Double or Nothing

 

Written by Kim Sherwood and Reviewed by Noreen In Her Cell

Time to revisit the man who started it all, and with the exception of the kind people at SquareSpace, no one else bears more responsibility for the creation of the Crime Carnival than the world’s most famous spy.  We last saw 007 in OHMSS, the Charlie Higson novella, and With a Mind to Kill before that, the final 007 novel in the Anthony Horowitz trilogy.  Both were enjoyable.  Both exceeded the Carnival’s expectations.  Both were Bond.

What’s that you say about Double or Nothing, the latest dossier from the Fleming estate penned by the esteemed Kim Sherwood?  This 007 novel doesn’t have any 007 in it?  The Carnival will allow it.  Just because Halloween III stunk like rotten pumpkins without Michael Myers in it and just because the last Creed movie stunk worse than sweaty hole-riddled grey sweatpants without Rocky in it doesn’t necessarily mean this will follow suit.  Maybe Kim Sherwood knows something we don’t.  In fact, one of the most infamous spy novels of all time – From Russia With Love – is notorious primarily for two reasons:  JFK dug it and James Bond, the main character in the James Bond franchise, doesn’t show up in the 192 page James Bond book until well after the 60th page of James Bond plot.

But of course it was 007’s dramatic and fashionably late entrance (among other things, like it being the last movie both JFK and Ian Fleming allegedly ever saw) that elevated the book to its history altering status.  Surely, this first time Bond, James Bond writer wouldn’t sideline her stud a pasture away for the entire book while attempting to break into the Fleming fraternity?  It’s not just presumptuous to opt for such an endeavor, but it’s flat out ignorant, right?  Perhaps even arrogant?  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, for those are the kinds of adjectives the villains and henchman historically use to describe Mr. Bond about 10-25 pages before they meet their demise.

Alas.  Behold all ye mighty and despair, for the story before you is merely a Superman book insisting all of its interchangeable Kryptonians are in fact more interesting than your familiar hero, a figure so famous he spawned a genre that’s still one of the most profitable (aka copied) tales told to this day. 

A Bondless James Bond novel has the Carnival feeling like a diabetic booking a vacation to Hershey, Pennsylvania.  Just don’t see the point.  But it’s been too darn long since the last James Bond spy novel, so apprehension be damned let’s get started.

To the author’s credit, the book begins like all of the other 007 novels, continuation or otherwise, and that’s just the familiar warm bath that was needed.  Sid Bashir – 009 – begins on some mission to retrieve another 00. 003 in fact, and her name is Justina Harwood.  Bashir has a history with 007 – as does Justina, confirming that she is not only a woman, but likely an attractive one – and Bashir failed 007 on a previous mission.  Between the lingering guilt and his default setting of defiance a la James, Sid ignores the directive from Moneypenny when the mission goes sideways and perseveres regardless.  So this is our protagonist, right? 

And here, mere pages into our tale, the petri dish of problems with this book begin to divide and multiply.  Since James Bond isn’t in it, then who is the main character?  Surely, it must be this 009 character!  He opens the book and he acts like James.  Not so fast my friend, 003 will quickly establish herself as the protagonist navigating our heroic journey.  Oh wait, now another 00 just showed up and his name is Dryden and he feels awfully heroic.  Plus, it turns out 003 was a traitor so it’s definitely not her.  Nope, wrong again, she wasn’t a traitor, she had planned to be a triple agent this whole time; Moneypenny gave her the order in fact.

