Guess who’s back? ( besides Mike ) It’s the Communists! It’s over seven years later, and instead of a dive or seedy bar, we find Mike in the gutter, drunk and sickly, never having recovered from the apparent death of his secretary and love, Velda. A couple of beat cops find him and take him to Pat’s. There he’s slapped around by Pat (!) cleaned up and sent over to the hospital where a dying man has asked for him and only him. As the man is dying he reveals that Velda is alive. Not revealing this information, he begins to look for her, and in the process, the killer of agent Cole (man who died in hospital). He has help from Agent Rickerby of the FBI, working unofficially, who provides information, as well as all necessary paperwork for Mike to carry a rod. Apparently, Velda got herself mixed up in some espionage work behind the Iron Curtain and has been avoiding death ever since. Death has a name in this book, and it calls itself ‘The Dragon’. Mike, through his actions becomes first priority on the death list.

Now there is one thing he has promised Rickerby and that is to leave the Dragon alive, so that Rickerby himself can put him away and watch him rot, day after day in prison. If I were Rickerby, I wouldn’t hold my breath. This is another good book, with a great beginning. The relationship between Pat, Mike and Velda is a very interesting one, where unknown feelings surface, and things get kind of ugly. The Velda background was also intriguing, something I’m sure everyone’s been a bit curious about. I’d love to know what Moneypenny’s background was, since I’ve always wanted to see her and Bond get together. The one scene that stands out in my mind, however, is when he’s reprimanding a woman about gun care. His description of the consequences of certain actions is really graphic, far more graphic than I was prepared for. I was actually surprised by how really mean he came across during that scene. Overall, I’d recommend this book, that scene notwithstanding.