Finished reading NEVER SEND FLOWERS yesterday and, like a lot of Gardner's post-1987 Bond novels, it has an interesting premise or concept, starts off strong in some areas, and then manages to just falter and limp along the finish line by the time it's all said and done.
The idea of Bond investigating a serial killer in this novel is interesting, conceptually speaking, but it goes absolutely nowhere beyond the premise. Why? Well, Bond doesn't actually do much investigative work. All of the information is filled in by other characters such as Bodo Lempke, or Carmel Chantry. Bond neither spies nor really patches much of anything together. He just sort of flits from scene to scene, relying upon other characters to fill in the blanks. The book doesn't stimulate the reader like a procedural crime thriller from Lee Child or Scott Turow might...you don't end up finishing the book any smarter or any more knowledgeable or educated on a subject than when you first started. At least with some of Gardner's other novels, including the non-Bond ones, you felt like you learned something about World War 1 or 2 or the Nazis. This makes you wonder if Gardner simply wasn't emotionally invested in these stories by the end of the run.
There is absolutely NOTHING about Flicka Von Grusse that would make one think Bond is serious about her. There is no character or personality to her. She's a blank. A cypher. A name on the printed page. We're just supposed to believe there is a strong connection between Bond and Flicka because the author has told us so.
And who among us didn't see the plot twists coming? The fact that the villain had a twin, and that the evil twin pretended to be the good twin was no suprise either. Neither was Carmel's being a good character, then perhaps being bad, then being indeterminate before being killed. Been there, done that.
And finally, I'm not sure how I feel about a Bond novel having it's climactic showdown on a theme park ride at EuroDisney, or having whole passages of the novel dedicated to the "fantasy" and "wonder" of the park, of Bond riding on the attractions....Did EuroDisney pay for this sort of product placement? I also had a hard time believing that the Royal Family would have allowed Diana and the boys to visit EuroDisney knowing how specific the data and intelligence was on the plot to kill her. Just seemed to far fetched.
I'm of the mind that ICEBREAKER, NOBODY LIVES FOREVER, and NO DEALS, MR.BOND, are some of Gardner's best work (particularly ICEBREAKER). But it seems that after NDMB the energy and inspiration for Gardner just sort of left him, and the works that have come after haven't really been any better than 2 stars.
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