Never Send Flowers

James Bond (Original Series), Book 13

By: John Gardner

Narrated by: Simon Vance

In different corners of the world four high-profile figures are assassinated in less than a week. Nobody links the deaths but one thing is certain: each of them has been stalked, sought out, and killed with care and preparation. Then a sinister connection is established: a single, blood-tipped rose is sent to each funeral and an unremarkable female agent is murdered in Switzerland.

When MI5 come to MI6 to ask for help M brings in his best. At first, a weekend abroad seems tempting to James Bond: especially when he's paired with Flicka von Grusse, a gorgeous Swiss intelligence officer. But this is a perilous assignment that starts with the mysterious actor David Dragonpol and leads them to Athens, Milan, and on to EuroDisney...and an explosive climax.

©1993 Ian Fleming Publications, Ltd. (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. James Bond and 007 are registered trademarks of Danjaq, LLC, used under licence by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.

Interesting Change of Pace

I enjoyed Bond in a bit of a different setting as an investigator rather than spy. It was great to hear him paired with someone who is his equal in skill.

This one was just not there.

I’m going through these books for the first time, although they do appear to vary quality I had a pretty hard time with this one. Too much work to keep a poor story alive, and it almost seemed like the last quarter of the book was product placement

Shameless

The performance was a like. The story was unoriginal and predictable, but the worst part of the story was the shameless promotion of Disneyland.