Double Or Die

Notes:

Reading a series of Young Bond books, I was guardedly looking out for coy references to Martinis shaken and not stirred, beautiful girls with outrageous names, and licenses to kill. I must admit to being surprised so far. (Unless you can count a horse called “Martini” whose girl rider is called “Lawless Wilder”). The series is almost disappointingly determined not to mine its own future with knowing winks, and concentrates instead on the trials and tribulations of a not unrealistic schoolboy. No inventor friend whose name begins with “Q”, no young female companion with the surname Moneypenny. James is perhaps more courageous and daring than most of his contemporaries, but far less so than, say, Alex Rider.

The James Bond franchise itself, at least in its film incarnation, is effectively timeless. The internal evidence of a story may tie it to an historical moment, but the basic conceit of the debonair Bond dashing to defeat the bad guys, foil a villainous plan, and save the world works outside any real chronology. In contrast, the Young Bond is tied to inter-War Eton, and somehow this brings James' exploits down to earth. I'm sure there is literary license taken with the descriptions and facts, and once or twice you wonder: would he have known that? But the social setting is realistic and interesting. The attitudes of the different social classes to each other; the regulations at school including the ration of coal and the fagging system; the readiness of adults to allow youngsters to drive fast cars; and the legal prohibition of gambling.

In particular there is a smattering of social commentary. James is not rich, but he does go to Eton, and in contrast the family of his friend Red Kelly lives in poverty, their father unable to get stable work and turning to drink. The Eastenders live several to a bed in conditions of squalor and a single large room in a discarded cruise ship is grander than anything they've ever encountered. On a different level, Sir John Charnage is an embittered survivor of the Gallipoli campaign who feels he was lied to by his military and political leaders, only to discover that the “inhuman” Turks were just young men like himself. None of this should be eye-opening to any youngster reading books these days: poverty and the hardships it brings, and the true plight of young men fighting for their country are both common themes among socially-themed books. But it's interesting to see it within what is essentially an action-driven book.

In some respects this story is not for the squeamish. One of a pair of vicious hoodlums loses part of his anatomy every time he and James clash. If I have a slight regret, it is that the two sides of this nasty pair of East End brothers do not really reconcile. One moment they're truly vicious, wielding bayonet-laden guns and spouting sadistic banter. The next they're grumbling like an old married couple. I imagine this was intended to lighten up an otherwise dark aspect of the story, but it doesn't quite work for me. And they both do die quite gruesomely.

More so in this story than in either of the previous two in the series, James relies on his friends: Pritpal, Perry & Tommy from school; and Red Kelly and his sister Kelly Kelly (!) from the East End. Somewhat unrealistically, when James turns up at chez Kelly half-dead, the entire neighbourhood turns out to buy him a drink on account of his actions in Scotland (in Silverfin). Red & his sister do everything they can for James, but his Eton friends are no less generous on his behalf. James himself, in spite of terrible mistreatment at the hands of Charnage and his men, drives himself on to rescue a kidnapped teacher and to undo whatever dealings Sir John Charnage has with the Russians. It verges on the unrealistic, not least because James is never quite sure what the bad guys' plan really is, but it is at least an admirable example of fortitude in the face of adversity!