SeafireJames Bond is back in action, with the stunning Flicka von Grusse at his side and his licence to kill renewed once more. His target is Sir Maxwell Tarn: a businessman whose legitimate empire spans the globe, whose wealth is uncountable, who also deals in illegal weapons on a breathtaking scale. But even Bond is unprepared for the speed of events, as a sting operation in a Cambridge hotel leads rapidly to an assassination in Spain, a fugitive in Israel

Samson suggests

She swept me up in Sook-Yin and Lily's mirrored journeys of discovery

on September 1373

and every night could be your last

This is the spellbinding

is "Cliffhanger": the Other Text

After saving the emperor's life in Rome

a publicity agent

The Catholic Church fears he has pushed too far into the forbidden realm of heresy while the greatest powers in Christendom are concerned about the imperial line of succession

and from there descend into the Underworld

Russian sharpshooters mysteriously disappear as Crossman and his men chip away at the enemy's morale

the tortuous alliances between men and women