ROLE OF HONOR

James Bond again—in a ragged quickie that's cartoon caper/sleuth action most of the way through (like an old episode of TV's The Avengers), with some cosmic war-games stuck on at the end. Bond's mission: to find out what American computer-whiz Jay Autem Holy, a supposedly dead Pentagon employee, is now up to in England. (He faked his death, changed his name, etc., and seems to be masterminding computerized heists and terrorism.) So Bond pretends to leave the Service in disgrace, gets a crash-course in computerese from voluptuous Percy Proud in Monte Carlo—all so that he can then be recruited by Holy's unholy forces. He spends a weekend at the Holy hideout, heavy on computer games; he's treated to some nastier games (courage/killing tests) at Holy's secret terrorist-training camp. And eventually, having learned that Holy is working for SPECTRE (of course), Bond gets his evil assignment: to steal a secret frequency code from Cheltenham so that the Enemy can carry out a vile scheme—involving the US President's EPOC system (Emergency Presidential Orders Communications), a blimp-attack on western leaders, and a fake universal-disarmament ploy. Virtually no humor, virtually no suspense, and virtually no charm or sexiness in old 007—making this by far the weakest of Gardner's somewhat pre-sold fabrications, with some extra appeal only for computer fans.