Hold up. Moneypenny?  How is she giving orders?  That’s right, she’s in charge now.  M has moved on (with the highest honors of course).  And here’s the thing: absolutely love this idea.  She’s got the experience and the exposure, not to mention she’s been fostering relationships with the current 00’s for years, ensuring transition is smoothest with her.  But then, a chapter or three later, Moneypenny wasn’t in charge anymore.  M was back?  Sort of?  Then M and Moneypenny were reminiscing about M’s of yore, while paying respects in front of Sir Miles Messervy’s grave if not mistaken.  The Carnival seriously could not figure out who was in charge throughout the entire novel.  One chapter it was Moneypenny, and then the next chapter it felt like M.  Then it was M, but via flashback, then back to Moneypenny.  And light spoiler here, but in the final chapters M and Moneypenny lament their failures that transpired surrounding the demise of Tanner, and both made mention of not knowing who was in charge of what and how that may have hindered their timeliness as well as their strategy in sussing out the mole in MI6.  A bit of projection from the author or the editor in this case, but nonetheless what a wildly unsettling detail to have to contend with when trying to enjoy a James Bond novel that relies heavily on the MI6 hierarchy for plot development.

And since we’re speculating on the editor’s notes, the Carnival suspects there was some sort of marching order that expectations must be subverted! and there’s nothing subtle about it when that begins.  Look, readers expect a vague but reliable template when it comes to James Bond novels.  If you want to experiment, then by all means, please do.  Some of the most glorious details to the 007 legend did not come from Fleming.  And sometimes the cobbled on details after the legend is born are so damn good that you have no choice but to retcon.  The first James Bond novel was published in 1955 with an annual caper penned by Ian Fleming for the next dozen or so years.  But it wasn’t until after 1962 – the year Dr. No was released in theatres and Sean Connery was released upon the world – that Bond was suddenly half Scottish in his books.  But the template is there for a reason, not to mention there’s a fine but huge distinction between enriching your story with organic changes versus arbitrarily shuffling around the demographics of your characters in order to appease the social media ronins. 

Suffice to say, the story makes an abrupt turn after such a smooth and familiar start.  Within just a few pages, we are enlightened to the fact that 004, our methadone Bond, is gay. 

And black.

And deaf.

To be clear, the Carnival, despite being a clandestine evil organization, is fine with any or all of these attributes.  Frankly, it creates the potential for more engaging storytelling, and let’s face it, the James Bond franchise certainly isn’t the North Star for diversity and inclusion.  So by all means, let’s change things up.  And promoting Moneypenny to M’s role is a prime example of great change based on organic enrichment.  But it sure seems like we’re trying to impress our audience instead of trying to connect with them with this Dryden fellow. 

To the author’s credit, 004 Dryden being deaf is fantastic segway to the Q character, as he’s able to hear and communicate with his quartermaster despite his hearing disability because of a custom hearing aid that Q developed for him.  What a welcome change from the typical sibling rivalry dynamic that Bond tends to maintain with his quartermasters.  Unfortunately, Q and his hashtag pleasing gadgets end up becoming such a far-fetched lynch pin to the plot later on that the organic enrichment has no choice but to get tossed aside.  (Spoiler:  Dryden has his ex boyfriend punch him in the face hard enough to short circuit the hearing device embedded in him so that Q is alerted that something is amiss, but also not too hard so that the aid inside his head doesn’t fail completely, which would result in killing Dryden because the villain had secretly hacked into his hearing aid without anyone knowing and armed it like a bus in a Speed movie.) 

Another chapter meant to impress instead of connect incoming. Bertram Paradise is maybe the villain. (he’s definitely the villain for the readers, but the characters haven’t figured it out yet). His assistants have mysteriously disappeared and he’s making large odd deposits globally while claiming to be on the brink of solving climate crisis. M (the Moneypenny version) assigns 004 to rekindle with his ex-boyfriend who works with Bertram and to get hired as head of security to learn what’s up. No mention of finding Bond though??  It’s a bit alarming how often Bond gets forgotten in this plot.  It's almost as if this was a spy novel existing in its own fiefdom until the author learned the Fleming estate was hiring, so she fired up the Find & Replace shortcut in her Word doc.

