The Man With the Red Tattoo

Rating:
Summary: Faith Restored
Review: After the purely mediocre "Doubleshot" and "Never Dream of Dying" not to mention the terrible
movie "Die Another Day" I was afraid I was losing my love for Bond. I don't want to hate,
Benson's books. After all Benson was my first Bond experience. I'd never even seen a Bond
movie when I read "High Time to Kill." So seeing that I'd read all of Benson's other books, as
well as many of Gardner's and Fleming's, even Markham, I knew that no matter what I had to
read "Man with the Red Tattoo." I really didn't know what to expect. But in the end I was
pleased. It was enjoyable. Benson is no Fleming, nor will he ever be. I won't pick on
him for anything, I like his books. And unlike most hardcore fans of the novels as well as films,
I still know they are just entertainment. Shame on you crazy fan boys.

Rating:
Summary: Faith Restored
Review: After the purely mediocre "Doubleshot" and "Never Dream of Dying" not to mention the terrible
movie "Die Another Day" I was afraid I was losing my love for Bond. I don't want to hate,
Benson's books. After all Benson was my first Bond experience. I'd never even seen a Bond
movie when I read "High Time to Kill." So seeing that I'd read all of Benson's other books, as
well as many of Gardner's and Fleming's, even Markham, I knew that no matter what I had to
read "Man with the Red Tattoo." I really didn't know what to expect. But in the end I was
pleased. It was enjoyable. Benson is no Fleming, nor will he ever be. I won't pick on
him for anything, I like his books. And unlike most hardcore fans of the novels as well as films,
I still know they are just entertainment. Shame on you crazy fan boys.

Rating:
Summary: Fair Bond
Review: . See storyline above.

Raymond Benson's version of 007 is adequate. This time 007, in order to save the world, must find a deadly virus. This virus is a highly altered version of the West Nile virus.

Benson takes you through the beautiful country of Japan and its nearby provinces. You'll learn about the Japanese mafia. You'll be intrigued by some unusual customs practiced their. This was a bare bones thriller. Fast-paced and quick to read.

Recommended for the hardcore Bond fan

Rating:
Summary: The Man With The Red Eyes
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: James Bond faces his demons in the land of the rising sun
Review: For those of us who got to know James Bond through the pages of Ian Fleming's novels, we know that character isn't in the films, and was never, ever, on even one page of John Gardner's books. Thank goodness Raymond Benson has brought him back to life again, and in this new novel his character is emphasized as he travels to Japan, a country fraught with many vivid memories for him to face up to (see; the novel, "You Only Live Twice"). In the James Bond literary tradition, in addition to being an exciting action story the novel also serves as window into this fascinating foreign culture. The book is filled with memorable, multi-dimensional characters, the best yet. It's well paced, building to a satisfying climax with excellent set pieces and battles along the way. The 007 novels have always been more grounded than the movies, and James Bond's humanity comes through on every page of this intriguing, macabre adventure.

Rating:
Summary: maggiemae
Review: I am a long time James Bond fan and have read every book in the series.I thought TheMan with the Red Tattoo was the absolutely
WORST book in the entire series.Even the dialog-"you are our guest"-except for leaving out the word honoured-is diredctly from OHMSS.MrBenson is capable of much better work.I enjoyd 'High time to kill" and 'Zero minus ten'.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: I don't know what the negative reviewers are talking about. This book had me gripping the covers from the moment I began until the second I finished it. It's fast-paced, interesting, and exciting. I can sense Fleming's original Bond in these pages, and Benson shows that he is a terrific storyteller. Try it for yourself, as well as his other works. These books soar...!

Rating:
Summary: Great Bond experience.
Review: I enjoyed reading "Tattoo" because it not only provides an exciting adventure in the 007 tradition, but it includes location details that actually put the reader into the fantasy. This adventure takes place in Japan, and Raymond Benson's research into customs, social interests, food and politics are outstanding. I completed it in record time and was hungry for more!

Rating:
Summary: A promising start, but dissappointing result....
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Easily one of Benson's best!
Review: I read this book quickly--I couldn't put it down! All of Benson's Bond novels are fast-paced and exciting, but this one may break the mold. Benson is at his most descriptive here with Bond's first visit to Japan since "You Only Live Twice," and, like in that Fleming book, the reader learns a great deal about Japanese culture. But travelogue aside, it's a cracking good story with a terrific plot. This one is definitely worthy of filming. Highly recommended!