White-faced men were everywhere, rushing to your aid. Ron Patching and Alby Kinross got you under the armpits and your useless feet skimmed over the ground as they hauled you the last few metres to open ground. There you collapsed, on your knees and elbows, bum up, top of your head pressed against the ground, lungs wailing for air. Someone straightened you out, rolled you over, to let the air flow more freely and bit by bit you brought yourself under control. You lay there, your head on someone’s thighs, looking around at anxious faces. All about, Nigel and Sniffer and Greyman and Alby Dunshea and Norris and Snowy, each with only tatters of clothes clinging to their shining sweat-blood smeared bodies, their chests heaving, faces contorted by the pain and effort of the run.

From the last Sherlock Holmes, it is only twenty-six years to the first James Bond, but eleven years later Bond too was beginning to languish. Fleming did all he could to make up for the lack of sting, with his usual clever titling—You Only Live Twice—and smart chapter headings (try Dikko on the Ginza, Slay it with Flowers, Instant Japan, and Magic 44) with references to nursery rhymes, Browning, Poe, O’Hara, Mission Impossible and a geisha named Kissy Suzuki, and far too much fascinating Japanese culture thrown in, all of which cannot quite compensate for the lack of pace and intensity familiar from previous Bonds. The final samurai sword duel with Blofield in the Castle of Death is mere parody.
    You only live twice, one life for yourself and one for your dreams—sang Nancy Sinatra in the title song. But I was having enough trouble living once.