Anyway, we’re back in Q’s lair, and while our characters may be there for third act plot hole neutralizing gadgets, the audience is apparently only there for an avalanche of exposition. Somewhere around five new characters are introduced as they’re chiming in with one non sequitur piece of future plot armor after another while 004 Dryden gets his hearing aids calibrated.  A woman named Mrs. Keaton shows up, and she’s apparently the creator of the Q branch.  The Carnival was unaware of this piece of 007 lore, so no matter how one feels about this book, what a lovely piece of trivia to pick up.  And then right before the chapter ends, another ten or so names get dropped, most of which have no impact later in the story.  It felt like being at a restaurant that’s serving food from an unfamiliar culture, and for the first course they set 12 unrecognizable plates of food with no napkins or silverware in front of you.  And then the one thing you pick up to bite into ends up being the decorative centerpiece.

The next chapter however was one hell of a palette cleanser.  Outstanding prose and probably the pinnacle of the entire book. Harwood 003 sits down with a shrink for an evaluation after her captivity and ensuing escape that we witnessed in the opening chapter. An intense back and forth with equal parts tension and subtext, no small accomplishment for two characters that the audience knows practically nothing about. Readers were shown 003’s background without the boring contrived methods of the previous chapter.  003 has a schizophrenic dad and hates her mom and was a doctor in Beirut when she was recruited. She seems like an idealist. And she’s motivated to find Bond because of his value to England, though MI6 thinks she’s still hung up on him because you know how emotional women are.  Nostalgic misogyny, how sweet. 

We then get a little more insight into both Dryden and the villain when he ingratiates himself to the people in Paradise’s orbit.  Dryden flirts with his ex Luke, the current head of security for Paradise, but gets nowhere.  Then we abruptly jump to a flashback.  M (the male one, not Moneypenny), is playing chess with one of our finalists for the role of protagonist in this novel – Sid Bashir – and M tells Bashir he doesn’t trust Harwood and he wants Sid to propose to her in order to test her allegiances.  (Apparently the author is not familiar with Len Deighton novels). But really, this beat exists just to inform the reader that Bond told Sid something ominous before he disappeared about men making their own luck.

Bashir follows his order and goes to 003 Joanna’s place - some penthouse. They do what 00’s do and when he wakes up, she’s gone. Two people are suddenly shooting at him? It spills outside and all over the property, but somehow no one notices a three-way shootout with a minimum of 10 shots fired in this uppity posh part of London?  Then he’s hiding in a nearby laundromat and Joanna just happens to be there, acting super casual about what just happened and says that those men trying to kill Sid with guns and bullets were just M’s surveillance? Really really shitty super unbelievable chapter that ends up serving as this ah-ha type moment when it’s revealed later in the book that Joanna is actually a triple agent for Moneypenny and not a double agent for her previous captors as M suspected.  In hindsight, this was the point in the book where the mindset went from “only X pages left??” to “still X pages left??”

Luke and Dryden go with Paradise on some flight with a bunch of journalists to some condemned desert in Russia that’s salted and worthless.  Paradise claims he can turn this wasteland into water, and then he pretends to throw some journalist in a giant hole for asking questions??  Really, really didn’t understand this part.  Just kept picturing the scene from 300 where they kicked the messenger into the giant well with Spartan Baby Jessica.  Readers understand there was supposed to be some sort of tension and that perhaps this self-proclaimed hybrid of a demagogue/demigod is not as advertised, as evidenced by how poorly he handles even the slightest bit of scrutiny, much less criticism.  But it did not translate on the page.  It came off more like a Monty Python skit that wasn’t working.

Dryden steals his entourage’s passports and then goes out drinking with Luke. Dryden does what 00’s do, but he doesn’t tell Luke the truth during the pillow talk. Instead, he transmits the passports to Q for further analysis after Luke and Dryden beat up some homophobes.   

