Bond has lost his licence to kill. After he took revenge on the CIA agent who handed his friend over to the master criminal, Sanchez, M revoked his double 0 status and he's considered a rogue agent. With MI6 trying to bring him in and only the support of Q behind him Bond goes after Sanchez. Boarding his ship, Bond tricks his way into Sanchez's inner circle and discovers the secret of his wealth. But Bond is walking a tightrope and it is surely only a matter of time before he slips ...

On holiday in Victoria, British Columbia, Bond becomes intrigued Lee Fu-Chu, a half-Blackfoot, half-Chinese philanthropist who is known as "Brokenclaw" because of a deformed hand. On his return to the UK Bond is tasked to investigate the kidnapping of several scientists who have been working on a new submarine detection system. It becomes clear that Brokenclaw is behind the kidnapping and worse, he has a devastating plan to cause economic meltdown through the collapse of the dollar. Bond has no choice but to enter his lair ...

Four fairy tales featuring a dragon, a giant, a cunning mule, and a little chimney-girl.

After receiving a large inheritance, James Bond is accused of improprieties and drummed out of the British Secret Service. Disgusted with his former employers, Bond places his services on the open market, where he attracts the attention of SPECTRE, who are all too willing to put their one-time enemy on their payroll.

May, 1910 The world is on the eve of a war set to ruin the lives of a whole generation. The Railton family are intimately involved in the world of espionage, which will become so crucial to the conflict’s outcome. With the death of General Sir William Railton, the family patriarch and hero of Balaclava, the family is thrown into a world of violence and intrigue. Manipulated by the new head of the family, the ruthless arch-intriguer Giles Railton, each member of the dynasty comes to play their part in the ‘Great Game’ of Intelligence. Through the story of one family, whose lives become caught up in some of the greatest struggles of the twentieth century, John Gardner traces the birth, the successes and the failures of the organizations now known as MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. From the battlefields of the Western Front to Russia on the eve of revolution, this epic work of fiction tells the story of the dramatic history of Britain’s intelligence and security services. ‘The Secret Generations’ is a towering saga of adventure, romance and intrigue by an author of international stature writing at his very best. ‘A master storyteller at the height of his power’ - Len Deighton ‘A Schnapps and champagne spy-fi, packed with melodrama’ - The Guardian ‘Plenty of action, plenty of sex, lashings of period detail’ - The Financial Times ‘Perverse but electric, the book flashes provocatively through the high jinks of modern espionage’ - Mail on Sunday ‘The first book ever to combine a family saga with a spy story… keeps you turning the pages up to the last subtle twist of treachery’ - Daily Express Before coming an author of fiction in the early 1960’s John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer and a journalist. In all Gardner has fifty-four novels to his credit, including Maestro, which was the New York Times book of the year. He was also invited by Ian Fleming’s literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels, which proved to be so successful that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles, including Licence Renewed and Icebreaker. Having lived in the Republic of Ireland, the United States and the UK, John Gardner sadly died in August of 2007 having just completed his third novel in the Moriarty trilogy, Conan Doyle’s eponymous villain of the Sherlock Holmes series. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

"The first collection in seven years from one of America's most celebrated and admired writers--ten wonderful short (and long) stories that allow us to explore and enjoy once again the many facets of John Gardner's unique fictional world. Here are enchanting tales about queens and kings and princesses in magical, timeless lands; marvelously warm and funny stories that move, amuse, and enlighten us as they probe the mysterious and profound relation between art and life." This is a hardcover edition of The Art of Living and Other Stories, written by John Gardner and published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1981. It is a self-stated First Printing, with stunning woodcuts by Mary Azarian.

Bond is back on secret loan to the United States Government and primed to confront an old and deadly adversary which now has a sinister new leader and a devastating operation underway. Armed with a pair of Sykes-Fairbairn commando daggers, a new Heckler & Koch VP70 handgun and a gorgeous new partner – the daughter of his old friend Felix Leiter – Bond experiences the full deadly force of SPECTRE's new power. "Just as enjoyable as the originals." --London Evening Standard

Boysie Oakes is back. The suave, womanising special agent for British Intelligence returns in his second thrilling adventure. At the height of the Cold War, Boysie is sent on a routine mission to America. In San Diego, he will be the official British observer for the test-fire of America’s latest nuclear missile: The Trepholite. But the Soviets have other plans. A double of Boysie has been sent into the field. And very soon Boysie is embroiled in a game of bluff and double-bluff involving a holocaustic missile, a slick con man - and Vladimir Solev, an deadly opponent and yet also a man in whom Boysie sees something of himself. Along the way, Boysie is mixed up with two gorgeous women - the sultry Priscilla Braddock Fairchild and the luscious Chicory Triplehouse. As he adventures across the United States, Boysie must dodge bullets, deadly predators and jealous women. And as he arrives in San Diego the clock is ticking and Operation Understrike is under way. ‘Understrike’ is the second in the series of highly acclaimed spy novels featuring cowardly secret agent, Boysie Oakes. It is perfect for fans of classic British spy fiction, including Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, and Desmond Bagley. Before coming an author of fiction in the early 1960’s John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer and a journalist. In all Gardner has fifty-four novels to his credit, including Maestro, which was the New York Times book of the year. He was also invited by Ian Fleming’s literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels, which proved to be so successful that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles, including Licence Renewed and Icebreaker. Having lived in the Republic of Ireland, the United States and the UK, John Gardner sadly died in August of 2007 having just completed his third novel in the Moriarty trilogy, Conan Doyle’s eponymous villain of the Sherlock Holmes series. 'Cool polished story-telling with all the sexy sidelines in the best James Bond tradition' Evening Standard Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

