James Bond - Ian Fleming Is Needed 5/11/2010

[I am back working through my pretrial detention journal. It is out of order. Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. You can find everything from my pretrial detention journal that is published under the “Pretrial Detention” link under topics on the right hand of your screen. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. sch 11/12/2025.]

Anybody notice how thick they make these modern day thrillers? We got a pick collection of thrillers - John Clancy, Clive Cussler. Somebody gave me Brad Thor's “Takedown”.

So square-jawed, so clean-cut, so uber-efficient are these guys. No Sea Island shirts. Certainly no vodka martinis.

No sex, snobbery and sadism, but also lacking any questions of duty. No honorable schoolboys here.

No journeys into danger, but more like cavalry showing up just in time.to save the settlers, as we knew they would. Stainless steel jaws leading the way to the certain demise of the lousy terrorist with a familiarly foreign name.

Even Gardner turned out fatter Bond novels than did Ian Fleming. But Gardner did not write his exposition in crayon. These new boys with their word processing software seem to confuse the heft of their novels with the depth of le Carré.

I am old. I forsook any future and my eyes are on the past. I do not find Harvath [11/12/2025: The protagonist of Thor's book. sch.] anything but a danger to trees. I would like to read the last Quiller and see where Hall left Quiller. I wonder what John le Carré and Deighton still have tin them. I would like to re-read "The Man With The Golden Gun". I can imagine terrible people doing terrible things for the best of reasons. I can imagine all that thanks to le Carré, hall, Deighton, Fleming, and, most frightening of all, Mr. Ambler.

But I will finish Mr. Thor's book just as I eat the meals here: not for its taste, but because it fills the time.

sch

[11/12/25. Turns out Brad Thor wrote 13 more Harvath novels. I also found today this website on Substack: The Real Book Spy. sch.]