Confusing chapter incoming. Tanner meets with Aisha and Ibrahim and Mrs Keaton at a coffee shop, presumably about the passports they received from Dryden.  These were some of the 15-20 people that were haphazardly introduced during the Exposition Festival earlier in the story.  Sir Bertram is confirmed to be bad after their research but also Yuri is someone now? A mean Albanian? Maybe the author realized she needed a henchman.  And there’s a girl Mary Sue Ann too. This was a lazy Susan expo dump of a chapter but the bigger problem was that it created more questions for me instead of answering any of the more relevant ones, like who’s in charge and who are these randoms and what does any of this have to do with JAMES BOND?

Moneypenny meets with Mary Ann, who is apparently a retired agent. She claims the last report she filed to Tanner was adequate despite Tanner saying otherwise the previous chapter. The rattenfagfen thing is back. Oh, that’s right, the Carnival forgot to tell you.  In the first chapter, readers are supposed to be terrified of this sinister evil organization that is only known by some mysterious name that’s German for rat catcher.  They were all the rage in the first two chapters.  And then they weren’t mentioned for like a hundred pages while we were informed that Bertram Paradise but also maybe one of these three 00’s or maybe the 00’s ex-boyfriend Luke were the real villain.  So maybe this Yuri aka Michael is recruiting Sir Bertram to be a rat catcher? Anyway, Moneypenny tells Q to tell 004 to isolate Yuri and kill him.

This author loves to end chapters with rhetorical questions and internal monologue to keep the plot moving or to keep the motive obvious. Show don’t tell…

009 and 003 go to some place to talk to some old friend Ruqsana and she tells the two agents how Zofia Nowak (former Bertram employee, conveniently intimate history with our temporary protagonist for the chapter) was going to whistle blow about Bertram and his climate change farce, then suddenly her out of office reply appeared in lieu of email responses, etc. (To be clear, his climate change solution is the farce – not climate change itself.  So calm down my hashtag tethered friends.)  Parroting the progressive’s point of view on climate change is not a suitable substitute for cohesive writing, no matter how correct or incorrect the position might be.

The agents are at this place with Ruqsana but suddenly there are activists everywhere and cops on the way? The whole point was that she’s missing. She mysteriously disappeared after emails revealed that she wasn’t going to kiss the Bertram Paradise ring.  But no one thought to look for the climate change activist at a climate change rally? Anyway, honestly have no idea where the mob of activists came from.  Ruqsana and the two agents are speaking and then suddenly they’re everywhere, like that scene in Inception where the character played by DiCaprio’s subconscious manifests in every NPC and tries to attack the character played by Page.  Despite fearing for her life because of Betram and being on the run for quite some time, suddenly Ruqsana won’t cooperate with the agents protecting her until “all the activists are safe”.  Then she jokes around after one of them bludgeons a cop to death with a paperweight.  Pandering is the new pandemic. 

Then this whole thing with a fuse box. One second 00 is on it, trying to turn it off or open it up or something so that all the precious activists would be safe.  Then he’s seriously on the phone with some customer service representative from the fuse box company? I could not for the life of me figure out if this was supposed to be humor.  Then a random cop is giving instructions to our brood, then Ruqsana is suddenly somehow vital to do some electronic wiring nonsense in order to save everyone in the building???  It was so utterly ridiculous and confusing.  Couldn’t even tell who was in the room.  The only reason the Carnival can even confirm that there was a room was because there was a fuse box, assuming that means we’re indoors.  All the author seemed to care about was making sure you know that activist good, cop bad.  That part was clear.  The plot and the engaging storytelling, not so much.  Oh, and Zowia told Ruqsana she was skeeved by the other missing Bertram employee, Robert Bull, so she told him she had an imaginary boyfriend….who just so happens to be Felix Leiter.  Phew, we were worried that all this pandering and lack of a clear protagonist and lack of clear antagonist would have negative consequences on the story.  But thankfully this very organic and believable development transpired, so the train is still on the rails.   

The good news:  that chapter is over.

The bad news:  there are still more of them.

