DOUBLE OR NOTHING

In the absence of James Bond, MI6's Double O service, whose chief of staff is now Miss Moneypenny, goes seriously woke.

Sir Bertram Paradise wants to atone for his family’s long history of extractive mining by saving the world. But the world may be in greater danger than ever because both Robert Bull, Paradise’s security chief, and Dr. Zofia Nowak, the likely brains behind his Cloud Nine geoengineering project, have gone missing. Since 007 has gone quiet, presumably captured by the Rattfänger terrorist group, M and Moneypenny dispatch several of his colleagues to step into his shoes by performing impossible tasks. Agent 009, Aazar Siddig Bashir, is assigned to rescue his ex-fiancee 003, Johanna Harwood, from slippery Rattfänger chief Col. Mora, and once they’re reunited, Johanna and Sid are set on Nowak’s trail. Joseph Dryden, 004, a pansexual Jamaican who has one nonfunctional ear and whose language processing is monitored and controlled by his handlers, making him something of a cyborg, goes undercover as a member of Paradise’s security detail, which is now run by his old friend Luke Luck. The high-velocity, high-casualty tale unfolds amid a cloud of anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-sexist attestations, urgent warnings about climate change, logistical details about weaponry and automotive engines, bits of wisdom culled from the operatives’ experiences with Bond, and uneasy hints that they may have a mole in their midst.

This kickoff to a new trilogy is a florid update to the Double O canon that desperately wishes it were a movie.