Death Is Forever (1992) takes its title from a line in Diamonds Are Forever where Bond muses on death's permanency after he kills an organized crime assassin aboard the Queen Mary. "Nothing is forever except what you did to me," Bond imagines the dead man says to him. At the conclusion of the book, Bond segues into the title with the realization that, "Death is forever. But so are diamonds." Gardner's novel, however, isn't connected to Diamonds Are Foreverin any way, nor does the title have much thematic relevance. Hell, almost any bond novel could be titled Death Is Forever. Like many of Gardner's later Bond books, the story is just a long series of double-crosses and false identities, none tightly woven or intriguing. There's a depressing sense throughout Death Is Forever that Gardner is making it up as he goes, and that he isn't much invested in the book.

The novel does have political interest, as it is the first Bond book published after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gardner addresses that in the plot, but seems to ignore its implications to backtrack to a standard "evil commie" story. A former Stasi agent and lapboy to "Uncle Joe" Stalin (no kidding, that's what he calls Stalin) named Wolfgang Weisen—a.k.a. "The Poison Dwarf," even though he isn't short nor is he dangerous when ingested—has started a campaign take out the agents of CABAL, an underground Western operation in the former East Germany. Bond gets sent in to find out why the agents of CABAL, who have gone into hiding, are dropping dead from old-fashioned Cold War murder methods. Bond, accompanied by a very forgettable love interest from the CIA named Easy St. John, inserts himself among the CABAL survivors, but can he trust anyone? Yes, the requisite fake-outs follow, but none of it is particularly griping until some action in Venice and the final race to stop Weisen from blowing up the newly constructed Channel Tunnel with the world's leaders trapped inside it. Weisen meets a pleasing graphic death, at least. The "spider sandwich" murder tactic is vividly icky, but Fleming would have gotten much more mileage out of it. Otherwise, this is a file-it-and-forget-it novel from Gardner. ( )