COLD
ISBN: 9780340657669
Description
A Boeing 747-400 crashes at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, and Bond's friend and lover, the Principessa Sukie Tempesta dies aboard. M sends Bond to investigate.
Bond's mission takes him to Italy, where at the home of the Tempesta brothers, Bond gets caught in the act with one of the brothers' wives.
Reviewed on 9th August 2025
John Gardner's final Bond novel definitely has the feeling of being a finale. It brings back a variety of legacy characters from his earlier novels (although my memory of them is patchy), and twists itself around the events of Seafire and GoldenEye.
But it also feels rushed. Scenes seem to skip past the eyes without having impact, the set pieces don't last very long, and feel repetetive. There's never any feeling of heavy content to it, it just feels like another step on Bond's easy journey to victory, with peril just a minor inconvenience.
That said, it's very readable. That's probably part of why it moves so quickly, and I got through it in only a few days without feeling like there was a need for a pause or breather, which is good.
I've never considered John Gardner one of the best of the (admitedly small pool of) Bond authors, but I have enjoyed revisiting his contributions over the past few years.
