What's important about this sequence, aside from the skill with which it's wrought, is how it re-establishes the James Bond Story as a node point for a long-running literary tradition; a tradition that probably starts with Joseph Conrad but most definitely starts with H. Rider Haggard, and runs through Conan Doyle, Sapper, Sax Rohmer, a host of lesser pulp writers, and finds most recent flower in the "Indiana Jones" films. That is to say, it's of the "No White Man Has Seen This Before" school of thriller, wherein we can view the bizarre cultural traditions of the heathen third-worlder through the eyes of the morally upright European or American. It is extremely politically incorrect, but it's also huge fun, as we can be vicariously repulsed, through the proper sensibilities of Bond, by blood-drinking, robe-wearing, mumbo-jumbo-spouting scary non-white guys possessed of bad intent. In this case, the mysterious Triads of Chinese legend.

Now that's some good villainy! Although the Triads are not the major villains of ZMT, their machinations, both past and present, shape the events that propel 007 through his latest adventure. Benson even manages to dispel the implicit racism inherent in such characterizations by suggesting that the Triads are the last, best hope for the freedom-loving citizens of Hong Kong.

In brief, the plot of "Zero Minus Ten" is concerned with the efforts of a lunatic Tai-Pan of English descent, Guy Thackeray, to ensure that the Chinese get Hong Kong returned to them on June 30th of this year in pretty much the same condition as when the British first took possession of it: a barren hunk of rock. The early steps of Thackeray's operation brings him to the attention of the British Secret Service, which sends James Bond to investigate.

Following classic Bondian tradition, Thackeray is totally ruthless, and possessed of an obsessive hatred and desire for revenge. His fabulous wealth gives him the means to launch his plan, yet his basic vulgarity and ungentlemanly (read un-English ) personal habits gives Bond an opening to exploit the chinks in his armor and ultimately defeat him. Thackeray is an alcoholic, treats his women brutally, and, sin of sins, is a cheat at games of chance. Benson breaks with tradition slightly by giving Thackeray sufficient backstory to show him as something of a victim of history, thereby allowing him a modicum of sympathy. Unlike the classic Ian Fleming villains, Thackeray is not a physical grotesquerie, but rather like the more recent EON film baddies, he is a relatively normal-looking man, and relatively well-dressed. Not that this detracts from his basic villainy; as Stephen King once observed, some werewolves are hairy on the inside.

Tradition is broken with more sharply in that Thackeray is also the first (literary) Bond villain of English blood. Now evil is no longer the sole provenance of the Germans, Koreans, Sicilians, Bulgars, and other assorted bogeymen of Fleming's fantasy world. Apparently, it took an American to do this. Saxon genes are no longer a priori proof of inherent virtue. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Jeffrey Archer! This is a subtle step on Benson's part, but it shows early on that he will be remapping the Bondian universe to his own specifications.

Structurally, the novel is put together and paced much like an EON Bond film (as directed, perhaps, by John Woo). It opens with an exciting and amusing pre-title sequence set at Ian Fleming's "Goldeneye" house in Jamaica (here renamed "Shamelady", which now serves as Bond's pied-a-terre ) to get things off to a rollicking start; there is a terse and information-packed "M scene;" and a funny "Q scene" wherein Bond collects some notably low-tech gadgets. The Girl, the Ally (and Sacrificial Lamb ), and the Villain and his Henchmen are all introduced at the appropriate junctures in the plot. There are the appropriately unnecessary but fun side-trips for complicated meals and high-stakes gambling. And there is plenty of travelogue to keep you abreast of more information than you need to follow the story (and if you're not careful, you might learn something).

Benson's prose style is more than sufficient to the task at hand. After a controversial debut in "Blast From the Past" (Playboy Magazine - January 1997), Benson now shows that he has the tools and the talent to continue the glittering saga which began forty-forty years ago. His style is both unobtrusive and yet informed: He talks you confidently through a complicated game of Hong Kong mahh-jong; makes you salivate over a meal of Beggar's Chicken; gives you a learned treatise on the history of Hong Kong and the inner workings of the Triads; and makes you appreciate the wonderful company of the stalwart T.Y. Woo and the delectable Sunni Pei. His portraiture of James Bond is both correct and yet shadowy; the reader can plug in his or her own preconceptions and/or movie imagery and come away satisfied. Benson also knows how to tell a story; all the plot points are well-connected and internally logical. In addition, the sex scenes are racy without being smutty, and the action scenes (there are a number of them) are played out with a technical finesse rare in a first-time writer. All this and a sense of the historical importance of the literary James Bond story, too! After fifteen years of the cookie-cutter output of John Gardner, it's great to welcome back an old friend.

If you're a newcomer to the literary James Bond, or if you're an old Fleming hand, "Zero Minus Ten" delivers the goods. It's powerfully good stuff. No need to worry over every forthcoming installment of the EON film series...James Bond 007 is alive and well on the printed page.

Copyright©1997, 1998 by Paul Baack

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