A review by andrew_j_r
The Man With the Golden Gun by Ian Fleming

2.0

I confess that I was slightly underwhelmed by this one.
I really enjoyed the last three books, they made up a trilogy of tales concerning Blofeld. What is irritating about this one is that the story I really wanted to read about was what happened between this book and the last.
This starts with a brainwashed Bond attempting to kill M. I would’ve liked to have seen the brainwashing process, and the book ending with this attempt. What we actually got was the attempt, followed by a very quick recovery that we don’t even get to see in which he is cured, then put on a dangerous mission that will prove whether he is still the man he needs to be. It’s very wishy-washy and the whole brainwashing thing was glossed over far too quickly.
We then get a fairly average story In which Bond returns to Jamaica, somewhere we have seen so many times before in these books it kind of feels like the writer couldn’t be bothered to research anything and just used a locale he already knew well. The story is not that exciting and the end is predictable. It is a shame that this is the final novel in the series, I’m sure the short stories that follow it are fine and I will read them, but as the final full novel it ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Rather disappointing.