Harwood’s introduction comes as she pulls his arse out of the fire with style and deadly competency, reminding me of Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow in the Marvel movies. I was looking forward to reading this book as a new development in the Bond canon and was happy with the new additions to the roster of Double OO agents reflecting as they did the realities of modern entertainment and society. The plot is interesting with issues like climate change being raised but the pacing is slow at times that it takes so much time for a build up.

They’d do well to learn from this and have Bond being Bond and introducing new characters which break from the white male stereotype. Double Or Nothing is the first in a trilogy of novels, licenced by Ian Fleming Publications, featuring agents from the Double O section. Even having to include or mention these characters in the book , seemingly to please an audience is in itself out dated. Harwood, Dryden and Bashir are tasked with an investigation into the flamboyant tech billionaire, Sir Bertram Paradise, whose claims to be able to reverse the climate change crisis have been hitting the headlines around the world.

The world of Bond is in expert hands’ Tim Glister, author of Red Corona --This text refers to the paperback edition. As Judi Dench’s M so succinctly summed it up in 1995’s GoldenEye: “[James Bond is] a sexist, misogynist dinosaur.

Author and life-long 007 fan Kim Sherwood's mission begins with a hunt for a missing James Bond and introduces a host of new Double Os – pulling the agency kicking and screaming into the 2020s with a, perhaps, box ticking exercise. Het is enigszins rommeling maar dat is het gevolg van de keuze van Kim Sherwood om de focus te leggen op het denkproces van de protagonisten. It makes the characters far less believable when each of them swoons at the name of Bond and remember the words he said to them in painful detail. Growing up, 007 films were my favourite, so when I was gifted an e-arc of this book I couldn’t say no.

Stylish, explosive, fresh and fun, Kim Sherwood takes one of the world’s most beloved series and makes it her own. And they’re all living under the shadow of the day 003 limped back from a mission minus their friend and mentor, the Double O section’s most famous asset, James Bond, the legendary 007. Overall, kudos to the author as the major plot line is a good one and it does improve and become more pacey as the book progresses and as you become more familiar with the characters. Lastly, "pulling the taffy" (to quote the American idiom) - 007 is not recovered at the end of the book. Kim Sherwood’s first novel, Testament (2018), won the Bath Novel Award and Harper’s Bazaar Big Book Award.

If you're looking for a new Bond book to read this year go for Anthony Horowitz's superb and far superior 'With a Mind to Kill'. This Moneypenny is drawn more from the recent Daniel Craig era of the 007 film world, where Moneypenny herself was once a Double 00. Tech billionaire Sir Bertram Paradise claims he has developed new cutting-edge technology capable of reversing climate change and saving the planet. Double or Nothing has plenty of feints and misdirection and at times I was anything but certain who was on the side of the angels and who had done a deal with the devil. Those interweaving narratives are not always as gripping as each other and parts of the conclusion feel hurried.

Each evening I picked this one up I had to go back a chapter to get back into the confusing story line.

This put me off a bit tbh, as I had to Google army terms and abbreviations every once in a while and after a point I gave up. All the ingredients of a James Bond are present, international conspiracy, evil organisation, car chases, fights. This book is more possible than the You g Bond series in which James pulls of stuff that would give Enid Blyton's the five nightmares for life. With cameo by Bond in passing shadows or flashbacks, in here we followed three titular characters: 003 Johanna Harwood, 004 Joseph Dryden and 009 Sid Bashir as they try to save the world. Ian Fleming mentioned plenty of brand names in his novels, but Sherwood seems to have an odd obsession with wristwatches.When a slippery billionaire claims he can reverse the climate crisis and James Bond has been captured by enemy forces, a trio of MI6's finest agents are sent to investigate in this pulsating spy thriller set in the world of 007.