Double or Die Book Analysis

Double or Die Book Analysis

Double or Die is a part of the Young Bond series by Charlie Higson where young James Bond continues after the events of the previous book. As he is back at Eton College where his friend Pritpal gets a suspicious letter from Alexis Fairburn, Alexis Fairburn is in charge of the Crossword society, but the letter’s regarding him leaving the country, but that’s what it seems to be. As the letter babbles on with false historic events, badly spelt and confusing sentences, but it can be decoded into seven clues as Pritpal learns. As he lazily solves the first clue out of boredom which states ‘solve seven cryptic clues’. As from there, the clues cause them to run into Wolfgang and Ludwig Smith, the brothers work for Sir John Charnage who they assume off the clues kidnaped Alexis Fairburn for the ‘Computing Machine’. Which Fairburn is reworking off the works of a famous mathematician. From there it is an adventure to discover the truth behind the disappearance of Alexis as Bond takes the fight to them!

The book is set in a third person to mix up as examples like ‘James has to constantly remind him to keep his speed down.’ But then in other scenes, it refers to him as ‘he’ with no real specific pronoun for himself. It’s in the present tense, with parts going into the past explaining parts that the reader wouldn’t understand without further context. When in some places, the books flow of action and speed can slow with lazy transitions between dire near death to relaxed. An example is when James Bond is being chased in his car and crashes, but he miraculously survives the crash and limps way  somehow be found. After that he’s in a hospital where he wakes up, then he escapes, yet he’d only four hours to recover from life-threatening crash, cuts, bruises and severe burns. As the car’s fuel tank explodes meters away from him.

The area in time it’s set in is hard to find because it refers to the industrial revolution quite a lot as in the past, but there is an extreme abundance of evidence to suggest that it’s still in the same period? It shows the wealth divide between slums and other parts of the city of magnificently well, but it makes little sense where it mentions Eton is nearby. Oddly James Bond never considers going back to the college to change out his broken clothing?

Early in the book the plot has major difficulties which start to show immediately as the theme encourages action, yet it doesn’t suit the tone and descriptions of what it states about these near impossible occurrences of survival happening back to back it makes it hard to believe the protagonist could even walk a few metres without collapsing! But when you can somehow get over the problems lies an ok story with good descriptive writing which words everything to a clear image, but the main problem is it can provide too much information. Whereas it can be overwhelming. Another part which is annoying is the assumption you know what the author’s referring to in circumstances of places, saying and vehicles which are obscure to the reader. Such as a Bamford and Martin Tourer, yet the author knows what the vehicle is as it is a children’s book. So it may become less apparent to younger audiences such as myself.       

Page 1 Double or Die Book Analysis (Alex Mather)       

Overall the book is reasonable, but there have been better books by Charlie Higson which have had characters with growing personalities and they improve whereas James Bond skips the self-improvement phase that most book’s include to help the plot move along and to make sense of everything. Whereas in this book it’s jumbled useless clues. In my opinion, it is a good read, but when analysing the book problems become obvious when they’re sought out. I’d probably not want to read it again as this analysis has made the cons in the book obvious that it would be unbearable to believe!

By

Alex

Page 2 Double or Die Book Analysis (Alex Mather)