Trigger Mortis is an attempt to write a new classic James Bond thriller. The time period is back in the Cold War. All the cultural references are from the mid-sixties-ish. Evidently this is supposed to have occurred just after Goldfinger. It's a noble cause, but perhaps doomed.
The plot starts out troubling and only briefly improves. We begin with Bond keeping Pussy Galore (from Goldfinger) "safe" with him in London, although being the playboy that he is, he is angling to get rid of her. He gets called away on a mission that is going to involve him racing in a Formula One race to foil a somewhat implausible Russian plan. In the course of his training he has to work with a pretty, but tough, female driving instructor. After the implausible Russian plan is foiled and there some other tight situations are overcome, the pretty but tough driving instructor and Pussy Galore end up together as a couple and they both blissfully disappear from Bond's life. Because if you're James Bond, no other man can compare, so the only way to rid yourself of unwanted romantic entanglement is for the women to go lesbo on you.
I want to pause at this juncture to make a point. If the intent was to generate a new Fleming novel it has failed. What I just described is mock Ian Fleming. Caricature at best, parody at worst. It's a fine line with Bond and very few interpreters either in print or on film can toe it.
Some aspects of the Formula One section are quite good. Interestingly, this is the section that was guided by some found notes of Fleming himself. After that's over we get into a standard world domination plot with a plucky female Treasury Agent sidekick whom Bond will eventually bed. The final third of the book is dominated by a handful of narrow escapes, chases, and action scenes. None of which are terribly compelling.
Aside: Action scenes are immensely hard to write in a way other than as a straightforward description of what you would see if it were on a movie screen. The problem is that pure action scenes rarely affect the plot or the characters -- they are simply descriptions and therefore, even in the hands of someone skillful at building tension, they are filler in the scope of the book. Even if there are events in the action scene that alter the arc of the characters they tend to be brief moments wedged in middle of 10 or 20 pages of serial activities.
Should you read Trigger Mortis? Nah, don't bother. There are better choices. Though the time frame of the book promises the old Ian Fleming experience, all you end up with is a rehashed Roger Moore film.
