HE SHOULD have been killed long ago. Not by the criminal organisations he fought, or by the 60 Morland Specials he smoked a day, but by a fickle public fed up with his chauvinism, offended by his snobbery and bored with his adventures.
But James Bond is not dead. Somehow the public, brow beaten by the politically correct movement and safe sex campaigns, has continued to glorify 007. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Bond's first appearance in Ian Fleming's thriller Casino Royale and Britain's greatest spy is still foiling criminals in John Gardner's latest book, Death is Forever.
Commissioned by Glidrose Publications Ltd, which owns the copyright to Fleming's stories, Gardner has written a dozen novels featuring James Bond. Author of the acclaimed Herbie Kruger trilogy and The Quiet Dogs, Gardner has updated Bond for the '90s, with a new Bentley Mulsanne Turbo and replacing the Walter PPK with a 9 mm ASP automatic.
But the new books retain Fleming's trademark ingredients: sex and death. Bond still keeps his cool under cover and under the covers. His old enemies Smersh and Spectre, transmogrified from heavy Russians into swarthy Arabs, consistently send beautiful killers to sleep with and then attempt to assassinate Bond.
And M still presides over the service, warning his surrogate son the new EEC is ''a hotbed of villainy''.
In the latest Bond instalment, Gardner pays homage to his mentor's penchant for camp names by pairing 007 with CIA operative Elizabeth Zara, known in espionage circles as ''Easy''. It is a Bondism that Gardner has preserved in his 11 books. The favouriteweapons master Q was replaced in Licence Renewed by a beautiful woman dubbed with gleeful chauvinism as Q'te.
