This latest addition to the James Bond canon includes virtually all the
requisite components, from an evil villain with a diabolical plot to exotic
settings and beautiful women. But what's missing is the biggest piece of all:
Bond himself. This time around, Benson's Bond is strangely inert; he lacks
the suavity, verve and wit that have made him one of the most engaging heroes
in genre fiction. The story line is compelling enough: 007 is in Japan to baby-
sit the British prime minister at a summit conference and to investigate
mysterious deaths in the McMahon family, whose patriarch ran pharmaceutical
giant CureLab. Bond reunites with an aging Tiger Tanaka, who featured in Ian
Fleming's You Only Live Twice, as they pursue Goro Yoshida, the terrorist who
links both parts of Bond's mission. Yoshida is a clich. monomaniacal and
merciless but an interesting one, bent on using biological weapons to punish
Western society for polluting traditional Japanese culture. He even has an evil
dwarf sidekick, Junji Kon, the knife-wielding embodiment of a kappa, a mythical
creature in Japanese folklore. The other Bond tropes are present: love interests
(Reiko Tamura, Tanaka's colleague; and Mayumi, the sole survivor of the McMahon
family), cinematic action and gadgets (including a Palm Pilot packed with
plastic explosive). But it's Bond himself who propels readers along, and here
he is a mere facsimile of the real thing.

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