So yeah, all in all, I will say that it’s entertaining for a good portion of the book, but is rather frustrating at times as you feel the book get stretched further and further. It’s a solid entry into the Spike Berenger series, but when all is said and done, A Hard Day’s Death was clearly the better of the two. All that said, I do hope Raymond Benson gets the opportunity to carry on the series because there is a huge amount of potential here. The characters are good, the rock ‘n’ roll premise is still fresh and unique – I just can’t say I’m not eagerly awaiting a third book. The short story “On The Threshold of a Death” (“A Spike Berenger Rock ‘n’ Roll Hit Single”) will hopefully tide me over.

A Hard Day’s Death is a damn good read and a real page turner. I quite enjoyed it, though I must say that while I was really into it, the ending wasn’t as great as I would have liked. The problem is Spike being an actual private investigator for about 80% of the book then the final 20% becoming something more, something like a watered-down James Bond. I hate to say it. The book just didn’t feel like an action book at all, but that’s where it eventually went. Nothing too wrong with that, I guess. All in all though, A Hard Day’s Death is a thrilling and unique read. I could say that those that dig music a lot will really take to it, and that’s probably true, but I don’t really consider myself one of those – not like Benson, and I enjoyed it. So there you go.

I should have posted this review back in May or even June / July, but I didn’t. Too busy with all the Devil May Care news, and afterwards I was too burnt out to really even want to think about Bond too much. In any case, I might as well just post it up for anyone still on the fence about this book.

There are many non-fiction books that detail the life of Ian Fleming or the life and legacy of his creation James Bond, and admittedly it’s hard for any author to take this subject and forge their own path covering new ground or offering up never before seen images because it’s pretty much already been done. For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming + James Bond by Ben Macintyre is not a biography about Ian Fleming. It’s not a detailed book about James Bond, his exploits and his legacy. It touches on all those things, but this book is an investigation of the lives of Fleming and Bond and how their real and fictional lives intersect.

I think to fairly review this book for this website I have to essentially do it twice from differing perspectives. The first review, to be frank, would say this book doesn’t really cover any new ground. It’s a summation of many books that came before it, notably John Pearson’s The Life of Ian Fleming, Kingsley Amis’ The James Bond Dossier, Andrew Lycett’s Ian Fleming, and Henry Chancellor’s James Bond The Man and His World, among others. That’s not really a bad thing, but I don’t believe there’s a whole lot of information within its 224 pages (many of which are reserved for large images and overleafs) that I would deem to be really worthwhile for a die hard James Bond fan that owns or has read the books I listed above. Of course if you are that die hard James Bond fan that has read the above books then you’ll probably read this one too rendering at least half of this review moot.

The second review would say that it does rather well what it set out to do and is greatly suitable for those that have not read those other books and are just looking for more insight on James Bond and his author. This book was published to coincide with the Imperial War Museum’s exhibition on James Bond and for most of those visitors this is an excellent companion.

To analyze Fleming’s inspirations for Bond and his adventures, the book generally follows Fleming’s life starting with information on his birth and his family and moving quickly into his wartime Naval Intelligence years where a good chunk of Fleming’s inspirations probably come from. After Fleming has a few Bond books under his belt, Macintyre changes tactics and begins focusing in on what Bond films and novels are greatly known for: beautiful women, fast cars, amazing gadgets and weaponry before returning and culminating in the grand finale where Fleming’s short life ends and Bond’s eternal life and legacy begins reaching new heights.

Standing out in the book are the images. It doesn’t offer too many new images that we haven’t seen before especially if you’ve read Henry Chancellor’s James Bond The Man and His World, but when it does showcase a picture it does so very big and in high quality. These images are not specific to just Fleming and the Bond novels, it also includes many images from the films, most notably Daniel Craig’s blood-stained shirt from Casino Royale. (Another is of Q’s traveling case erroneously marked as being from A View to a Kill) It is worth noting that on page 204 Macintrye mentions all the official actors to have played Bond and says of Lazenby that he is “laconic, humourless and perhaps closest to Fleming’s Bond.” There are numerous images throughout the book and every actor has a picture or two or more, well every actor except Lazenby. Kind of a shame given the book’s focus.

It’s a solid book. Well-written, stylishly illustrated, and it does exactly what it set out to do, and for probably 90% of all Bond fans out there it’s a satisfying reading experience. Even if you’re not much of a fan, the book does a fine job of introducing you to Fleming and giving you an inside look into his greatest legacy. For those remaining 10% they may see where the book comes up short, but they like myself will likely read it anyway and probably have no regrets because they are that die hard James Bond fan.

Awhile back I read and wrote this review for The Battle For Bond by Robert Sellers. I never published it due to the banning of the first edition. With the recent release of the second edition (see Amazon.co.uk), I dusted off my review to essentially let you read my opinion on a topic and a book that you should have already read by now. Any and every Bond fan should read this book.