Paradise is demoing some other plane with eco engines or whatever that only needs like water or retweets to stay in the air. He makes some $25 billion dollar bet that it’ll work. Legitimately don’t know if it did or not. Let’s assume the author mentioned it, but we didn’t care enough to catch it.  Then the press tried to ask questions again about his plane but they were whisked away. Then Dryden, now a security employee for Bertram, takes out his gun for some reason and now him and Yuri aka Michael are all alone in a desert.  So since the plane took off without them, that means Bertram won the 25B bet about whether it would work?

And now for an entire chapter of Yuri and Dryden fighting. Conceptually, the Carnival always love things like this, especially in a world where Bond once fought Shaw on the Orient Express (how many FRWL references are going to be made?)  Dryden has the upper hand but Yuri pricked him with some nerve gas.  But Q was able to remotely minimize it because of the magical hearing aid somehow. Yuri threatens Dryden with anthrax, remarks they are contracted to kill one another and then says the rat catchers – remember them? - are tired of financially backing Paradise because he’s gone rogue. And also somehow that missing Zowia is the key to everything, not only because she has a Ph. D in pandering but also because she knows stuff. Then Yuri goes full Dr. Evil by dropping anthrax and then just leaving, all the while assuming his execution went to plan.

Even though the last chapter ended with Dryden watching a plane fly away (did the same plane fly away twice?) as Yuri closes the door after dropping anthrax, this chapter begins in a cockpit with Dryden clutching at Yuri. So then they were both on the plane the whole time?  A few chapters ago we couldn’t figure out if we were inside or outside.  And now we have no idea if we are on Earth or in its atmosphere. 

Christ, now Dryden, fresh off an anthrax high, kills Yuri in the plane, then Luke and Paradise conveniently appear to survey the damage. Then Dryden succumbs to his anthrax – also convenient – only to awaken in the hotel where he banged Luke except now Paradise is bedside. The jig is up.  Bertram always knew he was a 00 and tricked Luke into hiring him so that he would kill Yuri for him because he knew the rat catchers had decided to betray him.  Also, as mentioned prior, he magically knew about the deaf thing and used his own Q – named Celestial  - to hack the earpiece and feed him bad intel but also to arm it like a Speed bus.  Celestial is a great name, so there’s that.  Then for some reason the reader needs to know that even though he’s maniacal, Paradise is still fond of Luke because of his loyalty which is waaay out of character for a narcissist this obsessed with outdoing his father.  When you’re pandering so hard that you won’t even let the megalomaniacal murderous villain suggest something negative about a homosexual.  Then Paradise reminds Dryden and the reader that he can make the implant blow up whenever he wants.

Moneypenny visits that Keaton lady and she vouches for Tanner but trashes 007.  Moneypenny finds Bill Tanner and they have a terse chat with both being paranoid about a leak and thus not informing one another as much as they should. Chapter ends with Q telling Moneypenny that 004 has gone dark. At least something interesting happened this chapter…

Another sorely overdue good chapter thanks to Ian Fleming and Felix Leiter. Hardwood meets Felix in Berlin to discuss 007’s disappearance while they size each other up. Oh, that’s right, this is supposed to be a Bond book.  Sid and Ruqsana chased down Zofia leads (off page?) while Justina Hardwood and Felix compare notes at a vacant and romantic lake house that the Germans somehow don’t know about, despite it being next to a large lake in the middle of Germany’s capital.  Felix points out that smart money says either she or Sid betrayed James. They decide to work together nonetheless.  To the author’s credit we were just gifted three solid chapters in a row but they were propped up with multiple Fleming references (disagreed with something that ate him, vesper mention, vodka martini with lemon twist).

Sid and Ruqsana go see this Anya vendor who apparently knew Zofia, but is off the grid (then how did 00 find her?) Anyway, they are tailed and Sid tells Ruqsana to find Felix at the embassy after Anya slips them a card with a name on it. Some guy pricks Ruqsana and kidnaps her? And Sid has disappeared after tussling with the tail. Seems like we’re on to act three.  Let’s hope it’s short.

