Finished You Only Live Twice, and so I find myself with only two to go, one novel and one collection of short stories, before I move on to the continuation authors.
And what to make of it. We find Bond going all to pieces, making a hash of it all, wondering what it's all for, expecting M to put him out to seed (maybe go and buy himself a chicken farm somewhere). Kind of understandable for a guy who got married and had his wife murdered on the same day, but it's just not 007.
So, as an act of kindness, M sends Bond on an impossible mission - obviously! And it seems to do the trick. Well, his new friend Tiger plus a rotating cast of pretty Japanese girls seem to do the trick anyway. And to top everything off, in the most outrageous of all coincidences (as if stumbling across Blofeld again in OHMSS wasn't enough), the lunatic Shatterhand that Tiger wants Bond to bump off turns out to be our man from SPECTRE once again, so Bond gets to kill two birds (Blofeld and Bunt?!) with one stone.
Again, Bond doesn't come away unscathed, this time losing his memory during his escape from the Castle of Death. Good job the lovely Kissy Suzuki is on hand to rescue him and (very) lovingly restore him to health.