Loxfinger

Israel Bond may seem like a simple-if-sexy salesman for Mother Margolies’ Old World Chicken Soup, but when the Holy Land needs his skills – his quickness with a pun, his second-to-none semitic seduction techniques, and (if absolutely necessary) his abilities at actual espionage – then the man known by the code name Oy-Oy-7 (licensed not only to kill, but to say prayers over the corpse) is there to do what needs be done. In a land surrounded by its enemies, Oy-Oy-7 is called on to guard the nation’s great benefactor, the generous but odd Lazarus Loxfinger. Is there more to Loxfinger than meets the eye? Bond aims to find out, even if doing so requires sleeping with dozens of exotic beauties! In the mid-1960s, when Playboy was serializing the adventures of the world’s most famous superspy, they interspersed them with the rollicking adventures of Israel’s most hilarious weapon, Israel Bond. After the book editions of what the Chicago Tribune called “probably the funniest secret agent parodies ever written” had sold over a million copies, they were allowed to fall out of print. Decades later, all four books in the Israel Bond series are now back in new editions!

We asked Sol Weinstein, author of the Hebrew Secret Agent Israel Bond (Oy Oy Seven) thrillers to describe his fulsome career in three sentences. They are: 1 1/2 - 3 months for kiting checks ... 2 1/2 months for illegally checking kites at a Tokyo kids' fair ... and 1 week for pushing Stepan Novotny, infamous forger, from the top of the Prague National Bank. (The Czech bounced.) In addition to Oy Oy Seven's capers in Loxfinger, Matzohball, On the Secret Service of His Majesty the Queen, and You Only Live Until You Die, he wrote a highly sentimental set of music and lyrics to "The Curtain Falls", sung by Kevin Spacey in the biopic Beyond the Sea in his role as Bobby Darin. Sol currently resides in New Zealand, is a member of Temple Sinai in Wellington, and pronounces a favourite ethnic food as "kiegel", not "kugel".