The 007 Re-Read Project: Licence/License to Kill by John Gardner

Bond is back at TMR after a brief hiatus! Today we're looking at a film novelization, the first of John Gardner's tenure. License to Kill (I'll be using the American spelling since that's what muscle memory leads me to type) remains a divisive movie in the 007 catalogue, and Gardner had the unenviable task of adapting it and making it fit with the continuity of the literary Bond. This created a few headaches that we'll come to presently. As this novel is based on a movie, there's a greater than usual chance that anyone reading this is already familiar with it, but nevertheless, there are

SPOILERS AHEAD! 

The plot will be familiar to anyone who has watched the movie. Bond's longtime friend Felix Leiter is on his way to his wedding when he gets word that Franz Sanchez, a major drug baron, has entered the US to fetch his wayward girlfriend, Lupe Lamora. With the kingpin briefly within his jurisdiction, Leiter heads off to grab him, with Bond in tow. Bondian mayhem ensues, culminating in Sanchez's arrest. Felix arrives at the church a bit late, but the wedding goes off without a (further) hitch. Unfortunately, Sanchez's open offer of a massive bribe to anyone who aids him in the event of his arrest proves too tempting for one of the DEA agents, and Sanchez is sprung. His reprisal is swift and brutal, as the newly-minted Mrs. Della Leiter is murdered and Felix is mauled by a shark. (Yes, again.) Sanchez flees to Isthmus, the small South American nation where he makes his home, and Bond resigns from the secret service to seek revenge for his fallen friend. 

This movie's plot placed Gardner in an awkward spot, as Felix had already been mauled by a shark in Bond's second literary outing, Live and Let Die.  This leads to a scene in which Felix's artificial limbs are ripped off the surely disappointed shark, leaving him in a far less delicate state than in the movie. (Physically, anyway.) The murder of Della, who the novel mentions is an old friend of Bond's, still provides enough motivation for the revenge plot. Another echo of literary Bond adventures past is Sanchez's predilection for whipping Lupe with a whip fashioned from the tail of a stingray, as used by Milton Krest in The Hildebrand Rarity. Another example of the novelization not meshing perfectly with the other books is that Cedar Leiter, Felix's own daughter, doesn't attend his wedding, and goes completely unmentioned. She must have been on one hell of an important mission! 

Gardner's novelization follows the plot of the movie closely, with no major deviations caused by working from an early version of the script. There are some minor differences, however. Sanchez's henchmen, even the sadistic Dario, balk at his order to cut out Alvarez's heart. Dario is much different physically from his celluloid counterpart. Della's murder is far more gruesome. In a nod to the changes Gardner had made in his novels, it's mentioned that Bond is down to five cigarettes per day. Gardner makes a point to refer to some of Bond and Leiter's past adventures, ensuring that their friendship is far more apparent that in the movie. Bond splitting from the service to avenge Leiter makes far more sense than in the movie, as their friendship had always been given short shrift in the film series. 

Something I'd never noticed while watching the movie that stuck out to me while re-reading this novelization is how Pam Bouvier seems almost an evolution of Nannie Norrich from Gardner's Nobody Lives Forever. Both are depicted as somewhat tomboyish with short haircuts, are capable at close-quarters combat and handguns, and they each carry a small handgun strapped to the upper thigh. Seeing as how the cargo plane battle in The Living Daylights was clearly inspired by a similar scene in Gardner's License Renewed, this may not have been a coincidence. Gardner had to have noticed the similarities, and one can't help but wonder how he felt about it.

Gardner fleshes out a number of more minor scenes and creates new ones that provide some connective tissue between the movie's scenes and setpieces. There are several pages, for example, that reveal exactly how in the hell Bond goes from flying a small plane filled with bales of drug money to walking into a bank in Isthmus with a couple of briefcases. These are scenes that aren't really necessary, but they smooth things out to keep the story flowing more naturally on the page than it would without them. We are also given a bit more background on a few characters. Sanchez, for example, is revealed to be the child of "a fascist German woman and a wealthy Panamanian businessman." 

This has no bearing on anything, but I felt it worth mentioning that Gardner gives the name of a news commentator who interviews Sanchez as Anna Rack. It almost makes Holly Goodhead seem subtle!

 Notable quotes:

Felix Leiter made a quick movement with his gloved left hand, expertly adjusting the mechanism of his artificial left leg. Bond felt a wave of bleakness as he always did when he saw his old friend manipulate the false limbs, for the shark that had so mutilated Leiter a long time ago now, had been meant for him and, in a strange way, Bond felt responsible.

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(While dangling from the helicopter in pursuit of the fleeing Sanchez's plane.) In spite of the fear that engulfed him, Bond began to laugh. He was thinking that he must look a ludicrous sight, like some movie stuntman doing a particularly daring act for the cameras.

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(Upon finding Felix mauled by a shark again.) Bond was struggling for control. it was almost impossible that this kind of thing could happen to a man a second time.

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Her accent was unequivocally Texan, for the words came out as, "Heidi yawl. Yawl Markin?" (After seeing Gardner's attempts to convey Southern and Texan accents in multiple novels, I never again want to hear an English person complain about how badly we Yanks depict English accents!)

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Bond smiled to himself. The nylon rope was almost half an inch thick, and there was a lot of it. "How the devil do you get this much into the cylinder, and the grappling irons?" he had asked Q.

Briskly, Q had replied, "All done by mirrors, 007. Surely you know that I've been a member of the Magic Circle for a long time." (This makes a lot of sense!)

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The scream hung on the air like some bad odour.

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 "The pain goes with time, Felix." Bond was not talking about physical pain, and he knew all the hurt his old friend was suffering from Della's death. "I've been there, old buddy. Never leaves you, but it does get easier."

 

This story fits rather awkwardly into the literary Bond canon, even if you're only considering the Gardner era. One gets the sense that Gardner's heart wasn't really in this, and it lacks the spark of his better novels. Some the over-the-top action sequences, in particular, seem rather incongruous with the literary 007. I don't consider it an essential post-Fleming novel, unlike Christopher Wood's novelizations, but the novelization of License to Kill is worth the read. Just don't pass over the likes of License Renewed or Icebreaker in favor of it. That does it for today, but I'll be back before too long with a look at John Gardner's Brokenclaw!