I finally got around to finishing my collection of John Gardner’s original Bond novels. He wrote 13 original novels and two movie novelizations between 1981 and 1996.
I've never been a huge fan of Gardner, but I stumbled on Seafire in a used bookstore a couple of months ago, then realized I was just three novels away from having the set. It took a few eBay orders, but I finally got it completed.
(And you can call it sacrilege, but I highly approve of Gardner putting Bond in a Saab 9000 Turbo. I've always had a thing for them.)
Red Sparrow (2013)
I got stuck in Boston due to weather, so I asked AI to recommend a spy novel. It came up with Red Sparrow, which was the 2013 basis for the movie starring Jennifer Lawrence.
I tore through the book in about 24 hours. It was spectacular, and I’m currently nursing a “narrative hangover” from it.
I picked up Red Storm Rising yesterday, and quickly got completely engrossed in it. I have read it, but I was in high school, close to 40 years ago. It was published in 1986.
The first section of the book (I’m 150 pages in) is an absolute masterclass of intelligence gathering. Bob Toland and others in the U.S. intelligence community put together a series of clues that indicate the Soviets are about to launch an attack on West Germany. The awareness comes about slowly and methodically, as they put the puzzle together, piece by piece.
Clancy does great job of zooming in and out, from huge geopolitical machinations down to very human stories. Soviet armies and navies assemble for a surprise attack… but then one man doesn’t look both ways before crossing the street, and a piece of paper he was carrying causes the U.S. to go to DEFCON 2.
I’m absolutely hooked, which is weird considering I know how the book plays out. It’s also inconvenient when the target of an addiction is a 638-page novel. There go my evenings for a while.
