Summary

The sixth James Bond novel by John Gardner, published in 1987.

James Bond is back – in his deadliest assignment ever! Brutal murders are occurring with alarming similarity in the English countryside: after two strangled bodies with severed tongues are found near London, James Bond learns from a hasty briefing with M that the victims were once members of Operation Cream Cake – double agents against SMERSH, whom he had helped smuggle out of East Germany five years before. But something has gone badly wrong. To save the survivors, who are clearly earmarked for ritual killings, Bond must smoke out the traitor among them. As always there is a catch, but this time M’s own head is on the line and Bond must succeed alone, with no help from anyone in the department.

This time, as the title suggests, there will be no deals.

With little to go on, Bond rescues the beautiful Heather Dare from the same fate as her fellow operatives. Together, in a race against the clock, Bond and Heather slip into Ireland to save the next intended victim, only to realise that they face an even more deadly opponent: Kolya Chernov (code name: Blackfriar), who heads the newly reorganised, newly menacing SMERSH. Jetting to Hong Kong to ferret Chernov out of his lair, a weaponless Bond becomes the quarry of four armed and vicious assassins in a hellish re-imagining of gladiatorial combat.

From it’s slam-bang opening to its breathless climax, No Deals, Mr Bond is a roller coaster of a read packed with surprising twists, in which people never are who or what they seem – except for the ever infallible James Bond.

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