Death Is Forever

Readers fond of Bond should not miss Gardner's latest 007 adventure, his 11th since he took over the series after the 1964 death of Ian Fleming, Bond's creator. Updated to the '90s, Bond now practices safe sex and seems to have given up both smoking and his obsession with powerful customized sports cars. In this action-packed bloodbath, the required, consummate villain is Wolfgang Weisen, aka ``the Poison Dwarf,'' an East German spy master who as ``a child at Joseph Stalin's court'' watched Tarzan and Chaplin movies with ``Uncle Joe.'' Weisen has been directing the systematic assassination of members of Cabal, the West's premier spy network in Germany, and M assigns Bond and the CIA's Eazy stet St. John to stop him. Bond is at first put off by Eazy's feminism but is quick to accept her invitation to share her berth on the Ost-West Express. Weisen, tracked to Venice, turns out to be a Pickwickian character: rotund, bald and baby-faced but determined to force Europe to its knees and restore Stalinism. Suspense builds as Bond races to Calais on the day the cross-channel tunnel is to open. Eazy is unable to make the trip, having suffered the fate of all women who get too close to Bond's heart. Amusing, clever stuff. (June)