We’re meant to believe Harwood is the traitor for now. She met with Mora, some rat catcher. They want her to find Robert Bull who they think is a CIA prisoner at the moment and kill him. They also want her to exploit Robert even though she’d only be given access to Bashir - who is currently detained by the rat catchers who are still hunting Bertram because they backed him financially but now he’s rogue. This is an example of bad, bad, so very bad retconning of James Bond lore.  The Fleming books were, at first, relatively straight forward plots.  Somewhere between the theatrical release of Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice did it become a 007 custom for the plot to be convoluted and overly complicated with absolute hogwash third acts. Anyway they’ll give Sid back after Harwood succeeds. 

Dryden and Luke and Paradise are in Macau at the Venetian hotel for some fight. Bertram knows to bet the third round KO. Dryden is trying desperately to find a way to contact Q but Luke won’t let him, having removed his electronics and the ocular thing is now conveniently scrambled. Then right before the fight Luke whisks him to some other arena for the “real” fight apparently.

And now comes what might be the most outrageous chapter of 007 I’ve ever read. POV bounces between the “real” fight and to where Luke and Dryden are. Luke brings them to a Muay Thai tournament, shoutout Frank Dux. Then Luke decides he’s entering the tourney. Then he knocks out two consecutive opponents. Then Dryden decides he’s going to enter the tournament because he’s worried about the safety of his ex-boyfriend Luke, the man currently imprisoning him? So Dryden walks up to Luke’s opponent - in the middle of the ring and in the middle of their fight, mind you - and cold cocks him.  And every spectator is just, like, cool with it? And they all just decide, ‘hey let this random dude that just broke into the ring fight this random dude Luke, who entered the tournament seven paragraphs ago, and even though there’s perverse amounts of dirty money on these fights, let’s just see what happens.  We can settle all the illegal bets later like the good upstanding gentlemen that we are.’  Then Dryden, presumably because he’s deaf, starts reading lips of Paradise talking to some ratcatcher WHILE he’s fighting Luke.  Oh, Luke also knows that Dryden is not only a secret agent, but his handle is 004 specifically.  Oh, and the other fight didn’t end in the third like it was supposed to, even though Luke kidnapped the child of the opponent before the fight to ensure compliance (when did he do this? While they were on Schroedinger’s plane somehow? Fucking rubbish.)  Anyway, they start boxing, and I guess because of all the tomfoolery some Triad members suddenly show up with machine guns at every door. Remember that ear piece that didn’t work anymore? It picked up enough reception to still work enough so that he can hear but can magically not function enough to contact Q. How convenient. Also Luke somehow knows Dryden is secretly hearing again??? Then - my favorite part - Dryden suddenly only cares about rescuing this kidnapped child.  And as previously mentioned, this is when Luke needs to punch Dryden in the temple hard enough to break the hearing device entirely so that Q figured out something is wrong. And he apparently agrees to this even though these two have just confirmed to one another that they are on polar opposite sides of both the moral and espionage spectrum.  The worst part of this chapter is that I still have another of these books by this author to read.

Out of self-preservation, I had to skim the final 109 pages of this 268 page headache.  Dryden is in a car chase and Luke and Paradise are involved but I didn’t read closely enough to figure out more.  Back to the boy Chao’s kidnapping. Even though Dryden can’t hear or balance himself because his ocular blew out, he was still able to navigate a car chase, then text Q to get the location of the boy, then raid the boy’s location, take out 6 Triad, including a headshot of the one closest to the boy before Luke shows up right on time and then Paradise’s men taze him.

We’re back with Felix and the temporary traitor Hardwood. Felix takes her to Robert Bull where she poses as UN to ensure his rights during detainment. He admits he botched the killing of Zofia like he was ordered then says she’s hiding at her grandma’s. Hardwood says thanks for selling out Bertram’s top science officer then kills him while Felix watches from behind the glass mirror. This is comic book levels of silly and fictitious.

