Major Characters:
James Bond - Bond is coming off of a three month sabbatical after he attempted to kill M while he was brainwashed by the Russians. He is worried he might be losing his touch.
Scarlett Papava Playing as both Larissa Rossi, the wife of a banker and her own twin, Scarlett is much more than she seems.
Dr. Julius Gorner - A "master of all trades", he is highly educated and a wealthy man due to a legitimate pharmaceuticals business. But, with a complex partly due to his abnormal "monkey-like" hand and his hatred of the British, Gorner forms a plan that just might destroy England entirely.
Chagrin - With a face that looks like death itself due to his medical condition, this torture-loving brute joins the ranks of classic Bond henchmen as he serves as Gorner's right hand man.Darius Alizadeh - The head of Persia Station for MI6, he is a lively and bombastic man, reminiscent of Darko Kerim in Istanbul. He is Bond's contact and support while in Persia.
Felix Leiter - Yet again called in from the reserves, this former CIA agent shows up to help Bond yet again.
J.D. "Carmen" Silver - This agent is the CIA's man in Persia. At first it looks like he will be joining Felix and Darius in their supporting roles, but does he have a different agenda?
Summary: Set shortly after the events of The Man With the Golden Gun, Devil May Care picks up with Bond in Rome near the end of an enforced three month sabbatical, during which time he is to convalesce after his brainwashing and decide if he feels he is still fit for service. He meets the attractive and alluring Larissa Rossi, and after he doesn't accept her offer to spend the night with her, Bond fears that maybe he has lost his touch after all.
M calls Bond and recalls him, ending the sabbatical early. Bond is to go to France to look into the death of a link in an opium ring that may lead to something bigger, namely Dr. Julius Gorner, a rich and powerful man with a monkey-like hand deformity, a chip on his shoulder, and a hatred of the English. In France he is almost immediately attacked by men on motorcycles, and has to do some fancy driving to survive to meet Rene Mathis, his long-time French contact. Mathis fills in a bit of the details, but it is Miss Scarlett Papava who turns out to be more helpful. Scarlett is the real name of Larissa, and she followed Bond from Rome to ask his help. Gorner has hooked her sister, Poppy, on drugs and keeps her basically as a slave. In addition for his help in freeing her, Scarlett takes Bond to the country club where Gorner plays tennis. Bond accepts a match, and with some behind-the-scenes help from Scarlett to undo Gorner's cheating, Bond narrowly wins. Now on Gorner's bad side, Bond has to be extra careful as he follows the trail to Persia, where is seems Gorner's "legitimate" pharmacy production may not be so innocent.
Bond meets up with Darius Alizadeh, head of Persia station, and after a little local recreation at the "Paradise Club" , Bond snoops around and discovers thatGorner has an ekranoplan, a new, stealthy aircraft with extensive range. Now suspicious that Gorner is really up to something, Bond returns with Scarlett to take a closer look around, but they are caught. They are taken to the heart of Gorner's factory, where worker's, are making enough heroin to flood England and cause nation-wide addiction, poverty, and crime. Also, Gorner reveals that the ekranoplan is to sneak into the Soviet Union and deliver a nuclear strike on Stalingrad, while a stolen British plane, stolen by a British pilot, is to attack Trekhgornity, their nuclear stockpile. Gorner hopes that with domestic troubles and no help from America, which is mad at the British for their lack of support in Vietnam, England will fall under a soviet attack. Bond is to be the British pilot, while Scarlett is to be given to Gorner's worker's for recreation.
Meanwhile , Leiter and Darius try to contact Langley to get some troops scrambled, but Silver, the local CIA man, stops their transmission and kills Darius. Leiter survives, and manages to get some people to destroy the ekranoplan before is can reach Stalingrad. Bond, with Scarlett's help (with Bond's help she had escaped during the night to board the stolen plane) brings the plane down before it can complete it's mission. Bond and Scarlett, forced to parachute out of the plane (with only one parachute, no less) have to work their way back to Europe. After killing Chagrin on a train and getting some help from some friendly fishermen, they reach Helsinki. Of course, Gorner had followed Bond their, and after a struggle aboard the steamship "Huckleberry Finn" (on loan from America), Bond kills Gorner as well. If all this excitement isn't enough, Bond discovers that Scarlett was not only Larissa, but also her own twin Poppy, as well as the new 004. Bond forgives Scarlett for her necessary deceit, and finally accepts her offer to spend the night.
My Grade: A- This novel does an excellent job of capturing Fleming's style, and, let's face it, fans have been hungering for an adult Bond novel for six years. Gorner and Chagrin live up to the usual Fleming model of mad men deformed in body and mind. The plot stay simple yet engaging. The novel does rush a bit at the end, giving us somewhat mundane ends for Chagrin and Gorner. But, there doesn't always need to be a grandiose ending, and the revelation of Scarlett as 004 helps to add a little fun to the end.
Best Moment: - As with so many Fleming novels, the initial meeting between Bond and the villain occurs over a test of skill where they may size each other up. In this novel, that's a tennis match. Faulks is either a tennis fan or did plenty of research to make this game entertaining. He obviously spent a lot of care and time on it, and it is ultimately a more satisfying battle (and longer, too) that the final one between these two men.
Notable:
*Bond, not a fan of harder drugs, smokes opium with Darius, but, "tries not to inhale."
*Fans of Indiana Jones may take interest in the scene where Bond steals Indy's moves and tells Scarlett where he's hurt, getting her to kiss there. (Yes, I'm sure that this was done many times even before Indiana Jones, but I'm sure I'm not the only person to read this scene and think immediately about Indiana and Marion.)
Quotable:
*"And you, James, I can tell you have the class, the sense of truth in you. My father had a phrase for it. The man who has what it takes, he used to say, is a 'citizen of eternity'." - Darius
*There was a time in life to go forward - to attack - but there was also a time, in Bond's opinion, to get the hell out. Survival lay in knowing which was which. - Narrator
