'NEVER DREAM OF DYING'.........MAYBE THE NEXT BOND MOVIE???

Never Dream Of Dying by Raymond Benson  (2001)   We had the paperback of this James Bond book lying around in our 'cheapo library sale' pile for almost 10 years........and finally picked it up for a read when we heard the swirling rumors that the screenwriters of the upcoming Bond film might make use of it for source material......

              We think it's entirely possible that the movie scribes could cherry pick random sequences and characters out of Benson's book.....(the Timothy Dalton "License To Kill" included a healthy chunk of out of Ian Fleming's original "Live And Let Die" novel....)......but we doubt they're adapting the entire storyline.......the films have always maintained a healthy distance from the many Bond books commissioned by the Ian Fleming estate

              Not that we didn't enjoy it.......it's a fast, slick caper that plunges Bond into the glamour and craziness of international filmmaking and celebrity, with the mayhem spread across the sunny, gorgeous locales of Monte Carlo, Nice and Cannes.......

              It's way lighter and breezier than what we're used to seeing in the last few Bond films.....and if any of it filters into the movie script , it might give Daniel Craig the much longed for chance to lighten the hell up.......and simply carry the fate of the world on his shoulders instead of the weight of the world.......

              Everything's included that you'd demand in a Bond adventure (starting with its title, which sounds like a spoof on the names of the Pierce Brosnan Bond films...).......an impossibly stunning babe, a creepy villain and a host of thuggish minions......(the blind bad guy here is imbued with paranormal powers, which I don't the filmmakers will go anywhere near)........and Benson tops it off with a few plot twists and turns involving characters dredged up from the Fleming novels.......

              If the Bond movie bunch should decide to extract anything out of this book, the BQ highly recommends our favorite sequence from it......Bond battling for his life as he winds up in the middle of an aquatic action-movie scene being made, a Michael Bay-type atrocity with exploding futuristic pirate boats......(futuristic pirate boats??    Well...we did reference Michael Bay, didn't we?)

               A fun read for Bond fans.......and if they really use the character of the volcanically voluptuous French starlet/fashion model.......we can't wait to hear who gets cast......so we'll serve up
3 shaken but not stirred stars (***).....even if none of it ends up in the movie.....