I am desperately trying to find something nice to say about John Gardner’s Seafire, but there’s no point pretending – I just didn’t like the book. It lapses back into formulaic territory with a storyline about a Nazi megalomaniac called Max Tarn who wants to rule the world. Interestingly Bond has Flicka von Grusse for a sidekick in the book; for those of you of you not in the know Flicka is a character from the previous book Never Send Flowers. This book opens with Bond and Flicka recreating a scene from Titanic and really doesn’t get any better from that point onwards.

The fact that Bond intends to marry Flicka is about the only original piece of plotting in this book and is quite a surprise to find that she is not killed off in the final pages. Felix Lieter also makes an appearance towards the end of the book and Gardner sets the scene for M to be replaced by a woman in the next book which is an adaptation of Goldeneye; and hopefully be a little more enjoyable than this disastrously lame outing.

Strangely enough this book would probably make a rather jolly film – but I’m now a ‘new Bond’ (i.e. post-Bourne) convert and it would only work as a farcical Roger Moore vehicle.

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