Summary-James Bond is on his way to visit M. When he arrives at M's house, he is quickly taken at gunpoint by strange M. These men have drugged M, and killed the Hammonds, the two kindly people who looked after his house. Bond escapes, but M is kidnapped and taken out of the country. A note was found on one of the men Bond managed to incapacitate that led to Greece. Bond goes to Greece, and gets in trouble pretty soon. However, he ends up getting accidentally saved when he is "kidnapped" by the KGB. A girl named Ariadne leads him to her superior, who is having trouble with the same people who kidnapped M. With Ariadne's help, and the help of a local Greek who used to be part of the Greek army that fought the Italians when they invaded Greece in 1940, Bond discovered that Colonel Sun, on behalf of the People's Republic of China, is going to destroy a Russian council meeting, and blame M and Bond. However, Bond manages to escape torture and certain death, and stops Colonel Sun. My Grade- C+ Kingsley Amis keeps the Bond tradition alive, and his book is good. The book is more involved than most of Fleming's. You have to pay attention if you want to not miss a lot. The book is mature, and has lots of action. However, I feel that it is missing the light-hearted fun of Fleming's novels. I could easily see how someone could argue that Amis's Bond novel is as good as any of Fleming's. The two writers just have a different feel. I like Fleming's better. Best Moment-The best scene is very early in the novel, when Bond arrives at M's house. Despite having no gun, four men trying to sedate, and being drugged, Bond fights off three men, breaking one of there noses, and dives from a second story window to escape. Then he manages to lose them in the woods and tell the police what happened. Also Notable-The torture scene is very good. Amis's torture chapter matches any of Fleming's, except the "maze" from Dr. No. That's the best ever.
