The Man With the Red Tattoo (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "What was that high-pitched buzz in her ear? she wondered as a wave of nausea swept over her once again..." (more)
Key Phrases: soaplands girl, bonsai waterfall, plaster heart, Goro Yoshida, Yonai Enterprises, Yami Shogun (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This latest addition to the James Bond canon includes virtually all the requisite components, from an evil villain with a diabolical plot to exotic settings and beautiful women. But what's missing is the biggest piece of all: Bond himself. This time around, Benson's Bond is strangely inert; he lacks the suavity, verve and wit that have made him one of the most engaging heroes in genre fiction. The story line is compelling enough: 007 is in Japan to baby-sit the British prime minister at a summit conference and to investigate mysterious deaths in the McMahon family, whose patriarch ran pharmaceutical giant CureLab. Bond reunites with an aging Tiger Tanaka, who featured in Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, as they pursue Goro Yoshida, the terrorist who links both parts of Bond's mission. Yoshida is a clich‚ monomaniacal and merciless but an interesting one, bent on using biological weapons to punish Western society for polluting traditional Japanese culture. He even has an evil dwarf sidekick, Junji Kon, the knife-wielding embodiment of a kappa, a mythical creature in Japanese folklore. The other Bond tropes are present: love interests (Reiko Tamura, Tanaka's colleague; and Mayumi, the sole survivor of the McMahon family), cinematic action and gadgets (including a Palm Pilot packed with plastic explosive). But it's Bond himself who propels readers along, and here he is a mere facsimile of the real thing.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'Spectacular chases, gory killings and a spot of sado-masochism . . addicts of the genre will love it.' -- The Times "Will have Bond fans cheering." -- Publishers Weekly (Doubleshot) 'Welcome back, Mr Bond. We've been waiting for you ... Benson has gone back to Bondian basics in a fast-moving world of bedrooms, firm breasts, betting and bruises.' -- Independent on Sunday 'Terroism and biological weapons are at the hub at this new Bond novel...The Man with the Red Tattoo has everything yu would expect, such as high-tech gadgets, beautiful women and gripping action' -- Newbury Weekly News "This is James Bond as tough and sexy as in his younger days, with Benson's stories reflecting the rejuvenated 007 of the Pierce Brosnan era." -- Peterborough Evening Telegraph 20030306 "There are all the usual thrills and spills you would expect from a Bond adventure. ... Benson recreates the hustle and bustle of Tokyo superbly with just as much detail given to Japanese customs and traditions." -- Nadeem Hanif. Doncaster Free Press 20030612 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Jove (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0515135631
• ISBN-13: 978-0515135633
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,017,231 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A promising start, but dissappointing result...., January 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Man With the Red Tattoo (James Bond 007) (Hardcover)

I have read every one of the Bond novels from Fleming to Benson from cover to cover. As much as I want to like Benson's, it's just an impossible task. While he has brought back the superficial connections to the Fleming character, each of his novels just reads like a mini-script, waiting for a movie to be filmed. They are the novels of Pierce Brosnan's movie-Bond, not Fleming's. I appreciate his wanting to re-inject the Fleming character's history to his novels, but it's just not enough. When will someone bring the character back to it's chronological roots in the 1950's? Really--back to where it belongs, with plots that are subtle and interesting and tie together well. With a book by book building of substance--well, as much as a fantasy spy figure can provide.

Firstly, the plots. I agree with an earlier review about Ray's inability to blend fact with the story line. It does read like a "wait, let me unfold the tourist brochure and tell you this...", then a refolding of the brochure to commence with the tale. The plot in general, as with the previous novels, are written as if they're movie scenes lashed together. Each one has a slap-stick chase scene which I find abhorent to the Bond character. In another novel, Bond's inexplicably shooting a villain in the face in an elevator and then running from the police through TV sets is painful. This one has a chase through a Kubuki playhouse simply to add some description of Kubuki. Bond finally finds a key character (the prosititute) in the latter third of the story, in Sapporo, and takes her with him on a dangerous investigation of the villain's HQ. Why didn't Tanaka pick her up and allow Bond to operate on his own? If she was so important to the case, she should have been in Tanaka's custody within an hour. When Bond's female partner and love interest doesn't make it past the latter third of the story, Bond forgets his anguish later on and beds the prostitute (as the earlier reviewer mentioned, he had already seen her as a chld-figure--so how did this change take place?) The dwarf is captured so easily after previous vicious battles, it seemed as if Benson just wanted to get rid of him quickly. Most obviously, is that with all this knowledge uncovered about mosquito-carrying virus being targeted for the G8 conference...do you really think the security services of those countries would have permitted the President, the Prime Minister, and other leaders to even step foot in Japan? The plot's major weakness was in having the conference continue to take place in a location identified as having an obvious breech in security. He should have figured out how to be more realistic, yet still involving the story line.

