss Drache, Dragonpol's Alpine aerie, atop the roof of the Duomo in Milan, and at EuroDisney, where the murderer has planned one last, ultra-high-profile strike--but Gardner's lack of conviction reduces everything to retro-fluff. Bond really isn't cut out for the work of tracking down serial killers, even the ones whose targets include Yasir Arafat and Kiri Te Kanawa. As Gardner struggles to update the perils his superstar hero faces, Bond himself remains the biggest anachronism of all. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 140913573X
• ISBN 13: 9781409135739
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256