Summary

John Gardner’s sixteenth James Bond novel is also his last, published in 1996.

In this white-knuckle 007 thriller, John Gardner leads master spy James Bond on a four-year search for terrorists in the skies – and into a deadly nest of doomsday killers.

The night that Flight 229 is torn apart at Washington’s Dulles Airport, killing all 435 passengers aboard, a mission begins that will become an obsession for James Bond.

Who is responsible for destroying the aircraft? Was it a straightforward act of terrorism against a British-owned symbol? An assassination aimed at only one person. A ruthless attempt to put the airline out of business? for Bond, only one of the victims matters: his former lover and old friend, the Principessa Sukie Tempesta.

The search for Sukie’s killers will turn out to be the most complex and demanding assignment of Bond’s career. Across continents and through ever-changing labyrinths of evil, he follows the traces of clues into the centre of a fanatical society more deadly than any terrorist army. Its code name is COLD: the Children of the Last Days. What he finds there could very well spell his own last days.

For the final time, John Gardner propels James Bond squarely into the path of high adventure, danger and non-stop excitement.

John Gardner was a British journalist and best-selling author who published over 50 books.  He died in Hampshire in 2007.