The characterization of Bond is again dissapointing. Bond is consistantly portrayed as a bit of a shallow, comic character--he seems to have learned nothing from his past exploits, he's easily deceived, his physical prowess is usually less than it should be. Benson had a terrific idea with this novel--bring him back to a significant time in his past and retrace some steps. This would have been great had he also extended the revisit from "You Only Live Twice" to "Moonraker" as well. What I mean by that is I found Fleming's Bond in Moonraker to be an extremely lonely, melancholic figure. The solitary "knight" who has no friends and sacrifices all for the good of his country. The last scene in Fleming's Moonraker was perhaps the most powerful in all the Bond novels. Benson had a wonderful opportunity to end this novel in the same way. He lost his love interest to violence, it dredged up all the old ghosts (I must point out here, though, that Bond reacts to the death of his love interest by selfishly lamenting about how it could be happening to HIM again, when the woman was the one who died--no thought to the poor victim, just to himself, not a very noble reaction for Benson's Bond). Ray had the great opportunity to end the story not with another cinematic bedding of a prostitute (that he had earlier seen as a child figure), but as the figure of solitude stepping out on the teeming streets of Tokyo, sad, alone, walking back into the faceless crowds of people, continuing his lonely, faceless existance. While not the bang-up action ending that accompanies the Brosnan movies, it would have been a true nod toward the Fleming Bond.

You see, bringing back characters and names is not the way to honor Fleming's Bond. That is much too superficial. Bringing back the characterization of the true James Bond would have been the ultimate salute. It's time for someone to put Bond back where he belongs in a novelization (I've given up hope for it in the movies)--in his correct time period, with the REAL Bond character, not Pierce Brosnan. As a hint, I'd advise Ray to view the old "Danger Man" episodes with Patrick McGoohan. That was the closest to the Fleming atmosphere and characterization. Just place Sean Connery or McGoohan's face where Ray has Brosnan's. I continue to lament for Fleming's lost James Bond. I hope some day he will return.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mission Failed, April 3, 2003

By	R. T. "robert2323" (GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man With the Red Tattoo (James Bond 007) (Hardcover)

It's obvious that Mr. Benson is a huge fan of James Bond, but somewhere along the lines someone should have realized that simply being a fan doesn't qualify him to continue the James Bond legacy in print. While his non-fiction works on James Bond are fairly good, his novels, unfortunately, are not. They are simply dozens of cliches combined with references to older Bond books, all tied together with what I must simply label very poor writing. Mr. Benson's dialogue is flat, unrealistic, and occasionally ridiuclous. His characters are one-dimensional and unsympathetic. His prose is stilted and uninteresting. I really wanted to like his Bond books, but after several attempts, I realized that I had assigned myself an impossible mission.

I have read all of Fleming and Gardener's books multiple times, but nearly put Benson's books down in the middle simply from lack of interest. His stab at revitalizing the James Bond series was a worthy attempt, but unfortunately a failed one. I would recommend simply re-reading Fleming or Gardener if you have a taste for more Bond in print.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Man With The Red Eyes, July 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Man With the Red Tattoo (James Bond 007) (Hardcover)

As I close the back cover of yet another Raymond Benson book, I weep knowing that the quality of descriptive prose embodied in the books of Fleming, Amis, and (to some extent) Gardner, is now lost. I admire Mr. Benson because his great love of Bond keeps the literary franchise going but perhaps, as a director of the Ian Fleming Foundation, he should ask other writers to submit a few chapters of their own Bond novel ideas, and see if there is a writer out there that can bring back the literary Bond I love.
The Man With The Red Tattoo's climax features the Mosquitoe Magnet, a simple device that is now sold in Home Depot stores, and should have been turned on during the conference, not AFTER people were bitten. Anyone with any knowledge of that device would have had it running before, during, and after the conference; though designed for outdoor use, a way could've been found to integrate that into the story.
Mr. Benson is a screenwriter at heart. Unfortunately, screenplays are written in third-person limited and novels are entirely different. Read any Fleming novel, study his descriptive narrative, the thoughts that run through Bond's head, the dialogue, the building of the plot; that is how a good novel is written. I've read all of Mr. Benson books. In interviews he sounds like a very nice, decent person. But picking up where Fleming, Amis, and Gardner left off is not Mr. Benson's strong suit. One man's humble opinion.