In American football, a very common observation is that if you run your offense with two quaterbacks, it's because you don't have one.  That’s the antagonist situation here. We don’t care about Bertram and we certainly don’t care about the rat catchers, so there’s just no way in hell we’re going to care about their rivalry.

Now Sid is being tortured by Mora for Zowak’s location. Someone named Stan is there and Ruqsana is poisoned there too. Then Harwood shows up and yea still bad. But then bullets somehow enter the torture room because Felix is sniping, apparenty Harwood is good again. There’s an escape because they think they all know where Zowak is now, but Sid magically knows the intel is bad, plus they also want Bertram.

Then a chapter of How I Met Your Mother between Moneypenny and Joanna while she’s in a car chase with Mora that explains all these convenient plot twists were planned all along and happening just out of the reader’s sight!! She’s in Frankfurt now, maybe the Alps.

Felix goes to a nursing home that Zofia was hiding at with Grandma. She’s no longer there. Grandma has dementia with no bladder control but she’s suddenly very lucid with Felix, even managing to juggle between English and French. At this point we don’t know if this is a deliberate detail to demonstrate Grandma’s acumen or just more frustrating writing.

Now we’re back at the lake in the middle of Berlin that no one in Germany knows about. More invisible snipers and confusing play by play. Mora is there in a boat with some journalist Elena. He keeps threatening to kill her yet shots are only fired at Felix and Harwood. No idea if these are two separate boats or the same boat or two are on the shore and two are on the boat.  Then Elena dies.  Then Zofia is with Mora, so that must mean it’s one big boat where only Felix and Harwood were in danger of getting hit by the bullets at the beginning of the chapter? Then Felix is shot.

Now we’re on a different boat altogether – Paradise’s yacht, The Ark. (another fantastic name like Celestial)  Bertram tells Dryden he knew the whole time you were bugged:  typical retcon buffoonery to justify the villain magically knowing everything the reader does without having to waste any pages on immersion or suspension of disbelief.  How economical.  Now Luke has a change of heart and is gonna go Return of the Jedi Vader but some bloke tases him.  And then out of nowhere, there’s a tiger on the yacht!

Now the Tiger is loose. It kills Paradise and a couple of other bad guys, while magically understanding to ignore Dryden.

The Crime Carnival cannot in good conscience speak for the last 60 pages.  Skimmed as quickly as possible. Tiger Tanaka showed up for some reason to talk to Dryden.  So maybe the deux machina tiger was actually foreshadowing?

Tanner was the mole.

Besides Sir Bertram Paradise, Tanner is the only straight white male in this story so you better believe we’re going to make him a villain despite nearly 70 years of canon to the contrary. 

Tanner has an illegitimate son that’s in prison. The rat catchers found him, even though Q and Moneypenny and M and James Bond and the entire budget of MI6 and one of the oldest and nosiest intelligence agencies that’s ever existed had no idea this whole time! The rat catchers blackmailed Tanner. His actions led to 007’s disappearance as well as Sid’s death, which we didn’t bother mentioning earlier because there’s no way any self-respecting reader should give a shit about him.  M and Moneypenny lament their defeat and discover that Tanner hanged himself.  So not only does this story suck, but we’re taking 70 year old canon with it because change and improve are synonyms now.

Harwood is now at her old prison where she was kept on page one that she conveniently can’t remember. Then the last cell she sees shows signs of a man being dragged out.  How did she know it was a man?  Assume gender roles much you bigots?  But yeah, three numbers were carved into the stone wall - using just their fingers I might add:  007.

My enthusiasm for Bond, James Bond is at an all time low.  I once saw Roger Moore snowboard.  I also witnessed Pierce Brosnan windsurfing in North Korea.  This is double oh so much worse, yet I will be buying Kim’s next 007 novel on day one.