Up until very recently there has always been a thorn in the side of cinema’s most successful, profitable, and enduring franchise. His name was Kevin McClory. For over forty years he tried again and again to bring Thunderball to the big screen – chasing the same dream he accomplished in 1965. I’ll admit right here that I’ve never had a good opinion of Kevin McClory, I never liked him and because of that I was slightly hesitant to read The Battle For Bond by Robert Sellers for fear of it having an unfair pro-McClory slant. If you read non-fiction James Bond books, there’s always a topic that gets shied away from and that is the grand and fascinating story of Thunderball. It rarely gets discussed and unfortunately when it does we only really read what Eon Productions pretty much lets you read, and lets face it for the subject it’s rarely if ever objective. Not only that, but the information that most people know or think they know is often incredibly inaccurate. Fortunately for Bond fans everywhere Robert Sellers does a fantastic job of presenting the facts of the Thunderball case as objectively as possible from all angles including those forgotten such as Ivar Bryce, Ernest Cuneo and most unfortunate of all Jack Whittingham.

That’s where the story begins. The formation of a partnership between Ivar Bryce and Kevin McClory on a film production called The Boy and the Bridge. Later Ian Fleming is brought in and he decides to let his good friend of many years (Bryce) use Bond for his next film and it’s at this point that James Bond was changed forever. The story goes on into all the script writing woes for which I never knew Fleming had so much involvement – and Kevin McClory really so little. This all culminates when Fleming makes the biggest boneheaded decision of his life, when he adapted the Thunderball scripts into a novel and didn’t give credit where credit was due. Mainly, Jack Whittingham. It should be noted that this isn’t the first time Fleming did that, the previous times resulted in Dr. No and the For Your Eyes Only collection, however these were wholly his. After the novel, for Ian, everything sort of went downhill, not the least his health due to the stress that the Thunderball case later put on him. A lot of people blame McClory and the case for Ian’s early death, but I never really saw it that way. It was Fleming’s lifestyle, his smoking of 70 cigarettes a day and however much alcohol he consumed on a regular basis. Add in the stress from the case and unfortunately his heart became a ticking time bomb.

The Battle For Bond goes into considerable depth of the actual case itself that ultimately awarded McClory the film rights to Thunderball. The book is also a fairly in-depth “Making-Of” for both Thunderball and Never Say Never Again, and even goes into scripts for further possibe Thunderball remakes that never were. This part of the book is really worth the price alone. We’re talking wild ideas here, like SPECTRE commandeering the Statue of Liberty. It’s nuts, but it could have been fairly entertaining. It really makes you think that maybe if McClory hadn’t been so obsessed with Thunderball and James Bond that he could have gone on to produce some real entertaining movies. McClory made millions off of Thunderball, he could have done anything, but he blew it all and in the end owed considerable amounts of money to people. That’s the McClory I knew. The guy who screwed over his friends and those that were loyal to him to make the movie he took far too much credit for, even later suing for billions claiming to be the owner of the cinematic Bond. A joke, really.

All in all The Battle For Bond is a fantastic read for all James Bond fans, literary and film. It’s well investigated, documented and includes several new interviews from the likes of Ken Adam, Irvin Kershner, Len Deighton, Guy Hamilton, and Jack Whittingham’s daughter Sylvan Whittingham Mason among many others. The book is really a must read for all Bond fans.

The story begins with Greenberg being asked to retrieve the contents of her deceased grandfather’s safety deposit box in Dublin due to the bank’s recent sale and impending closure. When she arrives she finds out the content is a manuscript written in 1963/1964 by “Ian Fleming” to her explaining a huge secret that could have damaging implications if the information was ever released. “Fleming” leaves it to her because he was friends with her grandfather and because by the time she is of age to understand any of it, the main players of “the secret” will supposedly be long dead. Unfortunately, because of the sale and closure of the bank, Amy receives the manuscript early and thus the main players of “the secret” are not all dead. Before getting to this secret though Fleming feels compelled to tell the entire background of what’s going on. This is lengthy. It should be noted that Amy starts reading the manuscript around page 30 and by page 100 the reader (this is you and me) are still reading this Fleming manuscript with practically zero character or plot development. We learn that between readings Amy slept in a hotel and flew on a plane, but yeah, not much else, and because she’s traveling she just might as well read. So back we go. Fast forward to – I don’t know page 250 maybe. “Fleming” is still going on with the background to this huge “secret” and still there isn’t much character and plot development, but things start picking up finally. This is good because the book is now almost over.

Above all this story just has poor character and plot development. There’s really nothing in the story outside of “Fleming’s” manuscript that makes you want to really stick with it. Amy is obsessed about her upcoming marriage to her fiancé, but beyond a short phone call he doesn’t even enter the picture till the book is practically over. Maybe this is a good thing considering most of the characters are rather dull and cliché. It really is a book about a woman reading another book. It’s not all bad, some of what “Fleming” wrote is interesting, but other times, a lot of times, it’s rather boring or ridiculous including the “secret”, which by the time you get to it is rather anticlimactic. Mitch Silver is not a bad author no matter how much I might have made it sound. He took a difficult plot to work with and forged a somewhat unique path with it. Less background by “Fleming”, more character and plot development and he would have had something, but I guess at that point, the comparison between In Secret Service and The Da Vinci Code would have been far more reasonable.

Check out this book’s listing and other reviews on Amazon.com