The Young Bond Series, Book Three: Double or Die (A James Bond Adventure) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "James Bond was sitting in the passenger seat of his Bamford and Martin tourer wrapped in a heavy winter overcoat, his face masked with goggles..." (more)
Key Phrases: holy poker, winning try, sporting achievement, Crossword Society, Head Master, Mister Fairburn (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—This installation in the series begins while James is attending Eton. The professor in charge of his roommate's crossword-puzzle club departs the school unexpectedly and leaves a cryptic letter to the boy explaining his absence. That strange note, combined with the clues from his last crossword contribution to the London Times, has the boys off on an adventure to solve the mystery and rescue Mr. Fairburn. They must decipher all manner of word clues, and the author does a good job of reviewing the last clue while moving on to the next so that readers don't get lost. James and his friends use their wits, but his agile athletic abilities also come in handy as they run after and away from the menacing bad guys. The plot is clever and well developed, and the boys and their actions are believable. An added bonus is the discussion of the medical oddities found at London's Royal College of Surgeons, which will be highly prized among teen boys for the gross-out factor. Students who cut their teeth on Donald J. Sobol's "Encyclopedia Brown" series (Delacorte) will love this more mature mystery, and will have fun trying to figure out the clues before Bond, James Bond.—Jake Pettit, Thompson Valley High School Library, Loveland, CO
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Kidnapping. Explosions. Murder. This is no ordinary weekend. But then, James Bond is no ordinary boy. . .

In a north London cemetery, a professor is kidnapped at gunpoint. Then, a suspicious letter crammed with cryptic clues arrives at Eton. To decipher the deadly mystery, James Bond must take a series of dangerous gambles. Once the code is cracked he has just forty-eight hours to save the professor from the dark forces that threaten to destroy them both. And if they can't escape, it's not only their future under threat. It's the rest of the world's...

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion Book CH; Reprint edition (March 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423110994
• ISBN-13: 978-1423110996
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,719 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Young Bond gets smart, April 22, 2008

By	John Cox (Studio City, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Young Bond Series, Book Three: Double or Die (A James Bond Adventure) (Hardcover)

Charlie Higson's Double or Die is the pivot on which the Young Bond series turns. Double or Die both pulls from past books and points to the future. Where SilverFin infused Bond with his fearless instinct and Blood Fever developed his brawn, Double or Die works his mind (and ours).

Thematically, Double or Die is an adventure of the mind. Bond and his band of friends must decrypt puzzles and clues contained within a mysterious cipher sent by a kidnapped professor. Higson plays the motif throughout as references to skulls and the brain abound. Where Blood Fever was bright and expansive, Double or Die is dark and contained. While this may make it a lesser Bondian adventure for some, the smaller scale allows Higson to work in greater texture and detail, making Double or Die the most vivid and visual of all the Young Bond novels to date. It's also the Young Bond novel that showcases its 1930s setting the best as Higson peppers the book with delightful period slang and long forgotten brand names.

The body count in Double or Die is lower than Blood Fever, but Higson doesn't skimp on the gore, especially during the terrific climax on the London Docklands and inside an abandon pneumatic railway (wonderful Bondian locations both). The fact that the henchmen comes away from each encounter with Young Bond missing another body part is grisly good fun. Higson adds a surprising postscript to this book that is unlike anything that has yet appeared in a Young Bond novel. I will leave it to the reader to discover it, and decide whether it belongs in the Young Bond universe.

Absence of a Bond Girl (or any female for that matter) is missed during the first two thirds of the book, but the arrival of the perfectly named Kelly Kelly and her "Monstrous Regiment" (a sort of cockney street urchin version of Pussy Galore's Flying Circus) is a highlight of the final third. Higson again toys with romance, but one gets a sense he's nervous about scaring off his youngest male readers. At the risk of getting a schoolyard beating, I admit that I'm looking forward to the "love story" Higson promises will feature in his fifth Young Bond novel, By Royal Command (due for release in the UK in September).

The measure of any James Bond continuation novel, and novelist, is how they compare with Fleming. Charlie Higson matched Fleming with the excellent Blood Fever. Now, with the complex and thrilling Double or Die, Higson appears to be steering the Young Bond series toward even higher literary achievement.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Fleming Reborn and Better Than Ever, May 4, 2008

By	Dr. Fred R. Eichelman "arous" (Salem,, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Young Bond Series, Book Three: Double or Die (A James Bond Adventure) (Hardcover)

I won't go into plot details as this has excellently been done by John Cox in the first review for this book. Actaully I agree with all of his comments and wish I had gotten mine in first. As a Bond collector and fan, since the late fifties, of all things relating to 007 I can be very picky. I cannot be in the case of Charlie Higson and his third venture into the young Bond. Each one gets better and in each you see the beginnings of various things that the older and more mature James Bond will have as part of his personna. And thank you Mr. Cox for indicating that there will be at least two more in the series. Actually, going year by year until Fleming's first book there could be another fifteen or more.

I'd rather dwell on why I consider the writing of these books so superior. While I loved John Gardner, who actually wrote more Bond books than Fleming, there was still a special flavor missing. Gardner is a brilliant writer and his other fiction, whether spy or mystery, was and remains superior to his Bond work and anything put out by Ian Fleming himself. Others have tried to write Bond novels and have really missed the mark when it came to that flavor thing as I call it.

What made James Bond stand out in the books, in my own mind, was a special touch. Something that only Ian Fleming seemed to be able to do and even the best of the Bond films could never perfectly capture. Yes, I have my favorites among the films, but that is not what this is about. The Fleming books are books I could read over and over and still find something new. Not great fiction, but still unique in its own way.

Magically Charlie Higson has found that flavor and I have no doubt that were Ian Fleming alive he would greatly approve of Higson's handling of the young James Bond. Higson has obviously taken great care in studying Fleming's Bond and has turned the hints about 007's past into a stories that explain all about Bond as a man. As I said above, I eagerly await the next one like I used to await the Fleming books.

Hey Amazon. Mr. Cox mentioned a 5th book! How come you aren't advertising the 4th one? Mr. Cox apparently has his finger on the pulse of what Charlie Higson is doing. PLEASE share with us Mr. Cox or Amazon.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well Done!! Another Great addition to the series!, May 31, 2009

By	M. Philbin - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Young Bond Series, Book Three: Double or Die (A James Bond Adventure) (Hardcover)

This book was a great addition to the young bond series. It, like the previous books, kept you on the edge of your seat the whole time...in fact I read it in 2 days because it was so captivating. You should really read the first two in the series to get the most out of this book, however it could easily stand alone as most everything from previous books is explained to either jog your memory or inform you of what occurred in the previous novels. The story was very well written but at times seemed a bit predictable. I look forward to reading the next two books in this series!