Gardner, John (Edmund) - John A. Barnes

JOHN A. BARNES

License Renewed is a return to the "classic" Bond story that Ian Fleming himself eventually grew weary of, his weariness resulting in aberrations such as The Spy Who Loved Me. Anton Murik, international nuclear physicist and Laird of Murcaldy, is the brilliant and extremely unattractive villain…. Mary Jane Mashkin, Murik's female sidekick, is no Rosa Klebb or Irma Bunt, but she is serviceable. The heroine, Lavender Peacock (a name I am sure Ian Fleming would have been proud of), is a conventional Bond heroine, not one of the semi-equals that have been showing up in the films of late…. [Bond] does not seem to be so witty or quite so charming as he used to be. But, needless to say, Bond escapes from a good many impossible situations on his way toward foiling the bogus Laird of Murcaldy's plan to seize six of the world's nuclear power plants. License Renewed is a good solid thriller, guaranteed to entertain, and it bodes well for...

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