A deadly case of mistaken identities places 007 in direct conflict with a new breed of international terrorist in this Bond thriller.

Kruger guards the life of a famous conductor with a shocking secret past The Soviet Union barely outlasts Herbie Kruger. By the time the Berlin Wall comes crashing down—and the KGB security apparatus along with it—London’s shabbiest spy is living in happy retirement. Not even the prospect of wreaking havoc in a fractured Eastern Europe could lure Big Herbie back to the Secret Intelligence Service. But he’s willing to accept one more assignment—not for Her Majesty, not for his country, but for his love of classical music. The finest conductor the world has ever seen, Louis Passau is a ninety-year-old German Jew who, rumor has it, spent World War II working for the Nazis. Kruger has just begun investigating this wild accusation when an assassin targets the maestro. To keep Passau alive while he searches for the truth, Kruger takes him into hiding—and ultimately learns that, though he may conduct like an angel, Passau has got the devil inside.

In License Renewed, the most famous secret agent in the world pits his nerve and cunning against a dangerously deranged opponent – one prepared to sacrifice most of the Western world to prove that only he can make it safe from accidental holocaust. As the seconds tick away on the valued Rolex Oyster Perpetual, the world comes nearer this ironic annihilation; Bond comes nearer a frightful death and ever nearer Miss Lavender Peacock.

In The Sunlight Dialogues, John Gardner's vision of America in the turbulent 1960s embraces an unconventional cast of conventional citizens in the small rural town of Batavia, New York. Sheriff Fred Clumly is trying desperately to unravel mysteries surrounding a disorderly, nameless drifter called "The Sunlight Man," who has been jailed for painting the word "LOVE" across two lanes of traffic, and who is later suspected of murder. The men battle over morality, freedom and their opposing notions of justice, leading each to find his own state of grace. Their conflict is mirrored in the community of middlebrow politicians and their church-going wives, Native Americans, working-class immigrants, farmers, soldiers, petty thieves, and even centenarian sisters too stubborn to die. Gardner's alchemy is existential: from the most raw, vulnerable, and conflicting characters in the American melting pot, he transmutes common denominators of human isolation and longing. With unnerving suspense, his acute ear for American speech, and permeated by his deep-rooted belief in morality, this expansive, sprawling, and ambitious novel is John Gardner's masterpiece: "A superb literary achievement," noted The Boston Globe.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. New Directions is excited to reissue the Gardner classics, beginning with October Light, a complex relationship rendered in a down-to-earth narrative. October Light is one of John Gardner's masterworks. The penniless widow of a once-wealthy dentist, Sally Abbot now lives in the Vermont farmhouse of her older brother, 72-year-old James Page. Polar opposites in nearly every way, their clash of values turns a bitter corner when the exacting and resolute James takes a shotgun to his sister's color television set. After he locks Sally up in her room with the trashy blockbuster novel that has consumed her (and only apples to eat), the novel-within-the-novel becomes an echo chamber providing glimpses into the history of the family that spawned these bizarre, sad, and stubborn people. Gardner uses the turbulent siblings as a stepping-off point from which he expands upon the lives of their extended families, and the rural community that surrounds them. He also engages larger issues of how liberals and conservatives define themselves, and considers those moments when life transcends all their arguments.

Unknown

John Gardner's most poignant novel of improbable love. At the heart of John Gardner's Nickel Mountain is an uncommon love story: when at 42, the obese, anxious and gentle Henry Soames marries seventeen-year-old Callie Wells—who is pregnant with the child of a local boy—it is much more than years which define the gulf between them. But the beauty of this novel is the gradual revelation of the bond that develops as this unlikely couple experiences courtship and marriage, the birth of a son, isolation, forgiveness, work, and death in a small Catskill community in the 1950s. The plot turns on tragic events—they might be accidents or they might be acts of will—involving a cast of rural eccentrics that includes a lonely amputee veteran, a religious hysteric (thought by some to be the devil himself) and an itinerant "Goat Lady." Questions of guilt, innocence, and even murder are eclipsed by deeds of compassion, humility, and redemption, and ultimately by Henry Soames' quiet discovery of grace. Novelist William H. Gass, a friend and colleague of the author, has written an introduction that shines new light on the work and career of the much praised but often misunderstood John Gardner.