Customer Reviews

Kiss the Girls and Make Them Spy: An Original Jane Bond Parody

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here's the key thing anyone who wants to really enjoy and appreciate this book should know: it parodies the Ian Fleming books about James Bond, not the movies. And it does an excellent job of it, too!

Jane Bond has hit rock bottom. She's drunk, she's unemployed and she can't remember the names of the women she wakes with in the morning. Sometimes she can't remember how they got there. Enter her chance to be a spy for England, for God and Country.

Maney is simply topnotch at parodying the times and the language of the Bond books. The hilarity is slower to build than in the Nancy Clue books, and in many ways, by the end of the book, more satisfying for being more witty and just plain grownup. More, more, more, Ms. Maney! More, for God and Country!

I purchased this book in Provincetown because it looked funny. It was hilarious! Kiss the Girls and make Them Spy is an extremely clever parody of James Bond - filled with witty references and fun dialogue. Give yourself a nostalgic trip back to the 1960's - with a great twist.

This book is completely addictive. I couldn't put it down. I thought Maney was pretty out-to-lunch with her Nancy Drew parodies, but she has now apparently lost all touch with reality, and the results are hilarious.

I never really liked Jame Bond, but I feel for his poor creator, Ian Fleming. He must be calling for his bromo right about now. Was Mabel Maney put out by the 100th James Bond poster she saw featuring a barely dressed babe with big boobs? Maybe she just saw a big fat target for outrageous, affectionate, but gimlet-eyed parody. Whatever the motivation, she is out for blood with this one, and you will never look at James Bond the same way again.

The funny thing about Mabel Maney's Nancy Drew parodies, and this one, too, is that Maney seems to have genuine affection for the literary genres she rakes over the coals. Perhaps this is the key to her success. You actually care about these kooks and vagabonds as she spoofs the living daylights out of them.

I seem to be the first English reviewer, but I had to write - I finished this in a day (not a hard read!), and felt lost at the end. Totally funny, inspired in its satirising of the easily-parodied spy genre - and with lots of women too!

The only thing that grated a little was the Americanisms; the author forgets we have our own words for things, and occasionally running up against a 'sidewalk' or 'taffy' (WHAT is taffy?!) was hard - it stuck out against an otherwise perfect 'Watch With Mother'-style voice. Slightly too posh for the scenes, making them even more fun!!

Get it and love it.

After enjoying Mabel Maney's previous books (Nancy Clue, Hardly Boys), I was excited to see a spy parody novel and looked forward to my weekend alone with the book. Unfortunately, the book didn't live up to my expectations. Partly this is because I love spy movies, and so while I wanted humor and parody, I also wanted Jane Bond to be at least somewhat competent and interesting (she was not). I wanted some cleverness to the storyline. I wanted the characters to speak with different voices, not all sound like an aspect of the same person. It comes off as rather smug humor after a while. I sort of felt as though Maney was doing her imitation of Armistead Maupin (author of Tales of the City).

Check out the Nancy Clue books before picking up Kiss the Girls and Make Them Spy -- because I want you to see that Maney does have a fun sense of humor. I just don't find it in this book.

This book was a lot of fun. Very campy, but very much a parody of the whole James Bond franchise. This author is apparently one for parody ~ her other books are a series of mysteries involving a teen sleuth named Nancy Clue.

I'm not a fan of mysteries by any definition, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It kept me turning the page until I reached the end, and I would definitely read another in this series.

This book was highly entertaining. I have gone on to read all of Mable Maney's books. They are all great fun.

This was the first of Mabel Maneys books I read, and I have to say that I fell in love with it right from the start. It is unlike any other book I have read. It is extremely witty and I couln't stop reading it! I felt like I was riding the story with Jane and when it ended, I sat for a moment expecting another page or two to turn up out of nowhere. Bring on a sequel!

Just remember, this is a spoof. It's a parody of James Bond. In fact, Jane Bond is James Bonds twin and she has to step in for him on "awfully important" official business for the queen whilst her brother is indisposed...

This book has everything we love about James Bond movies; girls, unbelievable inventions, girls, twists and turns, girls, disguises, girls, intrigue, girls, sex and have I mentioned girls? BUT in this James/Jane Bond story, instead of Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery or Roger Moore, the hero is in fact a herione who does not dissapoint.

I read this book again and again and each time I found some clue that I missed in the previous readings. It is pure genius the way she sets this out. WELL DONE!!!

Read it before you read any other Mabel Maney books (The Case of the Good for Nothing Girlfriend, Hardly Boys, etc).

What I expected out of this book was "In this book, the part of James Bond will be played by a tall, dark, handsome lesbian."

What I got was "In this book, the part of the normal person pressed into service trying to impersonate James Bond will be played by a tall, dark, handsome lesbian."

A good concept, but I'd rather have seen the other. Still, I must say that this book does a marvellous job of parodying the James Bond novels, something that's hard to do considering that the originals are so close to self-parody. How often can one claim, in all honesty, that the characters in a parody are better-developed and less cardboard than those in the original? One can here; granted, the peripheral characters, like Agents Pumpernickel and 008 and Chief "N" are two-dimensional, but not really any more so than typical characters in a James Bond novel, while Jane and her friend Simon are significantly better-rounded than anyone likely to appear in those books. And while names like "Pumpernickel" and "Tupenny" seem like sufficiently silly names to qualify for parody, are they really any sillier than "Moneypenny"? (To say nothing of names from the movies, like "Pussy Galore"; I don't know whether that one made it into the book, since I've never read the book version of "Goldfinger".) Still, the plot was silly enough to be clearly a parody, and I suppose that that is why the book succeeds.

I heard about Mabel Maney through an online book group when asking for names of interesting gay and lesbian authors and decided on "Kiss the Girls" as my first foray into her world. I'm very glad I did.

Never having read the James Bonds books or actively watched the movies, I knew very little of the style to be expected beyond the basic phrases and visual clues of "typical Bond," but this proved to matter very little as the book's story line was well crafted and easy to follow (not to mention hysterical) that the book required no prior knowledge of the world renowned spy.

The character Jane Bond and her love interest Bridget St. Claire had marvelous dialogue that surpassed expectation as I am used to the tripe most mystery novels pass as how people actually speak. Their interactions were always quite flirtatious and funny leaving me giggling and anxious for more. Their romance was also handled in a very sophisticated manner, without going too much into detail but still mentioning enough every now and then (maybe five times throughout the whole book) to keep us stimulated and remind us that their relationship is more than just subtle touches and coy dialogue.

The prose as well had subtle nuances that made the read very enjoyable. Even the simplest of sentences made me laugh. Such as the end of a particular passage when Jane is trying to show her suavest side when exiting the bar with her newest conquest: "Jane got up, slung her jacket over her shoulder, and tossed down Bridget's martini. There was no sense in letting good liquor go to waste. Except for the part where she choked on the olive, Jane thought it was a rather smooth exit" (58).

The spy, Agent Pumperknickle, accompanying Bond was also quite humorous with little quirks that made him laughable but endearing.

The entire book was such an enjoyable read that I managed to read half of it in one sitting. I plan on purchasing more of her novels in the future and look forward to more of her work.